The conference will seek to expand the Asia and Pacific regional network of law professionals and will for the first time bring together the United Nations into the AsianSIL network to discuss rule of law and sustainable development with an emphasis on the 2015 integration of the ASEAN nations to the ‘ASEAN Community’ and the ‘Asia Cooperation Dialogue’ (ACD) with academia, policy makers, private law firms, judges and prosecutors.
The theme for the annual SLS (International Law Section)-BIICL Conference on Theory and International Law is the concept of remoteness - distance in time and through space - in relation to the use of force and in the context of armed conflict.
This event will feature three panels:
- Panel 1: The Utility and Ethics of Remotely Operated Weapons
- Panel 2: Remoteness and the Jus ad Bellum
- Panel 3: Remoteness and the Jus in Bello
The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 59, no. 4, June 2015) is out. Contents include:
Solidarity has always been an important element of European integration law and with the Treaty of Lisbon this principle has received even more prominence. But what does this concept mean and how should it be implemented? Within several areas of European integration law, for example regional policy, asylum, development cooperation and economic and monetary Union, the principle of solidarity is regularly invoked when the existing law has to be interpreted or further developed. In this context it is striking to see how talk about solidarity is suited to stir up emotions, often associated with the fact, that each party understands something different by this expression. In this contribution an effort will be made to unearth the very foundations of solidarity as it applies in the law of the European Union. It will be shown that solidarity within EU law has a strong reciprocal (or mutualistic) nature. This means that contributions are given with the hope to receive some day counter-contributions or with the intent to pursue a common goal. Understood in this sense solidarity can be a useful instrument to further strengthen the European order. On the contrary, if this reciprocal context is left and solidarity is interpreted as an obligation for altruistic redistribution of resources on a regional or a global level (for example by creating a transfer union healing all budgetary sins by single Member States on a central level) the functionability and the basic consensus of European integration could be undermined.
The latest issue of the American Review of International Arbitration (Vol. 25, no. 2, 2014) is out. Contents include:
The term “hazardous wastes” covers a wide range of disused products and production wastes generated not only in industrial sectors, but also in all areas of everyday life. Hazardous wastes are to a large extent shipped by sea to third countries for recycling or disposal. While the procedural requirements for such movements are laid out in the 1989 Basel Convention, explicit rules of responsibility and liability for resulting damages are neither provided by the Basel Convention nor by other international conventions. The Liability Protocol to the Basel Convention of 1999 has not yet entered into force. This book examines the existing rules of responsibility and liability applying to States and private persons and outlines the conditions under which liability may be incurred. Subsequently, the advantages and shortcomings of the 1999 Liability Protocol are analyzed. Although this Protocol faces substantial political headwind, from a legal perspective it includes principally useful and reasonable approaches and should therefore be ratified.
Volume 372 of the Recueil des Cours, Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law is out. Contents include:
The World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund are under substantial pressure to accept more accountability under international human rights law. This publication sets out the standards by which these international financial institutions are bound under international human rights law as it currently stands. Human rights law is ‘living law’ and has changed over time, as have international financial institutions, despite their sometimes static approach to their own mandates. However, the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund are both starting to recognize more and more the relevance of human rights to the fulfilment of their respective mandates, even if they still maintain, be it to different degrees, that international human rights law is only partly applicable to them. This publication argues that this position is no longer tenable and that human rights law does in fact apply to both international financial institutions.
Ce livre vise à comprendre et à expliquer les difficultés des organisations internationales africaines dans le domaine du maintien de la paix. Sont analysées ici les difficultés de la CEDEAO (Communauté Economique des Etats d'Afrique de l'Ouest) dans la gestion de la crise ivoirienne en utilisant les interventions de cette même organisation au Libéra, en Sierra Leone et en Guinée-Bissau pour la comparaison à des fins d'apprentissage.
Volume I: The Law of the Sea addresses the major issues which arise in the law of the sea. It provides a detailed understanding of the historical development of the law of the sea; the role of the International Maritime Organization; the law surrounding maritime zones; the legal regime of islands; the international sea-bed area; the legal regime governing marine scientific research; the rights and obligations of land-locked and geographically disadvantaged states; the legal regime of Arctic and Antarctic; and the settlements of disputes. This volume also considers the ways in which human rights and the law of the sea interact.
It is now widely accepted that international human rights law applies in situations of armed conflict alongside international humanitarian law, but the contours and consequences of this development remain unclear. This book revisits, organizes and contextualizes the debate on human rights in armed conflict and explores the legal challenges, operational consequences and policy implications of resorting to human rights in situations of inter- and intra-state violence. It presents the benefits and the drawbacks of using international human rights law alongside humanitarian law and discusses how the idea, law and policy of human rights influence the development of the law of armed conflict. Based on legal theory, policy analysis, state practice and the work of human rights bodies it suggests a human rights-oriented reading of the law of armed conflict as feasible and necessary in response to the changing character of war.
In the field of international law, three core crimes generally make up the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals: war crimes; genocide; and crimes against humanity. Only two of these crimes (war crimes and genocide) are the subject of a global treaty that requires States to prevent and punish such conduct and to cooperate among themselves toward those ends. By contrast, there is no such treaty dedicated to preventing and punishing crimes against humanity.
Yet crimes against humanity may be more prevalent than either genocide or war crimes. Such crimes may occur in situations not involving armed conflict and do not require the special intent that is necessary for establishing genocide. Moreover, treaties focused on prevention, punishment, and inter-State cooperation exist for many far less egregious offences, such as corruption, bribery, or organized crime. While some treaties address offenses that under certain conditions might also constitute crimes against humanity, such as State-sponsored torture or enforced disappearance of persons, those treaties do not address crimes against humanity as such.
At its sixty-sixth session in 2014, the U.N. International Law Commission decided to place the topic “crimes against humanity” on its program of work and to appoint a Special Rapporteur. The purpose of this First Report of the Special Rapporteur is to address the potential benefits of developing draft articles that might serve as the basis of an international convention on crimes against humanity. Further, this report provides general background with respect to the emergence of the concept of crimes against humanity as an aspect of international law, its application by international courts and tribunals, and its incorporation in the national laws of some States. Ultimately, this report proposes two initial draft articles for such a convention: one on prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity and the other on the definition of such crimes.
The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 10, no. 2, June 2015) is out. Contents include:
This Article discusses the contribution of the European Court of Human Rights to mitigating difficulties arising from the fragmentation of international law. It argues that the Court’s case law provides insights and good practices to be followed. First, the Article furnishes evidence that the Court has developed an autonomous and distinct interpretative principle to construe the European Convention on Human Rights by taking other norms of international law into account. Second, the Article offers a blueprint of the methodology that the Court employs when engaging with external norms in the interpretation process. The analysis explores the Court’s approach to subtle contextual differences between similar or identical international norms and its position towards the requirements of Article 31 (3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). It concludes that international courts are developing innovative interpretative practices, which may not be strictly based in the letter of the VCLT.
