Diplomatic Protection: Taking Human Rights Extraterritorially

Author(s):  
Noura Karazivan

SummaryThis article argues that states should have a limited obligation — and not only a privilege — to extend diplomatic protection to their nationals when they are facing violations of their most basic human rights abroad. The author addresses the current state of international law regarding diplomatic protection, with a focus on the International Law Commission's failed attempt to impose a duty on states to exercise protection in cases of jus cogens violations. A review of domestic case law, particularly in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and South Africa, shows that while some courts recognize legitimate expectations to receive diplomatic protection, all are reluctant to exercise judicial review of a denial of diplomatic protection. The author nevertheless examines whether adherence to international human rights treaties could entail a positive obligation for states to exercise diplomatic protection in order to protect the human rights of their nationals that are ill-treated abroad.

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Morten Haugen

AbstractSocial human rights are not held to belong to the category of jus cogens norms. At the same time these human rights protect vital matters, such as the right to adequate food, which obviously has a relationship to the right to life. On the other hand, the annexes to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement, which are binding on all WTO member States, has implied a shift from the old General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) to the WTO, from pure contractual treaties to more standard-setting treaties. The article seeks to analyse if the obligations erga omnes and the concept of 'multilateral obligations' are applicable to distinguish between human rights treaties on the one hand and WTO agreements on the other. The background of the analysis is also the work of the International Law Commission (ILC) Study Group on fragmentation of international law, finalised in 2006. The article finds that there is still uncertainty regarding the exact meaning of the term 'multilateral obligations'. Hence, other concepts such as 'absolute obligations' might be preferred in order to characterise human rights treaties, and hence implicitly acknowledge that treaties that protect vital matters may prevail over other treaties, based on the interests which are to be protected.


Author(s):  
Steven Wheatley

International Human Rights Law has emerged as an academic subject in its own right, separate from, but still related to, International Law. This book explains the distinctive nature of the new discipline by examining the influence of the moral concept of human rights on general international law. Rather than make use of moral philosophy or political theory, the work explains the term ‘human rights’ by examining its usage in international law practice, on the understanding that words are given meaning through their use. Relying on complexity theory to make sense of the legal practice in the United Nations, the core human rights treaties, and customary international law, The Idea of International Human Rights Law shows how a moral concept of human rights emerged, and then influenced the international law doctrine and practice on human rights, a fact that explains the fragmentation of international law and the special nature of International Human Rights Law.


Author(s):  
John Linarelli ◽  
Margot E Salomon ◽  
Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah

This chapter recaps the main themes of the volume, ie that the international law of the global economy is in a state of disorder. Claims about the justice, fairness, or benefits of the current state of international law as it relates to the global economy are fanciful. A more credible picture emerges when one considers who is protected, against what, and those relations that are valued and those that are not. Moreover, these claims above all require a suspension of a reflective attitude about what international law actually says and does. When it comes to international economic law, power is masked behind a veil of neutrality when it certainly is not neutral in the interests it protects and offends. As for international human rights law, it overlooks the ways in which it props up extreme capitalism foreclosing the possibility of transformative structural change to neoliberal capitalism. In its most radical areas, human rights norms have been blocked from making demands on the design of the global economy precisely because of their transformative potential. Among the central critiques of international law presented in this book is that international law must be justifiable to those who are subject to it.


Author(s):  
Carla Ferstman

This chapter considers the consequences of breaches of human rights and international humanitarian law for the responsible international organizations. It concentrates on the obligations owed to injured individuals. The obligation to make reparation arises automatically from a finding of responsibility and is an obligation of result. I analyse who has this obligation, to whom it is owed, and what it entails. I also consider the right of individuals to procedures by which they may vindicate their right to a remedy and the right of access to a court that may be implied from certain human rights treaties. In tandem, I consider the relationship between those obligations and individuals’ rights under international law. An overarching issue is how the law of responsibility intersects with the specialized regimes of human rights and international humanitarian law and particularly, their application to individuals.


2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luzius Wildhaber

AbstractThis article is an expanded and footnoted version of the lectur given at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law on Tuesday 21 March 2006, entitled ‘International Law in the European Court of Human Rights’.The article begins with some comparative comments on the application of the European Convention on Human Rights in monistic and dualistic systems It then discusses in detail the European Court's case law which confirms that the Convention, despite its special character as a human rights treaty, is indeed part of public international law. It concludes that the Convention and international law find themselves in a kind of interactive mutual relationship. checking and buildine on each other.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 863-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADAMANTIA RACHOVITSA

AbstractThis 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, it offers a blueprint of the methodology that the Court employs when engaging with external norms in the interpretation process. It analyses 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 on the letter of the VCLT.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 195-204
Author(s):  
R. I. Sharipov

Over the past decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of armed groups involved in armed conflicts around the world, as well as in their impact on the rights and freedoms of the population under their control. Facing various situations of systematic violations of human rights by non-state actors, experts in the field of international human rights law began to consider the theoretical justification for the mandatory nature of the provisions on the observance and protection of human rights for armed groups. In this regard, a number of scholars have turned to the theory of customary international law, the acceptability of which is being investigated by the author of this paper. The author examines the provisions underlying this theory and the persuasiveness of the argumentation used by its supporters. Based on an analysis of the nature of customary international law, its structural elements, their interpretation by the UN International Court of Justice in its decisions and the relationship of customary international law with peremptory norms of jus cogens, the author concludes that the theory under consideration is currently unable to explain the existence of obligations of armed groups in the field of human rights.


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