AS BAD AS IT GETS: THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS'S BEHRAMI AND SARAMATI DECISION AND GENERAL INTERNATIONAL LAW

2009 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marko Milanović ◽  
Tatjana Papić
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
European Court ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The United Nations

AbstractThis article examines the European Court of Human Rights's encounter with general international law in its Behrami and Saramati admissibility decision, where it held that the actions of the armed forces of States acting pursuant to UN Security Council authorizations are attributable not to the States themselves, but to the United Nations. The article will try to demonstrate that the Court's analysis is entirely at odds with the established rules of responsibility in international law, and is equally dubious as a matter of policy. Indeed, the article will show that the Court's decision can be only be explained by its reluctance to decide on questions of State jurisdiction and norm conflict, the latter issue becoming the clearest when Behrami is compared to the Al-Jedda judgment of the House of Lords.

What Future for the UN Charter System of War Prevention?

2003 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Falk
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Inspection Process ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Relationship

President George W. Bush historically challenged the United Nations Security Council when he uttered some memorable words in the course of his September 12, 2002, speech to the General Assembly: “Will the UN serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?” In the aftermath of the Iraq war there are at least two answers to this question. The answer of the U.S. government would be to suggest that the United Nations turned out to be irrelevant due to its failure to endorse recourse to war against the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. The answer of those who opposed the war is that the UN Security Council served the purpose of its founding by its refusal to endorse recourse to a war that could not be persuasively reconciled with the UN Charter and international law. This difference of assessment is not just factual, whether Iraq was a threat and whether the inspection process was succeeding at a reasonable pace; it was also conceptual, even jurisprudential. The resolution of this latter debate is likely to shape the future role of the United Nations, as well as influence the attitude of the most powerful sovereign state as to the relationship between international law generally and the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy.

scholarly journals Peacekeeping Forces, Jurisdiction and Immunity: A Tribute to George Barton

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger S Clark
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Peacekeeping Forces ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Phd Thesis

George Barton wrote his PhD thesis at Cambridge on "Jurisdiction over Visiting Forces". He published three spinoffs from the thesis in the British Yearbook of International Law.  In all of these – each a tour de force in examining elusive and arcane State practice – he was at great pains to deny various supposed customary rules recognising immunity of foreign armed forces in the courts of a State in which they were visiting by consent. He worked in the United Nations Secretariat in New York just as the practice of United Nations peacekeeping began to develop. In this tribute, I try to imagine that he returned to the subject some 60 years later. Affecting, as best I can, the style of Dr Barton circa 1950, I offer some guesses as to how he might assess six decades of developments in law and practice in the multilateral context in which the United Nations, and especially the Secretariat and the Security Council, have been major actors.

scholarly journals Like it or Not, Unilateral Sanctions Are Here to Stay

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 146-151
Author(s):  
David S. Cohen ◽  
Zachary K. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
International Support ◽  
Design Build ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The United Nations

Financial and economic sanctions are often adopted to serve multiple ends, including deterrence and prevention, but they are best understood as a tool to incentivize change in a target's behavior. In pursuit of this coercive objective, it is generally—but not always—the case that sanctions are more effective when they are imposed multilaterally, and the broader the coalition the better. This is because multilateral sanctions leverage the diverse sources of pressure that coalition partners can bring to bear on a target and carry with them the legitimacy of broad international support. Taken to its extreme, this argument may suggest that sanctions should always be multilateral, whether adopted through the United Nations, another forum, or an ad hoc coalition. But as we explain below, there are at least two significant reasons that militate in favor of unilateral sanctions. First, within the broad limits of international law, every country must retain the authority to impose sanctions to protect its sovereign security interests, even when it cannot muster a coalition of like-minded allies or a sufficient number of votes—and avoid a veto—on the UN Security Council. Second, imposing “smart” sanctions is actually a difficult business, requiring a complex administrative apparatus to design, build, implement, enforce, and defend them. International institutions, including the United Nations, are inherently less able to build the necessary structures to effectively enforce sanctions. For all of these reasons, two systems of sanctions—one national, one supranational—will likely coexist into the future.

The UN Security Council Resolution 1540: to Strengthen the International Law in Non-Proliferation Sphere

2014 ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
E. Kirichenko
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The United Nations

The article addresses the UNSC Resolution 1540 as the unique legally binding document strengthening international legal basis of MDW non-proliferation regime. It analyses the activity of Committee 1540, its priorities, as well as results of monitoring of Resolution implementation by the states-parties to the United Nations.

scholarly journals The U.S.-Proposed “Trusteeship Agreement” for Palestine: The UN-Styled Plan That Could Have Avoided Forcible Displacement of the Palestinian Refugees in 1948

Refuge ◽  
2003 ◽  
pp. 70-88
Author(s):  
Gail J. Boling
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The U.S

In this article, the author examines the U.S.-proposed “Trusteeship Agreement for Palestine,” circulated by the U.S. in the UN Security Council and in subcommittees of the General Assembly from March through May of 1948. The U.S. proposed a UN trusteeship for Palestine as a possible means to provide for a peaceful transition from the end of the British Mandate for Palestine into a new governmental entity that would provide equality under the law for all of its citizens. Notably, the proposed trusteeship arrangement would have avoided partition of Palestine. The author asserts that this, in turn, could have avoided the forcible displacement of three-quarters of a million Palestinian refugees in 1948, as well as Israel’s subsequent refusal to repatriate them. The author argues that the U.S.-proposed Trusteeship Agreement for Palestine sheds light on important norms of international law that existed in 1948 and that could, and should, have been followed by the United Nations in providing for the welfare and legal rights of all the inhabitants of mandate Palestine as the clock ticked down on the announced British withdrawal from Palestine as mandatory authority as of 15 May 1948.

Part II Predominant Security Challenges and International Law, International Security, Ch.13 Aggression

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kreß Claus
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Security System ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter discusses the concept of aggression. Article 39, the opening clause of the United Nations Charter’s collective security system, contains the term ‘act of aggression’, the existence of which in a given case falls to be determined by the United Nations (UN) Security Council. Recalling Article 39, the UN General Assembly, in 1974, adopted a resolution on the Definition of Aggression (Resolution 3314 (XXIX)). As the term ‘act of aggression’ is used alongside the terms ‘threat to peace’ and ‘breach of the peace’ in Article 39, the UN Security Council is not bound to determine the existence of an act of aggression to activate the Charter's collective security system and authorize the use of force by one or more States in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. In the view of the International Court of Justice and the International Law Commission, the prohibition of aggression forms part of customary international law. Here again, however, the distinct legal significance of the concept compared to ‘use of force’ and ‘armed attack’ is of quite limited reach. Contrariwise, the concept of aggression has been of considerable importance in the realm of international criminal law since the latter’s inception.

scholarly journals International Law, COVID-19 and Feminist Engagement with the United Nations Security Council: The End of the Affair?

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-328
Author(s):  
Catherine O’Rourke
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Seminal Contribution ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Gender Based

AbstractThe gendered implications of COVID-19, in particular in terms of gender-based violence and the gendered division of care work, have secured some prominence, and ignited discussion about prospects for a ‘feminist recovery’. In international law terms, feminist calls for a response to the pandemic have privileged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), conditioned—I argue—by two decades of the pursuit of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda through the UNSC. The deficiencies of the UNSC response, as characterised by the Resolution 2532 adopted to address the pandemic, manifest yet again the identified deficiencies of the WPS agenda at the UNSC, namely fragmentation, securitisation, efficacy and legitimacy. What Resolution 2532 does bring, however, is new clarity about the underlying reasons for the repeated and enduring nature of these deficiencies at the UNSC. Specifically, the COVID-19 ‘crisis’ is powerful in exposing the deficiencies of the crisis framework in which the UNSC operates. My reflections draw on insights from Hilary Charlesworth’s seminal contribution ‘International Law: A Discipline of Crisis’ to argue that, instead of conceding the ‘crisis’ framework to the pandemic by prioritising the UNSC, a ‘feminist recovery’ must instead follow Charlesworth’s exhortation to refocus on an international law of the everyday.

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