Was There Something Missing in the Decolonization Process in Africa?: The Territorial Dimension

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-556
Author(s):  
MAMADOU HÉBIÉ
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
African Countries ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
La Gomera

AbstractFive decades after the wave of independence of the 1960s, have all African territories been decolonized in accordance with international law? On the basis of the General Assembly and state practice, this study argues that only the continuing possession of African territories by colonial powers is contrary to the obligation to decolonize under international law. Thus, colonialism is still persisting in Africa with regard to the Glorious Islands, Mayotte, the Chagos, Ceuta and Melilla, the islands Alhucemas, Chafarinas, Leïla, and Peñon de Vélez de la Gomera. These territories belong respectively to Madagascar, the Comoros Islands, Mauritius, and Morocco. However, the obligation to decolonize under international law, which is premised on the existence of a colonial possession, does not provide any legal basis to claims directed against independent African states. Besides, the maintenance of boundaries existing upon the achievement of African countries to independence is not a case of enduring colonialism.

Re-examining States’ External Obligations to Implement Economic and Social Rights of Children

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wabwile
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
Social And Economic Rights

International law on the protection and promotion of social and economic rights of the child binds states parties to respect, protect and secure these rights both in their own territories as well as to contribute to the programmes for such fulfilment in other countries in a strategy aiming at global implementation of these rights. This paper explores the legal basis for states‘ external obligations to support fulfilment of social and economic rights. It surveys inter alia the relevant treaty texts, explanatory resolutions of the UN General Assembly and statements in reports submitted by states parties to the UN monitoring committees, and argues that recent state practice and interpretation of human rights obligations confirms the extraterritorial obligations to support fulfilment of these rights. Since these are obligations to fulfil the rights of human beings in other countries rather than obligations to third states, they can be referred to as ‘diagonal obligations‘ to distinguish them from inter-state horizontal responsibility.

scholarly journals The Eastern Bloc, Human Rights, and the Global Fight against Apartheid

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 290-317
Author(s):  
Sebastian Gehrig ◽  
James Mark ◽  
Paul Betts ◽  
Kim Christiaens ◽  
Idesbald Goddeeris
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African Countries ◽  
International Rights ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Active Contribution

Anti-apartheid advocacy allowed Eastern Bloc countries to reframe their ideological language of solidarity towards African countries into a legalist rhetoric during the 1960s and 70s. Support for international anti-racial discrimination law and self-determination from colonial rule reinforced their ties to Africa after the disenchantment of the Hungarian Uprising. Rights activism against apartheid showcased the socialist Bloc’s active contribution to the international rise of human rights language and international law during the Cold War. By the mid-1970s, however, international rights engagement became problematic for most Eastern European states, and dissidents at home eventually appropriated the term apartheid based on decades of state-mandated international rights activism to criticise socialism.

Elements of Nordic Practice 2005–2006: Finland

2008 ◽  
Vol 77 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 141-161
Author(s):  
Juha Rainne
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
International Tribunals ◽  
International Sanctions

AbstractThis report includes selected parts of Finnish state practice in the field of international law in 2005 and 2006. The activities during this period were dominated by Finland's Presidency of the European Union (EU) in the second half of 2006. The report comprises state practice related, inter alia, to humanitarian law, international tribunals, international sanctions, measures to combat terrorism and the work of the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly. Special attention is paid to the activities that took place in the field of international law during the Finnish EU Presidency.

scholarly journals An “International Crime” Exception to the Immunity of State Officials from Foreign Criminal Jurisdiction: Not Currently, Not Likely

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 167-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger O’Keefe
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Crime ◽  
Case Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The Political ◽  
Criminal Jurisdiction ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The Times ◽  
International Law Commission

The happiest outcomes of the work of the International Law Commission (ILC) result when those charged with reporting on a topic elucidate the existing law with maximum objectivity and accuracy and when, where desired, they formulate such possibilities for its avowed progressive development as find a solid basis in emerging practice or international jurisprudence and are unlikely to arouse implacable opposition among members of the Commission or member states of the General Assembly. This history should be foremost in the minds of those presently leading the Commission’s work on the immunity of state officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction as they come next session to report on possible limitations on and exceptions to such immunity. Whether the eventual aim is codification or reform, any consideration of this most controverted and combustible of contemporary questions of international law that is not based on an impartial and convincing assessment of relevant state practice and international case-law and that misreads the political temper of the times will end in tears, in the Commission itself and even more so in the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly.

The Customary International Law of Human Rights

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Schabas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Periodic Review ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Human Rights Norms

Customary international law is one of the principal sources of public international law. Unlike many branches of international law, human rights law did not first develop as custom and subsequently become codified. Human rights law was viewed as quintessentially a matter of sovereign concern to States until the mid-twentieth century, when treaties and declarations were adopted by the United Nations and other international bodies. Jurists only began to speak of human rights as customary law in the 1960s. Although its existence is uncontroversial, the content of customary international law in the area of human rights has not previously been analysed in a comprehensive manner. This book discusses the emergence of the customary law of human rights, the debates about how it is to be identified, and the efforts at formulation of customary norms. It examines human rights norms in order to determine whether they may be described as customary, using as a basis the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Much reliance is placed upon relatively new sources of evidence of the two elements for the identification of custom, namely State practice and opinio juris, in particular the increasingly universal ratification of major human rights treaties and the materials generated by the Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the Human Rights Council. The study concludes that a large number of human rights norms may be described as customary in nature, and that courts should make greater use of custom as a source of international law.

The Continuing Debate on a un Convention on State Responsibility

2005 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 959-971 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Crawford ◽  
Simon Olleson
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
State Practice ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

At its 59th session in 2004, the General Assembly revisited the question of what should be done with the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (‘the Articles’), adopted by the International Law Commission (‘ILC’) in 2001. By Resolution 59/35, adopted by consensus on 2 December 2004 on the recommendation of the Sixth Committee, the General Assembly once again resolved to defer further consideration and any decision on the final form of the Articles, postponing the matter to its 62nd session in 2007. It also asked the Secretariat to prepare a compendium of jurisprudence and State practice to assist the Assembly in its consideration of the topic at that time.

Of Rebels, Insurgents, and Belligerents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
State Practice

The first chapter opens the substantive analysis of the organization requirement for non-state parties to armed conflicts. First, it briefly examines why the laws of war have originally been state-focused, and shows how this state focus coined international law requirements of main characteristics of a party to an armed conflict. Second, it analyses how philosophers broadened the legal notion of ‘war’ as to include conflicts involving certain non-state entities. Subsequently, this chapter examines state practice to identify which qualities a non-state armed group needed to possess to obtain the ‘belligerent’ status. It also examines the question of which kind of entities could qualify as ‘insurgents’ or ‘rebels’.

Conclusions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Strecker
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
World Heritage Convention ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
State Obligations ◽  
Made In ◽  
Landscape Protection

The final chapter of this book advances four main conclusions on the role of international law in landscape protection. These relate to state obligations regarding landscape protection, the influence of the World Heritage Convention and the European Landscape Convention, the substantive and procedural nature of landscape rights, and the role of EU law. It is argued that, although state practice is lagging behind the normative developments made in the field of international landscape protection, landscape has contributed positively to the corpus of international cultural heritage law and indeed has emerged as a nascent field of international law in its own right.

Great Britain, International Law, and the Evolution of Maritime Strategic Thought, 1856–1914

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela A. Frei
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Maritime Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Maritime Strategy ◽  
Strategic Thought

The book addresses the interaction between international maritime law and maritime strategy in a historical context, arguing that both international law and maritime strategy are based on long-term state interests. Great Britain as the predominant sea power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shaped the relationship between international law and maritime strategy like no other power. The book explores how Great Britain used international maritime law as an instrument of foreign policy to protect its strategic and economic interests, and how maritime strategic thought evolved in parallel to the development of international legal norms. The book offers an analysis of British state practice as well as an examination of the efforts of the international community to codify international maritime law in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the predominant sea power and also the world’s largest carrier of goods, Great Britain had to balance its interests as both a belligerent and a neutral power. With the growing importance of international law in international politics, the book examines the role of international lawyers, strategists, and government officials who shaped state practice. Great Britain’s neutrality for most of the period between 1856 and 1914 influenced its state practice and its perceptions of a future maritime conflict. Yet, the codification of international maritime law at The Hague and London conferences at the beginning of the twentieth century demanded a reassessment of Great Britain’s legal position.

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