Balkanizing Jurisdiction: Reflections on Article IX of the Genocide Convention in Croatia v. Serbia

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 893-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAYAM AKHAVAN
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
International Instruments ◽  
Fundamental Values

AbstractWhen it first encountered the Genocide Convention in its 1951 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice recognized that the treaty reflected the ‘most elementary principles of morality’. Its provisions were to be read broadly, in light of the Convention's transcendent object and purpose. This expansive approach stands in contrast with the narrow interpretation of Article IX in the recent Judgment in Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia) case. This article is a commentary on the retroactive obligation to punish genocide under the Convention with regard to acts occurring prior to its entry into force for that state. It concludes that the Court's narrow interpretation of its jurisdiction ratione temporis raises wider questions for its contemporary jurisprudence, namely, whether it will interpret human rights treaties enshrining fundamental values any differently than other international instruments.

II. AVENA AND OTHER MEXICAN NATIONALS {MEXICO v UNITED STATES OF AMERICA), PROVISIONAL MEASURES, ORDER OF 5 FEBRUARY 2003

2004 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 738-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Ghandhi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
Dispute Settlement Procedure ◽  
Rights Issues

The International Court of Justice is not a human rights court but it does hear human rights cases.1This is hardly remarkable. As Professor Ian Brownlie has pointed out ‘[h]uman rights problems occur in specific legal contexts. The issues may arise… within the framework of a standard-setting convention, or within general international law.’2Because human rights treaties normally have their own dispute settlement procedure, the situations in which the International Court of Justice is more likely to have to grapple with human rights issues lie within the realms of general international law or in non-human rights specific treaty provisions, which may, nevertheless, raise such issues. In addition, some human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 1948, contain provisions specifically referring disputes to the International Court of Justice.3Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Court has been involved in a number of cases involving human rights questions.

The ICJ Armed Activity Case – Reflections on States' Obligation to Investigate and Prosecute Individuals for Serious Human Rights Violations and Grave Breaches of the Geneva Conventions

2009 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thordis Ingadottir
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
National Level ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

AbstractIn the Armed Activity Case, the International Court of Justice, found Uganda in breach of various international obligations. In establishing the state responsibility of Uganda, the Court concluded that in the Democratic Republic of Congo the country's troops committed, among other offences, grave breaches of international humanitarian law, as well as serious human rights violations, including torture. According to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and human rights treaties, these acts should also entail individual criminal responsibility. Furthermore, states have undertaken an obligation to investigate and prosecute individuals for these heinous acts. However,enforcement of that obligation has always been problematic; states have been very reluctant to prosecute their own forces. And without an effective enforcement mechanism at the international level, states have largely gottenaway with this bad practice. In light of the importance of having a state's responsibility support the enforcement of individual criminal responsibility at the national level, the article briefly reflects on the case's impact on individual criminal responsibility. It addresses the issue in two ways. Firstly, it examines a state's obligation to prosecute individuals as a secondary obligation, i.e., inherent in a state's obligation to make reparations for an international wrongful act. Secondly, it explores a state's obligation to prosecute individuals as a primary obligation, undertaken in the Geneva Conventions and human rights treaties. The article concludes thatdespite the clear obligation of a state to enforce individual criminal responsibility for the acts at hand in the Armed Activity Case, and the rear occurrence of having a case of this nature reaching the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, where the opportunity to address it and enforce it was largely missed. The nature and submissions in other recent cases at the International Court of Justice indicate that in the near future the Court will have a larger role in enforcing states' obligation to investigate and prosecute serious crimes at the national level.

Giving Meaning and Effect to Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald L Neuman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

This chapter discusses the multiple roles played by the members of the Human Rights Committee in giving effect to the rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It argues that the most important contribution the members make to the human rights project consists in their credible, professional elaboration of those rights, particularly by means of the Committee’s Views and General Comments, as emphasized by the International Court of Justice in the Diallo case. While the Committee members should be open to learning from the insights of other treaty bodies, they should resist urgings toward a simplistic harmonization. The texts and interpretations of other ‘core’ human rights treaties must be used with care in the members’ independent exercise of their own interpretive function.

The Genocide Convention as a Human Rights Treaty: The Possible Contribution of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to the Jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-456
Author(s):  
Giovanna M. Frisso
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
International Legal System

This article reflects upon the potential contribution of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (iachr) to international law. This is done through an analysis of the debates related to two aspects of the 2007 judgment of the International Court of Justice (icj) on the application of the Genocide Convention, judgment which has received a great amount of criticism, in part because the approaches adopted by the icj differ from those adopted by human rights courts. The jurisprudence of the iachr has been used to illustrate these differences and to articulate the challenges that they pose to an understanding of the international legal system as a unified system. This article argues that due consideration of the jurisprudence of the iachr could have strengthened the persuasive force of the icj judgment, because it would have required the icj to clearly indicate the arguments relied on for choosing one of the different, and sometimes contradictory, approaches.

The Thirtieth Year of the World Court

1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manley O. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The World ◽  
Interim Measures ◽  
Oil Company

The International Court of Justice had a busy year in 1951. It handed down judgments in the Haya de la Torre Case and the Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries Case, and an advisory opinion relating to Reservations to the Genocide Convention. An order indicating interim measures of protection was issued in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Case, and orders were given in the case concerning Rights of American Nationals in Morocco and in the Ambatielos Case; these three cases, as well as two newly-instituted cases—the Minquiers and Ecrehos Case and the Nottebohm Case, were pending at the end of the year.

Human Rights Treaty Bodies and the Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Icj

Abstract In recent years, the ICJ has had to deal more and more often with alleged violations of major human rights treaties and the respective compromissory clauses contained in such treaties. Yet, the interrelationship between the Court’s treaty-based jurisdiction under such clauses and State complaint mechanisms, as provided for in human rights treaties, has not yet been fully considered and analysed. Moreover, there might also be interlinkages between the ICJ’s contentious jurisdiction under Article 36 (2) of the ICJ Statute and such State complaint procedures.

Human Rights in the International Court of Justice

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSALYN HIGGINS
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
The Past ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Rights Issues

In this speech delivered at the conference honouring Professor Dugard, President Higgins discusses various human rights issues that have come before the International Court of Justice, including self-determination, reservations to human rights treaties, the application of human rights instruments to occupied territories, and allegations of genocide by one state against another. President Higgins notes that in the past few decades the ICJ has been joined by regional human rights courts, commissions and treaty monitoring bodies. Similar human rights claims are surfacing in these diverse fora, but the acknowledged expertise of these specialist bodies and the desire to avoid fragmentation provide an impetus for all concerned to seek common solutions on evolving points of law.

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