The Year in Review

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 255-327
Author(s):  
Avril McDonald
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Defining Moments ◽  
The Usa

The defining moments of 2001, the terrorist attacks of September 11 against the United States of America, marked a turning point in international law and relations. By their scale and audaciousness, overnight they helped to propel the issue of international terrorism to the top of the international security agenda and particularly that of the USA, with consequences for many branches of international law, including thejus ad bellum, thejus in bello, international law relating to terrorism, international human rights law and international criminal law, that were just beginning to be felt as the year closed.

scholarly journals Protected Groups in Refugee Law and International Law

Laws ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Joseph Rikhof ◽  
Ashley Geerts
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Refugee Convention ◽  
International Human

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (“Refugee Convention”) defines ‘persecution’ based on five enumerated grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, and political opinion. This list of protected groups has not changed in the nearly 70 years since its inception, although the political and social context that gave rise to the Refugee Convention has changed. This article examines how ‘membership in a particular social group’ (“MPSG”) has been interpreted, then surveys international human rights law, transnational criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law instruments to determine whether MPSG can encompass the broader protections afforded under other international law regimes. It concludes that the enumerated grounds are largely consistent with other instruments and protects, or at least has the potential to protect, many of the other categories through MPSG. However, as this ground is subject to domestic judicial interpretation and various analytical approaches taken in different countries, protection could be enhanced by amending the Refugee Convention to explicitly include additional protected groups from these other areas of international law, specifically international human rights law and international criminal law.

Why the Prohibition of Enforced Disappearance Has Attained Jus Cogens Status in International Law

2012 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Sarkin
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Convention ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Jus Cogens

This article examines the question whether jus cogens includes the prohibition of enforced disappearances, and why this is important. It surveys the meaning, context, development, status and position of jus cogens as well as enforced disappearance in international law, including their relationship to each other. It surveys the status of enforced disappearance in international law in general, as well as in international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. The article scans the historical developments of international law, including developments over the last few decades, to indicate that the prohibition against enforced disappearance has attained jus cogens status. The legal framework is examined, including the jurisprudence that has emanated from a variety of sources. Specific treaties that deal with enforced disappearance are reviewed including the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICED). What jus cogens is, what the controversies are that surround it, the different ways that it is understood within different schools of thought, and how these issues impact on whether the prohibition of enforced disappearance has attained jus cogens status are studied. The historical developments around enforced disappearances are examined in some detail to determine what its status is, particularly in relation to state practice, so as to determine whether it is jus cogens.

International Human Rights Law

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
Civilized Society ◽  
The U.S

This chapter focuses on the two sources of international law: custom and treaties. Customary international law is the term used to describe rules that are so widely accepted and so deeply held that they help to define what it means to belong to a civilized society. The question of whether customary international law is binding on the United States came before the U.S. Supreme Court as long ago as 1900 in a case called Paquete Habana. Whereas treaty law often covers the same ground as customary international law. Torture is forbidden by customary international law, for example, and prohibitions against torture are also set forth in several multilateral treaties. The effect is to reinforce recognition that a particular norm set forth in a treaty has the status of customary law.

Protecting the Environment during Multinational Military Operations

2019 ◽  
pp. 322-344
Author(s):  
Onita Das
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Ongoing Work

The chapter examines issues concerning the protection of the environment during multinational military operations. Taking into consideration the International Law Commission’s (ILC) recent work regarding the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts, this contribution devotes particular attention to the preventive and remedial measures suggested in the Special Rapporteur’s reports. The chapter does, however, go beyond the ILC’s ongoing work on environmental protection in the context of armed conflict by extending its focus on exploring how multinational military operations generally—that is whether within or outside of armed conflicts—are influenced by other bodies of international law, namely international criminal law, international environmental law, and international human rights law.

International Human Rights Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 94-116
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
Civilized Society ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses custom and treaties as the two sources of international law. It explains the customary international law as the term used to describe rules that are widely accepted and deeply held and are used to define what it means to belong to a civilized society. It also recounts the case called “Paquete Habana” in the U.S. Supreme Court that addresses the question of whether customary international law is binding on the United States. The chapter talks about the treaty law or conventional law as the source of multilateral conventions that often covers the same ground as customary international law. It analyzes the prohibitions against “torture” that are set forth in several multilateral treaties and reinforce recognition that a particular norm set forth in a treaty has the status of customary law.

9 The Residual Receptacle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
d'Aspremont Jean
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
The Common ◽  
General Principles Of Law ◽  
Common Understanding

This chapter explores customary international law that is constantly approached as the residual receptacle for international legal obligations that cannot be grounded in treaty law. It highlights the discursive performance that presupposes a sort of fetishization of the treaty as the first go-to source of international law as well as the idea that customary international law is second-best. It also cites the discursive performance that led some observers to claim that customary international law has become the generic category for practically all binding non-treaty standards. The chapter draws on international human rights law and international criminal law and highlights the discursive performance that is witnessed by customary international law. It formulates some observations on the consequences for general principles of law of the common understanding of customary international law as a residual receptacle for non-treaty international legal obligations.

Like Ancient Beacons: The European Union and the International Criminal Court – Reflections from afar on a Chapter of European Foreign Policy

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 1449-1467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Kemmerer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
European Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Human Rights Norms

That the Law is never frozen in time and space is quite a trivial insight – but one, however, that is nonetheless particularly true for the area of international human rights law and the jurisdiction to see human rights norms respected and enforced. No less is it true for international criminal law and European law. It is, of course, true at the intersection of these three fields of the law as well, exactly the place I intend to explore in this paper. And, as we shall see, poetry, that rarely unveiled subtext of the law, is never steady in its foundations.

The Dangers of the Obvious but Often Disregarded Details in the International Criminal Law Demarcation Debate: Norm-Integration and the Triple-Thesis ‘Argument’

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 759-783
Author(s):  
Anja Matwijkiw
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Post Conflict

When responses to international crimes are managed in terms of post-conflict justice, this event may end ‘the demarcation debate’ before it has begun, thereby rendering it superfluous among legal scholars. This is to say that the transition from theory to reality arguably has the effect of cancelling any sharp distinction between international criminal law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as extending international criminal justice into the moral territory. Certainly, this is a premise for the dual-aspect defense of those rights that help to explain the non-separation. However, to the extent that the defense discords with traditional assumptions, relevant aspects of pro-separation reasoning must be considered. These are accommodated under the triple-thesis whereby the unequal status of different (rights-)categories limit norm-integration. The author’s account of the competing programs shows a series of flaws in the case of the triple-thesis doctrine, amounting to a vicious circle ‘argument’.

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