Preventing a Biological Arms Race. Edited by Susan Wright. [Cambridge, Mass. & London: M.I.T. Press. 1990. xviii + 446 pp. ISBN 0–262–23148–4. £22·50] - The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: The Relevance of International Law. By Elliott L. Meyrowitz. [Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers, Inc. 1990. xvii + 333 pp. ISBN 0–941320–53–7. $58] - Rechtsfragen der Rüstungskontrolle im Vertragsvölkerrecht der Gegenwart (Legal Questions of Arms Control in Contemporary International Treaty Law). By Michael Bothe and Wolfgang Graf Vitzthum. [Heidelberg: C. F. Müller. 1990. 203 pp. ISBN 3–8114–1390–2. DM.98]

1991 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 735-736
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Best
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Treaty Law

scholarly journals The Cognitive Psychology of Rules of Interpretation in International Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 258-262
Author(s):  
Anne van Aaken
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
International Law ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
Psychology Perspective ◽  
The Law ◽  
Biases And Heuristics ◽  
The Way

While Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) prescribe the rules of interpretation for international treaty law as “disciplining rules,” the rules of interpretation themselves are understudied from a cognitive psychology perspective. This is problematic because, as Jerome Frank observed, “judges are incurably human,” like everybody else. I submit that behavioral approaches could provide insights into how biases and heuristics affect the way judges and other interpreters use the VCLT rules.

scholarly journals Choice and (the Awareness of) its Consequences: The ICJ's “Structural Bias” Strikes Again in the Marshall Islands Case

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 81-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Bianchi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Young Researcher ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Rubber Stamp ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
State Of Affairs

My very first publication, admittedly written in a language that many AJIL Unbound readers might be unable or unwilling to read, was an essay on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and its effects vis-à-vis third parties. Already back then, I found it difficult to justify how an international treaty could rubber-stamp such a highly uneven state of affairs. The overt acknowledgement of the discrimination between nuclear and nonnuclear states, the hypocrisy about “unofficial” nuclear states, and the Article VI obligation for nuclear states to negotiate effective measures of disarmament, largely ignored in the first twenty years of the treaty, were all elements that contributed to my perception of unfairness, if not blatant injustice. As a young researcher approaching international law with the enthusiasm of the neophyte, however, this looked like a little anomaly in an otherwise fair and equitable international legal order. It did not set off warning bells about the system as such. After all, international law was geared, at least in my eyes, towards enhancing the wellbeing of humanity. It must have been so. And it is not that I leaned particularly on the idealistic side; it seemed normal to me … at the time.

scholarly journals Reservations and the CISG: The Borderland of Uniform International Sales Law and Treaty Law After Thirty-Five Years

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich G. Schroeter
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Comprehensive Treatment ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Commercial Law ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
Dual Character ◽  
International Sales

41 Brooklyn Journal of International Law (2015), 203–255The makers of uniform international commercial law have traditionally used an instrument of public international law – the treaty between States, or ‘convention’ – in order to unify commercial law rules governing the relations between private parties (merchants). The resulting ‘dual character’ of such conventions as creatures of both treaty law and private law gives rise to a host of difficult legal questions. Maybe more than by any other type of legal rules, such questions are raised by reservations, i.e. formal declarations by which States ‘opt out’ of certain provisions in uniform law conventions, leaving it to the courts to determine the precise effect on contracts between private parties.The 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) ranks as one of the most successful uniform international commercial law instrument of all times, having been ratified by 83 States worldwide, among them the U.S., 24 of the 28 EU States, Brazil, Russia, China and Japan. The present article takes the 35th anniversary of the CISG as an occasion to provide an overview of the experiences that have been made with reservations thereunder, investigating the various difficulties that the dual character of its reservations has caused in theory and in practice.In doing so, the article first discusses the hotly disputed qualification of some of the CISG’s provisions as ‘reservations’ or mere ‘declarations’, and its legal consequences. It then challenges the commonly held perception that reservations reduce the degree of uniformity under international commercial law conventions, arguing that reservations should be regarded as a tool enabling a ‘wider’ uniformity. The article goes on to address problems that have emerged in practice under the CISG, as notably the tendency among courts to overlook reservations and the significant uncertainty they seem to cause both in the eyes of government officials and – maybe more importantly – of judges and arbitrators deciding cases. Finally, it looks forward to the next 35 years and discusses the (likely) rule of reservations in future CISG practice, including the trend to withdraw reservations, which reservations may be here to stay and which may even gain in importance in the future.In summary, the article presents the most comprehensive treatment yet of reservations under the most important uniform international commercial law convention in force, identifying important lessons to be learned for the unification of commercial law in general.

Stages of the formation of treaty law in the history of international law

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-95
Author(s):  
Marina Okladnaya ◽  
Anastasia Pererodova
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Main Body ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Historical Periods

Problem setting. An international treaty is an agreement between two or more subjects of international relations concerning the establishment, modification or termination of mutual rights and obligations. In modern time an international treaty is the universal and primary source of international law and, at the same time, the law of treaties as a branch of international law occupies a central place in this system. The role of the treaty is constantly increasing, so it is important to study how treaty law was formed in order to understand how it has changed over history, and what factors have influenced the formation of the main branch of international law. Analysis of recent researches and publications. The law of international treaties causes increased attention of lawyers to the study, research and analysis of its main aspects. Among the domestic and foreign scholars who have made a significant contribution to the study of the law of treaties can be distinguished such as V. Butkevich, Y. Brownlie, A. Talalaev, O. Merezhko, O. Nazarenko, F. Martens, V. Shurshalov, I. Lukashuk, O. Zadorozhniy and others. Target of research. Study of international treaty at different stages of formation of international law, analysis and comparison of forms, content, functions and significance of the treaty in different historical periods. Article’s main body. The article is devoted to the development and formation of the basic branch of international law – treaty law. It studies the stages of formation of the institute of treaty law during different periods of history, identifies the features of the treaty at each stage of formation. Conclusions and prospects for the development. The agreement is an important and necessary instrument of interaction and communication between people, it establishes ties between peoples and states, helps to resolve conflicts, that is why the signing of treaties is a significant mechanism for the regulation of human relations since ancient times. In this article we have traced how different historical periods influenced the formation of international treaty law, which events were of key importance for the development of international law in general. Throughout the history of international law, the treaty has undergone a number of transformations of its forms, types and procedures of conclusion. The treaty form of consolidation of international relations is the basis of stability and efficiency of the legal order in international law. At the present time, the law of international treaties is a self-sufficient, developed branch and system of international law. It is the key branch of international law with its institutions, low basic principles, and continues to develop rapidly and irreversibly.

The Rule of No Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 82-102
Author(s):  
Ian Hurd
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
International Court ◽  
Specific Regulation ◽  
International Rule ◽  
Nuclear Arms

This chapter explores the legality of latter-day weapons—specifically, nuclear arms and lethal drones—to consider the potential for voids in the coverage of international law. When technological or other developments enable previously inconceivable kinds of warfare, states face open legal questions. Recent debates over the legality of U.S. drones illustrate this, as do earlier debates about the legality of nuclear arms. The weapons arise in a kind of legal vacuum, empty of specific regulation. Drawing on these examples, the chapter considers the power of the international rule of law in situations where there may be no law. With respect to nuclear weapons, the International Court of Justice decided that despite there being no directly applicable laws, use is nonetheless governed by international law. Rules designed for other weapons are relevant, as is a general principle that in the end, international law must defend states' rights to protect their national security as they see fit. These two sets of resources—general principles and analogies to other laws—are also important in legal debates over drones today: the lawfulness of drones as instruments of war is inferred from the legality of what are said to be analogous weapons from earlier times, and the needs of the state are internalized in legality debates through the mechanism of self-defense.

Is the NPT unraveling? Evidence from text analysis of review conference statements

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 740-751
Author(s):  
Miriam Barnum ◽  
James Lo
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Election Manifestos ◽  
State Actors

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is a landmark international treaty that is widely regarded as a cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. However, pessimists point to a growing divergence of preferences between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states as a precursor to the impending ‘unraveling of this vital piece of international law’. In this article, we test for evidence of preference divergence using statements from NPT review conferences, which are manifestos presenting each country’s position on the NPT. We measure preferences on the NPT using Wordfish, a method that is frequently used to estimate ideological preferences from election manifestos. Our measure estimates the latent positions of state actors along a ‘non-proliferation vs. disarmament’ dimension, and shows little evidence of growing preference divergence between the nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states. Thus, a significant premise underlying more pessimistic assessments of the NPT appears to be in doubt.

scholarly journals Acts of genocide and international law

2021 ◽  
pp. 44-54
Author(s):  
Stefan Kirchner ◽  
Doly P. Orozco López
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Central America ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Jus Cogens

In addition to the loss of over 200,000 lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, racist violence, riots, wildfires, storms and political controversies in an election year, the United States of America might now also see acts of genocide. If recent reports are confirmed, multiple acts of genocide have been committed against migrants from Central America, targeting in particular women and children. This text outlines the elements which define the crime of genocide under international law and explains the special, jus cogens, status the prohibition of genocide has under both international treaty law and customary international law. It includes a call for further investigations, pursuant to the obligation of all States to combat genocide.

Military Enforcement of Arms Control in Iraq

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-511
Author(s):  
Guido den Dekker ◽  
Ramses A. Wessel
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Enforcement Action ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
The Many

The effects of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait are felt strongly up to the present day. On numerous occasions, the inspection teams of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) have encountered serious problems and opposition by the Iraqi government when verifying the non-production of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Among the many legal questions raised by the Iraqi-Kuwait war's aftermath, a fundamental issue is whether – in the absence of an explicit Security Council decision – compliance by Iraq with its obligations may be enforced by military means. In this article, this question is addressed by examining whether military enforcement action can be based on Security Council resolutions adopted earlier in the course of the conflict, especially Resolutions 678 (1990), in which the Council authorised the use of ‘all necessary means’, and 1154 (1998), in which the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ between the UN and Iraq was endorsed. It is argued that without a further mandate from the Security Council, military enforcement of arms control in Iraq under the present circumstances is prohibited by international law.

scholarly journals Port Denials and Restrictions Policies during Covid-19 Pandemic Based on International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 07 (03) ◽  
pp. 380-399
Author(s):  
Angela Desmonda
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Public Facility ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Coastal State ◽  
Special Instrument ◽  
Port Access ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right

As a public facility, port has a significant potential to be cluster of the Covid-19 spread. Many states have implemented policies of denials and restriction of port access to protect people’s health. This study aims to analyze port denials and restrictions policies settings based on international law. In addition, this study is to analyze whether the status of state of emergency will affect state’s obligations based on international law. This study was conducted by analyzing associated international treaty law and customary law. The study concludes that no international treaty law and customary law prohibit port denials and restrictions because port is under the sovereignty of respected coastal state. The state is free to implement any policies. Without any permit, foreign ships are not allowed to enter and dock at the port of the coastal state. However, in a situation of danger or distress, foreign ships have the right to enter port. The IHR 2005, as a special instrument dealing with public health, also provides an opportunity for coastal state to prevent ship embarking and disembarking passengers if the ship is exposed to a pandemic disease, such as Covid-19. In such case, foreign ship may be prohibited from entering and docking at port of coastal state. On the other hand, in a situation of danger or distress, foreign ship has the right to enter port. In contrast, the 1923 Port Convention gave permission to state to close ports in urgent situation that endangered national security.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document