Community Interests in the Identification of International Law

Author(s):  
Samantha Besson

This chapter identifies the ways in which community interests are channeled into the identification and interpretation of international law and assesses these developments normatively. It argues that the rules pertaining to the interpretation of treaties and the identification of custom provide many routes for states, their domestic authorities and international institutions to include and protect community interests. Unlike the formation of a given abstract norm, its identification and interpretation in a concrete case may actually allow for other interests, including community interests, and/or distinct or more recent conceptions thereof, to be taken into account. The chapter argues however, that secondary rules of identification and interpretation should be put into practice more transparently. In short, the chapter considers that there is nothing extraordinary in states’ ability to act for the protection of community interests, but that, in line with the findings of the previous chapter, states should be organized democratically so as to enhance their ability to do so.

Author(s):  
Gina Heathcote

Reflecting on recent gender law reform within international law, this book examines the nature of feminist interventions to consider what the next phase of feminist approaches to international law might include. To undertake analysis of existing gender law reform and future gender law reform, the book engages critical legal inquiries on international law on the foundations of international law. At the same time, the text looks beyond mainstream feminist accounts to consider the contributions, and tensions, across a broader range of feminist methodologies than has been adapted and incorporated into gender law reform including transnational and postcolonial feminisms. The text therefore develops dialogues across feminist approaches, beyond dominant Western liberal, radical, and cultural feminisms, to analyse the rise of expertise and the impact of fragmentation on global governance, to study sovereignty and international institutions, and to reflect on the construction of authority within international law. The book concludes that through feminist dialogues that incorporate intersectionality, and thus feminist dialogues with queer, crip, and race theories, that reflect on the politics of listening and which are actively attentive to the conditions of privilege from which dominant feminist approaches are articulated, opportunity for feminist dialogues to shape feminist futures on international law emerge. The book begins this process through analysis of the conditions in which the author speaks and the role histories of colonialism play out to define her own privilege, thus requiring attention to indigenous feminisms and, in the UK, the important interventions of Black British feminisms.


Author(s):  
Hannah Woolaver

This chapter explores the interaction between domestic and international law in relation to the state’s engagement with treaties. Treaty engagements are important mechanisms through which states conduct their foreign relations. The domestic allocation of responsibility for the making and unmaking of treaties is therefore a significant question of the constitutional separation of powers in the realm of foreign relations law. Treaties are also international legal instruments, facilitating the development of international law and international institutions. The domestic and international law of treaties therefore both concurrently regulate the state’s power to join and leave treaties. This chapter examines the relationship between these two bodies of law in this regard, setting out developments in domestic jurisdictions establishing constitutional limits on the executive’s power to enter and exit treaties, and addresses the possible impact of these constitutional developments in the international law of treaties.


Author(s):  
Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott

Abstract The conventional understanding of due diligence in international law appears to be that it is a concept that forms part of primary rules. During the preparatory stages in creating the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA), the International Law Commission (ILC) focused on due diligence as though it could have formed part of secondary rules. Despite this process, no due diligence provision forms part of the ARSIWA. Yet a number of the final provisions are based on primary rules. This is because the ILC relied on the method of extrapolation in attempts to create secondary rules. Extrapolation is a method of international law-making by which the output of an analytical process is reproduced in a different form following an examination of its content that exists in other forms. In using this method, the ILC attempted to create secondary rules by extrapolating from primary rules. Yet it did not do so with respect to due diligence. However, due diligence can be formulated and applied differently by using this same method. This article analyses the steps of this process to construct a vision of where international legal practice should venture in the future. In learning from and amalgamating the dominant trends in different areas of international and domestic law, this article proposes that due diligence could exist as a secondary rule of general international law. By formulating and applying due diligence as a secondary rule, there is potential to develop the general international law applicable to determining state responsibility for the conduct of non-state actors.


Author(s):  
Miriam Bak McKenna

Abstract Situating itself in current debates over the international legal archive, this article delves into the material and conceptual implications of architecture for international law. To do so I trace the architectural developments of international law’s organizational and administrative spaces during the early to mid twentieth century. These architectural endeavours unfolded in three main stages: the years 1922–1926, during which the International Labour Organization (ILO) building, the first building exclusively designed for an international organization was constructed; the years 1927–1937 which saw the great polemic between modernist and classical architects over the building of the Palace of Nations; and the years 1947–1952, with the triumph of modernism, represented by the UN Headquarters in New York. These events provide an illuminating allegorical insight into the physical manifestation, modes of self-expression, and transformation of international law during this era, particularly the relationship between international law and the function and role of international organizations.


1980 ◽  
Vol 20 (219) ◽  
pp. 287-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ionel Gloşcă

One of the principles underlying international law applicable in armed conflicts is that no act of war is permitted against the civilian population, consisting, by definition, of persons who take no part in the hostilities.Until the holocaust of 1939–45, international law gave practically no real protection to the civilian population in the event of war, and was not even intended to do so since up to that time war was considered to be a State activity from which civilians remained aloof. There were, nonetheless, general principles and rules in various international treaties which, in one way or another, related also to the civilian population.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Sluiter

AbstractThis article deals with the question of possible effect of the law of international criminal procedure for domestic war crimes trials. With the increasing number of national prosecutions for war crimes this question will gain in relevance.The article starts with an exploration of the origin and development of the law of international criminal procedure, to reach the conclusion that because of the lack of a strong foundation it is difficult to discern firmly established rules in this field. Next, two areas are examined where the law of international criminal procedure is capable of producing effect for national trials: human rights and rules that have developed in the specific context of war crimes prosecutions.Whether rules of international criminal procedure are formally effective in the domestic legal order remains to be seen. There is no clear obligation under international law to do so. Furthermore, the law of international criminal procedure may be difficult to harmonise with domestic inquisitorial systems.In spite of these difficulties, the article concludes that national courts will increasingly face similar procedural problems in complex war crimes trials as international criminal tribunals and will be happy to learn from their experiences.


Author(s):  
Paul Gillespie

Power, scale, and wealth have moulded relations between Ireland and Britain historically and will continue to do so in future. Political relations between them have been determined by these asymmetric factors, giving much greater strength to the larger and richer island. Nevertheless, both islands exist within a larger European and transatlantic setting, a geopolitical fact that can mitigate or counteract Britain’s ability to act exclusively in its own interests. The chapter first explores this history and structure of the Irish–British relationship and then examines current political relations between the two islands, as seen in the intense joint efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland and to regularize their interstate relations. Brexit rudely interrupts that new more normal relationship, as the third section argues, opening up several scenarios for changing constitutional futures within and between the two islands explored in the final one.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 36-57
Author(s):  
Iker Fidalgo Alday

El presente artículo parte de un caso de estudio concreto que es la investigación en torno al archivo del colectivo artístico “Fundación Rodríguez” (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1994-2012). El proceso de investigación estará marcado por todo lo que conlleva enfrentarse a un archivo compuesto por contenido digital y con formatos a punto de la obsolescencia, así como las dificultades para su conservación y mantenimiento. Partiendo de esto, se contextualizará la práctica de “Fundación Rodríguez” y el papel que juega el concepto de archivo en varias de las fases de su producción artística. Para ello analizaremos su posición desde el trabajo colectivo, la disolución del rol del artista y la desmaterialización de la obra artística como los tres frentes principales desde los que se erige su producción. Con todo, podremos valorar desde la actualidad la vigencia y relevancia de su legado, así como la potencia del mismo en el contexto artístico al que pertenece. This article starts from a concrete case study that is the research around the archive of the artistic collective “Fundación Rodríguez” (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1994-2012). The research process will be marked by all that is involved in dealing with an archive composed of digital content and formats on the verge of obsolescence, as well as the difficulties of preserving and maintaining them. Starting from this, the practice of “Fundación Rodríguez” and the role played by the concept of archive in several of the phases of its artistic production will be contextualized. To do so, we will analyze its position from the perspective of collective work, the dissolution of the role of the artist and the dematerialization of the artistic work as the three main fronts from which its production is built.With all this, we will be able to evaluate from the present time the validity and relevance of his legacy as well as its power in the artistic context to which it belongs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (127) ◽  
pp. 115-122
Author(s):  
I. Zabara

The article deals with one of the theoretical aspects of international legal order issues – the question of its properties. The author summarizes the doctrinal views of international law and regards the basic properties of the phenomenon of international legal order as its ability to act as system complexity, dynamism, orderliness, the reality and legitimacy of actions of subjects. The author notes that there is a common position in the doctrine, according to which the international legal order is a system. However, he notes that the difference in views on the international legal order as a system consists in the components the researchers include in its composition; the author examines two theoretical approaches. The complexity of the international legal order is determined from the standpoint of the number of its elements and components, as well as the number of their connections. This opinion highlights the fact that the predominant role is played by the quantity of links between elements and components, and indicates the international legal order capacity for permanent changes under the influence of the relevant internal and external factors. The dynamism of the international legal order is characterized from the point of capacity for the development and modification. It is stated that the state of the dynamics is effected by several circumstances. The author concludes that this international legal order’s property as a dynamism is one of the qualities that characterizes its condition as a system. The orderliness of the international legal order is considered from a consistency point, the interaction of parts of the whole, due to its structure. The author notes that the ordering of the international legal order displays its internal relationships and emphasizes its status as a system. The reality of the international legal order is characterized from the point of objectively existing phenomenon. The author concludes that the allocation of the international legal order of reality as one of its properties is intended to emphasize the status of one of its most important components - the state of international relations. Separately, the author considers the question of the legality of actions of subjects of international law, which are discussed in the doctrine from the standpoint of the conditions necessary for its maintenance. The author points out that in the general context of the properties that characterize the international legal order, it can be considered as an aspect wich together with other characterizes the state of the international legal order.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 275-302
Author(s):  
Álvaro Paúl

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights developed a doctrine called conventionality control. In general terms, this doctrine is somewhat similar to the idea of judicial review of legislation, but applied in a transnational forum. According to the Court, conventionality control would require domestic judges and other bodies of States parties to the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) to depart from domestic legislation that runs counter to the ACHR or the Inter-American Court’s interpretation of the ACHR. Many scholars contend that the application of this doctrine should be carried out even if the domestic bodies that apply it have no constitutional power to do so. Others have a more restrictive interpretation and consider that domestic bodies would have to apply it to the extent of their power, according to their national constitutions. Apparently, the latter interpretation is gaining a wider support, which is desirable, because only this reading would be compatible with the principles of international law, and possibly accepted by all member States.


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