The Eye of the Beholder? The Contestation of Values and International Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 335-343
Author(s):  
Andrea Liese ◽  
Nina Reiners
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
The United Nations

The chapter comments on Tiyanjana Maluwa’s analysis of the contestation of value-based norms. It first, referring to the metaphor of the ‘eyes of the beholder’ and the song by Metallica with the same title, answers the question ‘Do I see what you see?’ Second, it is interested in coming closer to an intersubjective ‘truth’, that is a shared understanding for determining the alleged erosion of international law or the value-based legal norms of the United Nations (UN) Charter. By focusing on one of Maluwa’s case studies, it illustrates how conceptual choices may predetermine findings. In other words, they guide ‘into what you read’. Finally, it argues in favour of being more explicit about these choices to let others ‘see what I see’ and therefore to be transparent about the type and form of contestation one seeks to explain.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Collective Rights ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
United Nations Declaration ◽  
The Individual

The rights of indigenous peoples under international law have seen significant change in recent years, as various international bodies have attempted to address the question of how best to protect and enforce their rights. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is the strongest statement thus far by the international community on this issue. The Declaration was adopted by the United Nations on 13 September 2007, and sets out the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, as well as their rights to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education, and other issues. While it is not a legally binding instrument under international law, it represents the development of international legal norms designed to eliminate human rights violations against indigenous peoples, and to help them in combating discrimination and marginalisation. This commentary on the Declaration analyses both the substantive content of the Declaration and the position of the Declaration within existing international law. It considers the background to the text of every Article of the Declaration, including the travaux préparatoire, the relevant drafting history, and the context in which the provision came to be included in the Declaration. It sets out each provision's content, interpretation, its relationship with other principles of international law, and its legal status, and also discusses the significance and outlook for each of the rights analysed. The book assesses the practice of relevant regional and international bodies in enforcing the rights of indigenous peoples, providing an understanding of the practical application of the Declaration's principles.

The Use of Private Force by the United Nations to Coercively Prevent or Halt Gross Violations of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ Doctrine

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-232
Author(s):  
Morgan Riley
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Security Industry ◽  
Standards And Guidelines ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Robust Framework

The United Nations’ ability to coercively intervene to prevent or stop gross violations of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is weakened by its reliance on ad hoc mechanisms to secure troops. Although controversial, the deployment of private force to intervene in such circumstances is not prohibited by extant international law and may provide a pragmatic solution. Developing international legal norms can be interpreted to allow the United Nations to employ Private Military and Security Companies to protect vulnerable populations. Existing standards and guidelines for more conventional operations could be used to construct a robust framework of accountability for the United Nations, the corporations and their personnel. In turn, this could lead to the de facto international regulation of much of the global private military and security industry.

Defining 'Indigenous' in Bangladesh: International Law in Domestic Context

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kawser Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
The State ◽  
Internal Colonialism ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Government

AbstractBangladesh is one of the 11 states which abstained in voting on the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The reason as stated by the representative of Bangladesh at UN is that the term 'indigenous peoples' has not been clearly defined or identified in the aforementioned Declaration. In fact, the government of Bangladesh has been persistently denying many of the marginal communities' claim to recognition as indigenous peoples. The article argues that the state of non-dominance is one of the determining criteria of the definitions of indigenous peoples in international law. Drawing on the discourses of subaltern historiography and internal colonialism, this article further argues that the said marginal communities of Bangladesh indeed meet all the criteria including non-dominance inasmuch as they are entitled to recognition and legal protection as indigenous peoples. Case studies on historical profiles of three marginal communities of Bangladesh are provided as factual evidence in support of the above proposition.

Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-413
Author(s):  
Rizal Abdul Kadir
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Caspian Sea ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The United Nations

After twenty-two years of negotiations, in Aktau on August 12, 2018, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The preamble of the Convention stipulates, among other things, that the Convention, made up of twenty-four articles, was agreed on by the five states based on principles and norms of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law. The enclosed Caspian Sea is bordered by Iran, Russia, and three states that were established following dissolution of the Soviet Union, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.

scholarly journals International Law, COVID-19 and Feminist Engagement with the United Nations Security Council: The End of the Affair?

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-328
Author(s):  
Catherine O’Rourke
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Seminal Contribution ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Gender Based

AbstractThe gendered implications of COVID-19, in particular in terms of gender-based violence and the gendered division of care work, have secured some prominence, and ignited discussion about prospects for a ‘feminist recovery’. In international law terms, feminist calls for a response to the pandemic have privileged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), conditioned—I argue—by two decades of the pursuit of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda through the UNSC. The deficiencies of the UNSC response, as characterised by the Resolution 2532 adopted to address the pandemic, manifest yet again the identified deficiencies of the WPS agenda at the UNSC, namely fragmentation, securitisation, efficacy and legitimacy. What Resolution 2532 does bring, however, is new clarity about the underlying reasons for the repeated and enduring nature of these deficiencies at the UNSC. Specifically, the COVID-19 ‘crisis’ is powerful in exposing the deficiencies of the crisis framework in which the UNSC operates. My reflections draw on insights from Hilary Charlesworth’s seminal contribution ‘International Law: A Discipline of Crisis’ to argue that, instead of conceding the ‘crisis’ framework to the pandemic by prioritising the UNSC, a ‘feminist recovery’ must instead follow Charlesworth’s exhortation to refocus on an international law of the everyday.

Temporary application of international treaties: legal aspects

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-62
Author(s):  
Veronika Shcherbyna ◽  
Ivanna Maryniv
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Legal Institution ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Provisional Application ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Law

Problem setting. Nowadays the problem of the provisional application of treaties can be described as actual. It is no accident that it has been the subject of the attention of the United Nations International Law Commission with the task of elaborating the most important problems of international law. Furthermore, the above-mentioned subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly recognized the need to analyze the provisional application of treaties, the need for the progressive development and codification of international law in respect of the topic dealt with in this article. Аnalysis of research and publications. Aspects of the problem of provisional application of treaties are reflected primarily in the works of in the works of I.I. Lukashuk, O.V. Kyivets, O.V. Pushniak, I.I. Maryniv, T. Leber. Target of research is to describe the legal institution of the provisional introduction of international treaties and to find reasons for its use. Article’s main body. The article is devoted to the question of the temporary use of an international treaty as a fundamental institution of international law. The study discusses the need for provisional application of treaties. Attention was paid to the works of legal academics, who had considered this issue, their works and summaries were reviewed regarding the question under consideration. The author analyzed the formulations of the article 25 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Legal aspects and shortcomings were considered. First of all, it was noted that there is no definition of the temporary application of international treaties in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and article 25 of the Convention had been criticized for being difficult to understand and lacking legal precision. In the article, the author noted that in general, the provisional use takes place before the entry into force of the treaty, when countries have not yet completed the necessary internal state procedures for its entry into force and have not internationally expressed consent to be bound. The author also stressed that the application of the treaty before it enters into force or will enter in the moment when it is implemented, the parties will address to their commitments and thus the object of the treaty would disappear. The author highlighted another legal aspect of the international legal institution under consideration is that, in order to implement the institution of provisional application of treaties, A special law and regulations may be enacted in domestic law (constitutional and legislative). What is more, the author mentioned that it is appropriate to devote attention to the work of the father of the national science on the law of international treaties I.I. Lukashuk. Conclusions. The author concluded that the institution of the provisional use of treaties is one of the key institutions in the law of treaties enabling the parties to urgently address cooperation issues. Another conclusion of the author of this article is that countries resort to this legal instrument under consideration for several reasons: urgent resolution of issues to which the relevant treaties apply; the desire of countries to adopt and immediately implement confidence-building measures; preventing time gaps in the operation of a number of international treaties, which have been successively adopted and replace each other on the same subject.

Stakeholder Theory and Justice Issues: The Leap from Business Management to Contemporary International Law

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-180
Author(s):  
Bronik Matwijkiw ◽  
Anja Matwijkiw
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Business Management ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The United Nations

AbstractIn this article, the two authors examine the leap from business management to contemporary international law in the context of stakeholder theory. Because stakeholder theory was developed for business management, they provide a thorough account of the original framework. Furthermore, to illustrate the theory's application as a recently adopted parameter for the United Nations, they use former Secretary-General Kofi Atta Annan's 2004-report to the Security Council, "The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies". Proceeding on the hypothesis that while all premises ultimately match traditional positions in general jurisprudence, it appears that stakeholder theory nevertheless forces the United Nations to take sides in an unprecedented manner, especially pertaining to rights-typology and the credentials-checking for this. Finally, some of the most important implications are distilled as part of an attempt to formulate a few recommendations for United Nations justice managers and administrators.

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