scholarly journals Illegal Control Over the Territory in International Law and the Status of Donbas Determination

2021 ◽  
pp. 279-296
Author(s):  
Oleksiy Kresin ◽  
Iryna Kresina

Total rejection of the aggression and territory occupation in the international law leads to their hybrid and concealed forms using gangs and mercenaries, proclaiming new “states” etc. These activities constitute serious threat to international security, can cause and already cause the fragmentation of states, anarchy, criminalization of politics, new forms of expansionism and so on. The authors of the article generalize the forms of illegal control over the territory in international law and their application considering the status of Donbas determination. International law for more than a century provides for the possibility of separate regulation of the sovereignty and legal rights of the state to the territory, on the one hand, and the implementation of the regime of illegal control over the territory – on the other. Authors argue that in the modern sense, primarily developed by doctrine and courts, illegal control over the territory can be considered as a legal regime, one of the forms of which is occupation, while others are defined as effective, overall, general, de facto control and related to undisclosed actions and informal means used by the aggressor states. This regime is characterized by the exercise of power over the territory by the will of a foreign state, and the forms of implementation of the regime differ depending on whether such a will is officially recognized or concealed. The transformation of international humanitarian law after the Second World War erased the boundaries between recognized and officially unrecognized occupation. But unlike occupation, the fact of which may be obvious, the fact of effective or other control over the territory requires the determination by judicial authorities. The qualification of illegal control by the Russian Federation of the Donbas in national and international law is ambiguous. The authors argue that the full recognition of the international armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Donbas, as well as Russia’s illegal control over latter should be expected in the process of consideration of a number of cases in the international judicial institutions.

Author(s):  
Dean Aszkielowicz

Long before the Second World War ended, the Allies were planning to prosecute Axis war criminals, including both those in positions of leadership and the perpetrators of individual crimes. There was no standing war crimes court at the end of the Second World War, however, and the post-war trials were a watershed in international law. For the trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo, Allied planners drew on the development of international humanitarian law and international agreements signed by the combatants over the decades preceding the war. The vast majority of war criminals who were prosecuted did not face the court at Nuremberg or Tokyo: they appeared before national military tribunals which were conducted according to each prosecuting country’s war crimes law. The Australian War Crimes Act passed through the parliament in October 1945, shortly before trials began.


1966 ◽  
Vol 6 (68) ◽  
pp. 567-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Pictet

The word “neuter” comes from the Latin ne-uter, which means, neither the one, nor the other. Neutrality is an essentially neutral notion. It qualifies above all the abstention of someone who remains outside a conflict who does not openly express an opinion of either side.In international law, neutrality is the opposite of belligerency. It is the position adopted, in relation to two Powers at war, by a State not taking part in the struggle. The status of neutrality regulated by juridical rules and in particular by the Hague Conventions involves rights and duties. In short, it implies refraining from taking part officially, either directly or indirectly, in hostilities. In the first place, therefore, it is a concept of an essentially military character. However, as a result of a recent evolution in events and thought, some people tend to think that neutrality should also have effect in the economic sphere, in view of its importance today in the war potential of countries.


1969 ◽  
Vol 9 (102) ◽  
pp. 491-491 ◽  

Mr. Raymond Courvoisier has since 1 August 1969 taken over the appointment of special assistant to the President of the International Committee, thus bringing it his wide experience in the field of international humanitarian law. It should, in fact, be recalled that from 1936 to 1945 he undertook a large number of missions in ICRC service as delegate in Spain, Turkey, in East European and Middle East countries. Furthermore, he was in charge of a section in the Central Prisoners of War Agency in Geneva during the Second World War.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 184-193
Author(s):  
Nicolae David Ungureanu

The international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts has evolved continuously since antiquity until today, its doctrinal writings pointing out during the modern period the influence that the progress of the concepts and the practices of war has had on the development of the normative conventions, especially the first and second world war, resulting in texts that are applicable even today.


1997 ◽  
Vol 37 (316) ◽  
pp. 56-64
Author(s):  
Hisakazu Fujita

The Advisory Opinion handed down by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 8 July 1996 concerning the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons contains many elements that are of fundamental interest from the standpoint of international humanitarian law. Indeed, humanitarian law, which has developed to a remarkable extent since the Second World War, has always lacked an express ruling on nuclear weapons.


2018 ◽  
Vol VIII (z. 2) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
Przemysław Osóbka

The article is an attempt to respond to the need to find international legal solutions, extremely important for people living in the countries threatened by the consequences of climate change, among others, the effects of rising sea levels in the seas and oceans. I try to direct attention to the still underestimated in the international law problem of the so-called "climate refugees". Behind the concept that defies the classic definitions of "refugees", there are hundreds of thousands today, and soon perhaps millions of people whose lives, health and property will be threatened by the forces of nature. The originality of the approach presented in the article is an attempt to consider whether appropriate legal solutions that protect vulnerable populations can be sought on the basis of international humanitarian law, since so far no other branch of international law seemed adequate to take up this challenge. The urgent and important dimension of the problems discussed in the article completes the necessity of searching for and finding answers to questions about the relationship between climate change and public international law. These are the legal consequences of climate deterritorialisation of sovereign states, such as the status of the population of the state without land territory, the loss of territories by archipelago states, the change of the sea borders, territorial waters, exclusive economic zones, and finally the responsibility of states for climate change. In the context of 'climate refugees', there is still no binding legal act that would meet the needs of thousands of people affected by climate change. This causes dissonance because, beyond any doubt, the situation in which these people find themselves raises a lot of fears - for their own lives, safety, health, etc. Today, entire communities and even countries face the problem of progressing deterritorialisation in face of climate threats. climate change, they face the risk of a non-culpable threat to their sovereignty.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW HAPPOLD

The recent decision of the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Prosecutor v. Samuel Hinga Norman not only addresses the status of child recruitment as a war crime, but also provides an insight into how international criminal tribunals determine what conduct is criminal in international law. However, the authority of the decision is weakened by the unconvincing evidence relied upon by the Appeal Chamber in coming to its conclusions and by a strong dissent from Justice Robertson. The decision's faults, however, merely reflect problems in the process whereby violations of international humanitarian law are criminalized.


1989 ◽  
Vol 29 (268) ◽  
pp. 9-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Haug

The idea of “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all” has been disseminated throughout the world since the Second World War and has influenced both international law and national legislation in many States. Nevertheless, torture, that most fundamental assault on the human person, has continued over the years to be practised, either systematically or occasionally, in many countries. Torture, in which a person is intentionally subjected to extreme physical pain or emotional distress, is used mainly to elicit information, break the will to resist, intimidate, humiliate and degrade. It is also used to mete out (illegal) punishment for real or supposed wrongdoings.2 Techniques of torture include withholding food and preventing sleep, abrupt alternation of extreme cold and heat or silence and noise, total isolation, causing mental confusion and distress through misinformation or other means, the use of brute force- sometimes resulting in permanent mutilation- rape, electric shocks, the application of chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, finally death threats.


2012 ◽  
Vol 94 (887) ◽  
pp. 1125-1134 ◽  

With the globalisation of market economies, business has become an increasingly prominent actor in international relations. It is also increasingly present in situations of armed conflict. On the one hand, companies operating in volatile environments are exposed to violence and the consequences of armed conflicts. On the other hand, some of their conduct in armed conflict may lead to violations of the law.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) engages with the private sector on humanitarian issues, with the aim of ensuring compliance or clarifying the obligations that business actors have under international humanitarian law (IHL) and encouraging them to comply with the commitments they have undertaken under various international initiatives to respect IHL and human rights law.In times of conflict, IHL spells out certain responsibilities and rights for all parties involved. Knowledge of the relevant rules of IHL is therefore critical for local and international businesses operating in volatile contexts. In this Q&A section, Philip Spoerri, ICRC Director for International Law and Cooperation, gives an overview of the rules applicable to business actors in situations of conflict, and discusses some of the ICRC's engagement with business actors.Philip Spoerri began his career with the ICRC in 1994. Following a first assignment in Israel and the occupied and autonomous territories, he went on to be based in Kuwait, Yemen, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Geneva, he headed the legal advisers to the Department of Operations. He returned to Afghanistan as head of the ICRC delegation there from 2004 to 2006, when he took up his current position. Before joining the ICRC, he worked as a lawyer in a private firm in Munich. He holds a PhD in law from Bielefeld University and has also studied at the universities of Göttingen, Geneva, and Munich.


2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1651-1692
Author(s):  
Steven Less

The most important change in public international law over the past century has been a re-direction of its focus exclusively on states to a broadened scope of subjects including, most importantly, individual human beings. This shift in the status of individuals may be directly traced to the widely acknowledged need, in the aftermath of the Second World War, for a more adequate response to the Holocaust and other large-scale atrocities than that offered by traditional international law. Substantive concerns led to the development of human rights law. Victims' demands for compensation or restitution for the material injuries caused by genocidal Nazi persecution spurred a parallel procedural revolution. The innovation lay in national and international recognition of individuals' rights to assert such claims on their own behalf against their own governments, foreign states and foreign private entities.


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