scholarly journals Recognition in international law: The case of Kosovo and Metohija

2015 ◽  
pp. 289-306
Author(s):  
Tijana Surlan

Recognition is an instrument of the public international law founded in the classical international law. Still, it preserves its main characteristics formed in the period when states dominated as the only legal persons in international community. Nevertheless, the instrument of recognition is today as vibrant as ever. As long as it does not have a uniform legal definition and means of application, it leaves room to be applied to very specific cases. In this paper, the instrument of recognition is elaborated from two aspects - theoretical and practical. First (theoretical) part of the paper presents main characteristics of the notion of recognition, as presented in main international law theories - declaratory and constitutive theory. Other part of the paper is focused on the recognition in the case of Kosovo. Within this part, main constitutive elements of state are elaborated, with special attention to Kosovo as self-proclaimed state. Conclusion is that Kosovo does not fulfill main constitutive elements of state. It is not an independent and sovereign state. It is in the status of internationalized entity, with four international missions on the field with competencies in the major fields of state authority - police, judiciary system, prosecution system, army, human rights, etc. Main normative framework for the status of Kosovo is still the UN Resolution 1244. It is also the legal ground for international missions, confirming non-independent status of Kosovo. States that recognized Kosovo despite this deficiency promote the constitutive theory of recognition, while states not recognizing Kosovo promote declaratory theory. Brussels Agreement, signed by representatives of Serbia and Kosovo under the auspices of the EU, has also been elaborated through the notion of recognition - (1) whether it represents recognition; (2) from the perspective of consequences it provokes in relations between Belgrade and Pristina. Official position of Serbian Government is clear - Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state. On the other hand, subject matter of Brussels Agreement creates new means of improvement for Kosovo authorities in the north part of Kosovo. Thus, Serbian position regarding the recognition is twofold - it does not recognize Kosovo in foro externo, and it completes its competences in foro domestico. What has been underlined through the paper and confirmed in the conclusion is that there is not a recognition which has the power to create a state and there is not a non-recognition which has the power to annul a state.

2019 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 199-217
Author(s):  
Maciej Grześkowiak

The paper aims at examining the influence of international legislations on the scope and content of the non-refoulement principle as articulated in the Polish law. Its shape on the Polish national ground is in fact a sum of influences stemming from external law systems. The article is based on the determination of three major sources of the refugee law that shape the content of the principle: public international law, European Union law and Polish national law. The Author first scrutinises the scope and content of the principle as laid down in crucial legislations belonging to these three sources which later enables their comparison and examination of the impact they make on one another in terms of conceptualisation of the principle of non-refoulement. The EU law reflects and specifies mechanisms established in the public international law which are further specified on a national ground. The final product is a national structure of the principle which is far more specific than the one known from the 1951 Refugee Convention that first stipulated it. The Author concludes with pointing at flaws and inaccuracies in a national articulation of the principle.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Dingle

AbstractIn this paper Lesley Dingle provides a detailed account of the historical development of the public international law collections at the Squire Law Library in Cambridge. She explains the close involvement of the academic lawyers and the librarians, past and present, in developing an important collection which reflects the significance of the subject at Cambridge's Faculty of Law. Finally, she brings things up-to-date by detailing the extent of the electronic provision which benefits the modern scholar in this discipline.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-402
Author(s):  
ANDREW MCKENZIE-MCHARG

AbstractIn 1789 in Leipzig, a slim pamphlet of 128 pages appeared that sent shock waves through the German republic of letters. The pamphlet, bearing the title Mehr Noten als Text (More notes than text), was an ‘exposure’ whose most sensational element was a list naming numerous members of the North German intelligentsia as initiates of a secret society. This secret society, known as the German Union, aimed to push back against anti-Enlightenment tendencies most obviously manifest in the policies promulgated under the new Prussian king Frederick William II. The German Union was the brainchild of the notorious theologian Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741–92). But who was responsible for the ‘exposure’? Using material culled from several archives, this article pieces together for the first time the back story to Mehr Noten als Text and in doing so uncovers a surprisingly heterogeneous network of Freemasons, publishers, and state officials. The findings prompt us to reconsider general questions about the relationship of state and society in the late Enlightenment, the interplay of the public and the arcane spheres and the status of religious heterodoxy at this time.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-126
Author(s):  
Daniel Ştefan Paraschiv ◽  
Elena Paraschiv

From the oldest times, there appeared certain norms of penal international law meantto prevent the committing of serious offenses, as well as for sanctioning them. This distinctbranch of the public international law is called upon to protect - by sanctioning personsguilty of committing serious offenses - peace and security of the whole humanity, thedevelopment in conformity with the norms of the law and moral of the international relations,the existence and perenniality of fundamental human values.


Author(s):  
Jasper MacLennan Sugars

Refoulement, a French word meaning to reject; or backwash, is a contentious issue in the international law and policy. However, the word is unknown to most of the public world – the Australian government operations to deter asylum seekers titled ‘pushing back the boats', ‘operation sovereign borders' are questionably pushing the limits as to what's refoulement and what isn't – but the worded meaning in the convention relating to the status of refugees is the process by which a persecuted asylum seeker is forcibly removed back to a place where they are re-exposed to the same danger from which they are trying to escape. In this article, the author hopes to provide information to others who are interested in the area of refugee policy and, in particular Australia's role in the development of this increasingly important field of international law as well as the implementation of their own unique approach to dealing with asylum seekers arriving in their territorial waters by boat. in this chapter the author has made every effort to provide an unbiased, politically non-partisan view of the current policies which Australia has implemented under domestic law, which includes the act of turning back of boats and offshore processing in third-nation processing facilities.


1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-458
Author(s):  
C. G. Schoenfeld

This article seeks to illuminate the effect of unconscious infantile omnipotence fantasies upon the law and some of its major officials. First, psychoanalytic discoveries about the omnipotence ideas of infants and young children are detailed, and an attempt is made to relate these ideas to the current overestimation of the status and effectiveness of international law. Then the possible relationship between such infantile notions and today's incredible litigiousness is discussed. Considered next in the light of infantile omnipotence beliefs is a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions since 1793—including the disastrous Dred Scott decision that helped to precipitate the Civil War. One of the possibilities raised is that the acceptance of the antimajoritarian concept of “judicial review” reflects the displacement of unconscious omnipotence fantasies from parents onto judges. Discussed next is the implicit logic of currently popular (but clearly unsound) Critical Legal Studies doctrines that, in effect, assign “omnipotence” both to judges and to the law they are presumably free to manipulate in the service of political goals. Finally, an attempt is made to understand why the public tends to ascribe “omnipotence” to judges and prosecutors and why the unconscious omnipotence notions of judges, prosecutors, and policemen are likely to affect their own official behavior.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-628
Author(s):  
GUY HARPAZ

AbstractThe EU's consistent policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been that Israel's presence in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip (prior to the 2005 disengagement) and the Golan Heights is subject to the laws of belligerent occupation, that any purported Israeli annexation is illegal and null and void, that Israel's settlements in the Territories are in breach of public international law and constitute a serious obstacle to peace, and that Israel and Palestine should settle their conflict on the basis of public international law and through the two-state solution. In recent years the EU attempted to concretize this policy through its trade and trade-related agreements with Israel, withholding the benefits of EU-Israeli co-operation from companies and research institutions based in the Territories or operating therein, as well as from products produced therein (the New Approach). Thus, from the EU perception, the New Approach towards the long-standing conflict and its reliance on international law may be seen as an instrument to reinforce internal and external legitimacy, buttress identity cohesiveness and as a manifestation of its more robust effectiveness. But this article seeks to conduct a more careful and balanced analysis of the New Approach and in doing so to reveal that the EU's (almost) exclusive focus on non-governmental entities, such as corporations situated in the Territories, and on Territories’ products, is misplaced in terms of public international law and effectiveness. The New Approach's deficiencies, in abstracto and in concreto, as evaluated in this article, are likely to prevent it from serving as a paradigm shift in EU-Israel relations.


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