scholarly journals ASEAN’s responsibilities towards regional peace and security under the light of international law

Author(s):  
Ngoc Minh Trang Pham

After more than 50 years of existence and development, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has established itself as one of the significant players in the international community. This oldest as well as biggest international organization was believed to be the 5th most substantial economy in the world in 2020. Apart from contributing to the economic development of the region, ASEAN has also paid great attention to its political goals, one of which is to maintain and enhance peace, security and stability in the Southeast Asian region. With respect to this function, ASEAN has been excoriated for its ineffective performance and indolent reactions to regional precarious situations such as the Myanmar's Rohingya crisis and the chronic disputes in the East Sea. Hence, most criticisms called for a more compelling and active ASEAN in order to fulfill its role as a guardian of regional peace and security. Simon Chesterman, Dean of the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, posed a question: ``does ASEAN exist?'' In order to answer to such a broad question, this paper analyse the legal personality of ASEAN under the light of international law, which confirms the independence of ASEAN from member states as an actor of international system. Next, the paper examine the legal powers of ASEAN used to respond to regional security related issues. Finally, the paper establishes that ASEAN has legal obligation to settle any disputes that affect the peace and security of the region.

Author(s):  
Noemi Gal-Or

SummaryThis article challenges the argument that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is devoid of executive or governing functions and, hence, immune from the regime set out in the International Law Commission’s 2011 Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (RIO). A brief drafting history of the RIO, clarification of the terminology associated with matters of international responsibility, and two hypothetical examples illustrating the potential for WTO responsibility set the stage for the article’s main argument. The author examines the WTO’s nature by analyzing its constituent law, its sui generis mandate and functions, its international legal personality, and its own use of terminology in presenting itself to the world. Critical analysis of RIO Articles 64 (on lex specialis) and 10 (on the existence of a breach of an international obligation), and their application to the WTO, completes the argument. The author thus refutes both the notions that (1) the WTO is exclusively member driven and, hence, not an executive, governing organization but a sui generis entity and (2) the WTO is therefore unable to breach an international obligation and thus immune from the RIO regime. The article concludes that, while a breach by the WTO of an international obligation may be exceedingly rare, it nonetheless — as any international organization — comes within the ambit of the RIO regime. The WTO should therefore consider adjusting its internal rules accordingly.


Author(s):  
Higgins Dame Rosalyn, DBE, QC ◽  
Webb Philippa ◽  
Akande Dapo ◽  
Sivakumaran Sandesh ◽  
Sloan James

The United Nations (UN) was created by its founding member states when they adopted the UN Charter. Therefore, the legal authority for its existence, status, and possession of legal personality is derived from the role of states as lawmakers in the international system. This chapter discusses the meaning of legal personality and basis for its possession by the UN; status as an international organization; basis for legal personality; consequences of legal personality; position in international law; position in domestic law; what is covered by the legal personality; and the independent competence of subsidiary organs to rely on the UN’s legal personality in international law and such personality granted in municipal law.


1963 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-230

The Security Council discussed this question at its 1022nd–1025th meetings, on October 23–25, 1962. It had before it a letter dated October 22, 1962, from the permanent representative of the United States, in which it was stated that the establishment of missile bases in Cuba constituted a grave threat to the peace and security of the world; a letter of the same date from the permanent representative of Cuba, claiming that the United States naval blockade of Cuba constituted an act of war; and a letter also dated October 22 from the deputy permanent representative of the Soviet Union, emphasizing that Soviet assistance to Cuba was exclusively designed to improve Cuba's defensive capacity and that the United States government had committed a provocative act and an unprecedented violation of international law in its blockade.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agung Citra Purnama

<p><strong>Abstrak</strong> – Kawasan Indo-Pasifik merupakan kawasan yang menjadi perhatian dunia saat ini, karena kekuatan di bidang politik, ekonomi dan militer dari negara-negara yang ada didalam kawasan tersebut. Permasalahan keamanan yang terjadi di kawasan tersebut menjadi perhatian dunia dan Indonesia merasa perlu berperan aktif dalam menciptakan perdamaian dan keamanan di kawasan. Oleh karena itu, melalui mantan Menteri Luar Negeri Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia mengajukan sebuah gagasan pembentukan Indo-Pacific Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation untuk menjaga keamanan kawasan. Artikel ini bermaksud mengetahui makna dan tujuan gagasan pembentukan traktat ini, serta prospek dan masalah dalam mewujudkannya. Di akhir penelitian ditemukan simpulan bahwa gagasan dan tujuan dari pembentukan Indo-Pacific Treaty ini adalah menciptakan mekanisme untuk mempromosikan cara damai dan saling percaya dengan tidak menggunakan cara pengerahan kekuatan militer dan tidak merugikan pihak-pihak lain di dalam kawasan. Walaupun untuk saat ini prospek mewujudkan gagasan ini masih kecil dikarenakan adanya sejumlah masalah yang menghadang, namun gagasan ini tetap dapat diwujudkan di masa depan dengan menggunakan strategi yang mendapat dukungan dari negara-negara lain di kawasan.</p><p><br /><strong>Kata Kunci</strong> : gagasan, indo-pacific treaty, prospek, masalah, keamanan kawasan, kerjasama keamanan</p><p><br /><em><strong>Abstract</strong></em> – Indo-Pacific region is an area of concern for the world today, because of the power in politics, economics and military of the countries that are in this region. Security problems that occur in this region become the attention of the world and Indonesia felt it necessary to play an active role in establishing peace and security in the region. Therefore, through the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia proposed the idea of establishment an Indo-Pacific Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation for maintaining regional security. This article intends to determine the meaning and purpose of the idea of this treaty, as well as the prospects and problems in realizing them. In conclusion, the idea and the purpose of the establishment of Indo-Pacific Treaty is to create mechanisms to promote peaceful means and mutual trust without deployment of military force and harming other parties in the region. Although for now the prospect of realizing this idea is still small due to a number of problems facing, but this idea can still be realized in the future by using a strategy that has the support of other countries in the region.</p><p><br /><em><strong>Keywords</strong></em>: idea, indo-pacific treaty, prospects, problems, regional security, security cooperation</p>


2019 ◽  
pp. 131-160
Author(s):  
Gleider Hernández

This chapter looks at international organizations, their differences to States, and their position within the international legal order. Today, international organizations exist in virtually all fields of transnational and global collective concern. In the broadest sense, they facilitate international cooperation in all areas from the harmonization of tariffs to the management of delicate ecosystems, and range in their scope from small bilateral commissions regulating transboundary resources to regional security and economic organizations, all the way to the universalist aspirations of the UN. The chapter then considers the question of establishing the legal personality of international organizations under international law, which must be distinguished from the question of whether an international organization may also hold legal personality under the domestic law of a State.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-233
Author(s):  
Kristina Daugirdas

Abstract This article argues that international organizations ‘as such’ can contribute directly to the creation of customary international law for three independent reasons. First, the states establishing an international organization may subjectively intend for that organization to be able to contribute to the creation of at least some kinds of customary international law. Second, that capacity may be an implied power of the organization. Third, that capacity may be a byproduct of other features or authorities of the international organization – specifically, the combination of international legal personality and the capacity to operate on the international plane. Affirming international organizations’ direct role in making customary international law will not dramatically change the content of customary international law or the processes by which rules of customary international law are ascertained. But recognizing that role is significant because it will reinforce other conclusions about how international organizations fit into the international legal system, including that customary international law binds international organizations. Such recognition may also shift the way lawyers within international organizations carry out their work by affecting the sources they consult when answering legal questions, the materials they make publicly available and the kinds of expertise that are understood to be necessary to discharge their responsibilities. Finally, affirming international organizations’ role in creating customary international law may make international organizations more willing to comply with those rules.


Author(s):  
Ralph Pettman

International relations (IR) is widely accepted as an academic discipline in its own right, despite the many subdisciplines which hold it together. These disparate subdisciplines, in fact, have come to define international relations as a whole. Establishing systematic matrices that describe and explain the discipline as a whole can show how the subdisciplines that constitute international relations have sufficient coherence to allow us to say that there is a discipline there. To look at the discipline otherwise would be viewing it as a mere collection of insights taken from other disciplines—in short, international relations could not be defined as a discipline at all. Such an argument forms a more heterodox view of international relations—one which does not attempt to engage with traditional debates about what constitutes the subject’s core as compared with its periphery. The “old” international relations was largely confined to politico-strategic issues to do with military strategy and diplomacy; that is, to discussions of peace and war, international organization, international governance, and international law. It was about states and the state system and little more. By contrast the “new” international relations is an all-inclusive account of how the world works. The underlying coherence of this account makes it possible to provide more comprehensive and more nuanced explanations of international relations.


2006 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javaid Rehman

AbstractSince 11 September 2001, international law and the community it governs are at a crossroads. While the world appears to be besieged by terrorist threats from non-state actors such as the Al-Qaeda, there is also a substantial risk of super-power unilateralism and arrogance. Amidst these crises, South-Asia occupies a sensitive and vulnerable position. The region is also beset with ethnic, religious, and domestic political conflicts which provide substantial threats to regional peace and security. Against the backdrop of the enormous complications faced by South Asia, the present article considers the role of international and regional institutions in developing forums for establishing peace and security for the region, as well greater promotion of human rights. A particular focus is upon the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) which, it is contended, is an organisation capable of providing a suitable platform for peaceful dialogue within South-Asia.


2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Caron

In fact, the first organized communities of international law . . . are organizations the function of which is to settle conflicts.Hans KelsenBut here we shall note the recurrence of a paradox . . . . Where practice is least ethical, theory becomes most Utopian.Edward Hallett CarrThe belief that a world free of war might be possible, be more than simply a dream, is a relatively recent phenomenon. In earlier times, war—like disease—was a part of life. There existed then a fatalism about war that no doubt persists in many parts of the world today. During the nineteenth century, however, parts of the world developed a confidence in progress and a hope that progress might extend to the abolition of war. Most importantly for this essay, a popular belief circulated at the e nd of the century that the establishment of a permanent international court would be an important step toward a world free of war. Ad hoc arbitration, as distinct from adjudication by such a permanent court, was not the same and, by itself, not enough. The 1899 Peace Conference was a point of inflection, a turn in the river, in the effort to move beyond ad hoc international arbitration to adjudication by a permanent international court as a means to avoid war a nd preserve international peace and security.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edouard Fromageau

AbstractThe Global Water Partnership (GWP) represents a new kind of institution that raises various interesting questions in terms of international institutional law. Established in 1996 as a “virtual organization”, it progressively evolved to become in 2002 a twofold institution structured around, on the one hand, a network without legal personality and, on the other hand, an international organization with full legal personality under international law. This article aims to analyze this unique structure and its consequences on membership and organic issues. The reasons underpinning this evolution will also be studied. If institutional flexibility prevailed in the early life of the institution, practical problems and concerns about legal legitimacy have led to a more formal structure in its later life. Principles such as those developed by the Global Administrative Law (GAL) project, namely legitimacy, transparency and accountability, have been also widely used to shape and organize this structure.


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