scholarly journals The International Law and Politics of Water Access: Experiences of Displacement, Statelessness, and Armed Conflict

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
Carly A. Krakow

This article analyses international law regarding the human right to water as it impacts people who are stateless, displaced, and/or residents of armed conflict zones in the contemporary Middle East. Deficiencies in international law, including humanitarian, water, human rights, and criminal law, are examined to demonstrate international law’s strengths and weaknesses for functioning as a guarantor of essential rights for vulnerable groups already facing challenges resulting from ambiguous legal statuses. What are the political factors causing lack of water access, and what international legal protections exist to protect vulnerable groups when affected by water denial? The analysis is framed by Hannah Arendt’s assertion that loss of citizenship in a sovereign state leaves people lacking “the right to have rights”, as human rights are inextricably connected to civil rights. This article demonstrates that stateless/displaced persons and armed conflict zone residents are disproportionately impacted by lack of water, yet uniquely vulnerable under international law. This paper offers unprecedented analysis of international criminal law’s role in grappling with water access restrictions. I challenge existing “water wars” arguments, instead proposing remedies for international law’s struggle to guarantee the human right to water for refugees/internally displaced persons (IDPs). Examples include Israel/Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. A key original contribution is the application of Arendt’s theory of the totalising impacts of human rights violations to cases of water access denial, arguing that these scenarios are examples of environmental injustice that restrict vulnerable persons’ abilities to access their human rights.

Author(s):  
Fox Hazel ◽  
Webb Philippa

This chapter critically examines the territorial tort exception in UNCSI, Article 12. With some understanding of its reach and any areas of inconsistency, it next evaluates the effect of the Jurisdictional Immunities judgment on this tort exception to State immunity. This evaluation of the ICJ judgment refers to the aspects mentioned above as they apply to a tort exception and apply it briefly to three well-known controversial areas of non-contractual delictual loss — loss arising from armed conflict, environmental loss, and loss resulting from violation of a procedural fundamental human right (violation of substantive human rights being barred by the ICJ ruling). The chapter then states whether the territorial tort exception continues today to represent a restriction on the bar of State immunity.


JAHR ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
Sonja Trgovčić

The concept of international solidarity has been developing since the second half of the 20th century within the scope of international charters, conventions and declarations of protection of human rights. It has earned the qualities of the principle of international law and has been given a meaning of the key human right which binds together human rights of the first, second and third generation. With this work the author provides an explanation and gives a postulate to the legal nature of international solidarity and its legal feasibility. Furthermore, the author speaks about international cooperation, shared responsibility and the prevention of factors of climate change, hunger, inadequate health care, polarity in the economic development, and achieving equality. The author dedicates special attention to the right to health, its aspects and connections with international solidarity in protection of vulnerable groups.


Global Jurist ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvador Santino Jr. Fulo Regilme ◽  
Elisabetta Spoldi

Abstract Despite the consolidated body of public international law on children’s rights and armed conflict, why do armed rebel groups and state forces deploy children in armed conflict, particularly in Somalia? First, due to the lack of alternative sources of income and livelihood beyond armed conflict, children join the army due to coercive recruitment by commanders of armed groups. Their participation in armed conflict generates a fleeting and false sense of material security and belongingness in a group. Second, many Somali children were born in an environment of existential violence and material insecurity that normalized and routinized violence, thereby motivating them to view enlistment in armed conflict as morally permissible and necessary for existential survival.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS POGGE

Various human rights are widely recognized in codified and customary international law. These human rights promise all human beings protection against specific severe harms that might be inflicted on them domestically or by foreigners. Yet international law also establishes and maintains institutional structures that greatly contribute to violations of these human rights: fundamental components of international law systematically obstruct the aspirations of poor populations for democratic self-government, civil rights, and minimal economic sufficiency. And central international organizations, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, are designed so that they systematically contribute to the persistence of severe poverty.


2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 193-199
Author(s):  
Sean D. Murphy ◽  
Claudio Grossman

Our conversation might begin by looking backward a bit. The human rights movement from 1945 onward has been one of the signature accomplishments of the field of international law, one that refocused our attention from a largely interstate system to a system where the individual moved in from the periphery to the center. Human rights champions point to numerous landmark treaties, numerous institutions, and the rise of NGOs as a critical vehicle for developing and monitoring human rights rules. Yet others look at the international human right system and still see the state as overly central, tolerating and paying lip service to human rights, but too easily discarding them when they prove to be inconvenient. The persistence of racism comes to mind. As a general matter, how would you assess the strengths and weaknesses of the system that was built essentially during your lifetime?


2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boyd van Dijk

AbstractThe relationship between human rights and humanitarian law is one of the most contentious topics in the history of international law. Most scholars studying their foundations argue that these two fields of law developed separately until the 1960s. This article, by contrast, reveals a much earlier cross-fertilization between these disciplines. It shows how “human rights thinking” played a critical generative role in transforming humanitarian law, thereby creating important legacies for today's understandings of international law in armed conflict.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Rajesh Kumar Meher

The study analyzes involvement of children in the decade-long Maoist armed conflict in Nepal, an issue of grave human rights violations. An armed conflict affects all sections of the society irrespective of caste, class, gender, region, and religion. However, children have been one of the most vulnerable groups in the Maoist conflict in Nepal. The decade-long Maoist conflict in Nepal has various implications on children such as disruption of education, separation from families, killing and maiming, illegal detention, disability resulting from the conflict, etc. Thus, there has been gross human rights violation of children during the conflict. But one of the worst forms of implications of the Maoist conflict has been the recruitment of children as combatants by the Maoist Army, otherwise known as the People’s Liberation Army, formed in 2001, in their fight against the state forces, which is the focus of this study. The article explores how the poor disadvantaged children have been the major target of recruitment by the Maoist. It discusses the role played by the child recruits during the conflict. Besides, it examines the role played particularly by the United Nations as well as the Nepali civil societies in the protection, rehabilitation, and reintegration of children into the civil society.


2010 ◽  
Vol 92 (877) ◽  
pp. 197-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain-Guy Tachou-Sipowo

AbstractHaving established that massive human rights violations in armed conflict constitute a threat to peace and that women are the most severely affected by the scourge of war, the Security Council has since 1999 adopted a number of resolutions intended specifically for this group. These instruments contribute to the development of humanitarian law applicable to women and acknowledge the value of active participation by women in peace efforts. The following article first analyses the foundations on which the Council has been able to assume responsibility for protecting women in situations of armed conflict, and then considers the actual protection it provides. It concludes that the Council has had varying success in this role, pointing out that the thematic and declaratory resolutions on which it is largely based are not binding and therefore, they are relatively effective only as regards their provisions committing United Nations bodies. The author proposes that the Council's role could be better accomplished through situational resolutions than through resolutions declaratory of international law.


1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth J Keith

The Right Honourable Sir Kenneth Keith was the fourth speaker at the NZ Institute of International Affairs Seminar. In this article he describes and reflects upon the role of courts and judges in relation to the advancement of human rights, an issue covered in K J Keith (ed) Essays on Human Rights (Sweet and Maxwell, Wellington, 1968). The article is divided into two parts. The first part discusses international lawmakers attempting to protect individual groups of people from 1648 to 1948, including religious minorities and foreign traders, slaves, aboriginal natives, victims of armed conflict, and workers. The second part discusses how from 1945 to 1948, there was a shift in international law to universal protection. The author notes that while treaties are not part of domestic law, they may have a constitutional role, be relevant in determining the common law, give content to the words of a statute, help interpret legislation which is in line with a treaty, help interpret legislation which is designed to give general effect to a treaty (but which is silent on the particular matter), and help interpret and affect the operation of legislation to which the international text has no apparent direct relation. 


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