In association with the International Commission of Jurists

August 2015

20 Aug

[Mélanie Vianney-Liaud is a PhD Candidate at the Aix-Marseille University, III, France.] At the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), victims are granted procedural rights to participate in their personal capacity. However, in both courts, victim participation is challenging since mass crimes make thousands of victims. The crimes perpetrated during the Khmer Rouge regime...

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19 Aug

[Francesco Montanaro is a dual PhD candidate at Bocconi University (Milan) and Pantéon-Assas University (Paris).] Saving the Euro at any cost. This imperative drove the EU and EU Member States’ response to the sovereign debt crisis. Following an incremental pattern, they adopted a number of measures that culminated in the conclusion of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Treaty and in the adoption...

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18 Aug

[Ryan Gauthier is a PhD Candidate at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.] Mo’ Sporting Events, Mo’ Problems In June, the 2015 European Olympic Games took place in Baku, Azerbaijan. Did you watch? You might not have even been aware of them! This first edition of the European Olympic Games is a symbol of the growing number of sports mega-events, joining the Olympic Games, the Fédération Intenationale de Football Association (‘FIFA’) World Cup, and others, on an ever-crowded sporting calendar. However, all is not positive. Just before the 2015 Games began, the Netherlands declined to host the 2019 edition of the European Olympic Games, citing the almost €60 million price tag as too much. Sports mega-events have expanded not only in number, but also in geographic scope. Baku 2015 is an example of sports mega-events being held in developing countries. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and countries such as Argentina and Qatar have hosted the world’s premier sports mega-events (Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, Commonwealth Games) since 2008. Unfortunately for the citizens of these countries, these events have also been prime examples of the worst problems caused by sports mega-events. Families have been evicted from their homes (sometimes forcibly), ecologically sensitive areas have lost their protected status so that infrastructure such as ski runs or golf courses can be constructed, labour rights abuses have run rampant on infrastructure projects, and civil dissent has been quashed. To add insult to injury, the same old negative legacies of ‘white elephants’, such as unused or half-empty stadiums, deserted parks, unused hotel rooms, and public debt have reared their head.   My PhD research focuses on the accountability of international sporting organisations for the worst outcomes of their events. What I hope to do with this blog post is outline one aspect of accountability, the use of a monitoring mechanism. I will outline the problem of an absent state and a weak mandate. I will then discuss a comparison with the World Bank, and lessons that might be learned by international sporting organisations. Where Does the Buck Stop? Many organisations are involved in putting on a sports mega-event. As a start, international sporting organisations such as the IOC and FIFA hold the intellectual property rights to the event. However, these organisations do not directly engage in preparations for the event, but instead provide varying levels of financial and logistical support. The actual preparation is carried out by a local organising committee (which may be public or private), who hires contractors for construction, and so forth. The state government also supports the preparations. When things go wrong, no party is held to account. This is due in part to the multiplicity of organisations involved, creating a ‘problem of many hands’. This situation is exacerbated because the state, the one organisation which is expected to provide a backstop to guarantee that its citizens are not harmed, is often unwilling or unable to hold anyone else to account. In some cases, particularly in regards to the eviction of individuals, and allowing construction in environmentally-sensitive areas, the government is actually complicit in the harm. Thus, with an absent state, my research examines how the international sporting organisations should be accountable, and should hold others to account, for the harms caused by hosting their sports mega-events. Baby Steps As part of its response to this situation,
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17 Aug

The journal has published what has to be the most ridiculous article in the history of IHL scholarship. And no, I'm not being hyperbolic. Written by someone named William C. Bradford, identified -- terrifyingly --  as an "Associate Professor of Law, National Security, and Strategy, National Defense University, Washington, D.C," it's entitled "Trahison des Professeurs: The Critical Law of Armed Conflict...

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17 Aug

[Remy Jorritsma (LL.M.) is a lecturer in public international law at the Department of International and European Law of Maastricht University. In September 2015 he will join the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg as a Research Fellow/PhD candidate. Contact at r.jorritsma@maastrichtuniversity.nl.] Armed conflicts involving e.g. Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Palestine, and the self-proclaimed Islamic State demonstrate legal ambiguities with regard to State responsibility as a...

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17 Aug

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has arrived in Addis Ababa for peace talks aimed at brokering an end to the country's civil war, reversing an earlier decision as international threats of possible sanctions mount. Fraught with logistic and security concerns journalists have struggled to report on Boko Haram's...

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16 Aug

Announcements NALSAR International Law Society (affiliated to I.L.S.A) and NALSAR University of Law, one of the premier law schools in India, are glad to announce the launch of NALSAR International Law Journal. NALSAR International Law Journal, a biannual peer-review e- journal, seeks to provide a platform for highest quality debate on International Law, both on levels of theoretical abstraction and on the level of contemporary...

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13 Aug

Regular readers might remember a debate here and at Just Security (links here) in which I and a number of others debated whether it was perfidious for Mossad to use a booby-trapped civilian SUV to kill Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah's intelligence chief, in a Damascus suburb. I am pleased to announce that International Law Studies, the official journal of the US Naval War College,...

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13 Aug

[Nikolaos A. Ioannidis is a PhD candidate in Public International Law (University of Bristol).] On the verge of the 21st century, the discovery of “Noa”, a gas field offshore Israel, reinvigorated the Eastern Mediterranean (East Med) states’ interest in the sea. Additional hydrocarbon deposits were found in the sea waters adjacent to Israel, Gaza, Cyprus and Egypt, while the United States Geological Survey estimated that the Levant Basin alone contains 1.7 million barrels of oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. These developments made the regional states realize that, in order to avail themselves of the immense underwater wealth, they should first demarcate their maritime space in conformity with the law of the sea rules. This post analyses the maritime boundary delimitation agreements concluded so far in the East Med. It should be pointed out that these are the first EEZ delimitation agreements to have been signed in the Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps the most noteworthy features of these arrangements is the use of the median line and the adherence of Israel to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC or the Convention) rules on the EEZ and maritime delimitation, despite the fact that it is not a state-party to the Convention. In particular, four East Med states proceeded with the conclusion of bilateral maritime boundary delimitation agreements; the first delimitation agreement between Egypt and Cyprus in 2003 was followed by another two between Lebanon-Cyprus in 2007 (pending ratification by Lebanon); and Israel-Cyprus in 2010. All three agreements are concise and comprise five virtually identical articles each. Undoubtedly, maritime boundary delimitation is a pivotal function within the realm of the law of the sea. As the Arbitral Tribunal in the Bangladesh/India Award stressed:
“The importance of stable and definitive maritime boundaries is all the more essential when the exploration and exploitation of the resources of the continental shelf are at stake… the sovereign rights of coastal States, and therefore the maritime boundaries between them, must be determined with precision to allow for development and investment (emphasis added).”
Even though the East Med states maintain variant positions on maritime affairs, they have perceived the utility of the law of the sea apparatus in facilitating hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, hence they decided to act within its ambit and collaborate with a view to gaining multiple profits from the energy windfall. Legal analysis of the agreements In the Preambles of these instruments, the contracting parties set forth the desire for cooperation, note the importance of EEZ delimitation “for the purpose of development” and recall the relevant LOSC provisions. The invocation of the LOSC in the Israeli-Cypriot agreement is of utmost significance as it not only illustrates the universal application of the Convention, but, most importantly, highlights the willingness of Israel to act in conformity with the LOSC, despite not being a party to the Convention, at least in terms of the provisions relevant to the EEZ. In any event, the EEZ concept forms part and parcel of customary international law, thus, even non-member states to the Convention are entitled to use and are obliged to observe the relevant rules [Continental Shelf (Tunisia/Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (Judgment) [1982] ICJ Rep. 18, para. 100; Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area [1984] ICJ Rep. 246, para. 94; Continental Shelf (Libyan Arab Jamahiriyia/Malta) (Judgment) [1985] ICJ Rep. 13, para. 34]. Perforce Article 1(a) of each agreement, the maritime limit between the contracting states is the median line, namely a line “every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points on the baselines of the two Parties” (Article 15 LOSC). The mutual acceptance and use of the median line evinces the establishment of a regional practice in the East Med favouring this method, contrary to the efforts of Turkey, which has diachronically been rejecting the median line/equidistance principle; instead, Turkey has been advocating the vague equitable principles/relevant circumstances method, which provides that all relevant factors should be considered so as to reach an equitable result. Paragraphs b-d of Article 1 address the definition of the coordinates of the maritime boundaries. Furthermore,
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12 Aug

My colleague Anne Orford has just received -- and deservedly so -- a very significant Australian Laureate Fellowship for a program entitled Civil War, Intervention, and International Law. The program is funded by the Australian Research Council from 2015 to 2020 and will establish an interdisciplinary research team based at Melbourne Law School. Here is a snippet from the description of the program: Professor Orford’s...

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12 Aug

[Arthur Kutoroff is a graduate of Cornell Law School. He can be reached at Kutoroff [at] gmail [dot] com.] There is a fundamental asymmetry between the treatment of individuals and the treatment of states within international law: individuals may claim excuses for their violations of legal obligations, but states may not. Philosophers and lawyers distinguish between justifications and excuses: an action is justified if it is morally good or right (or at least not bad or wrongful); an action is excused if it is wrongful but the actor is not culpable for the wrongful action. This distinction affects the rights of third parties as well: third parties may lawfully assist a justified action, but may not assist an excused action because excuses are personal to the excused. This distinction has been widely influential in domestic criminal law, as many jurisdictions clearly distinguish between justifications such as self-defense and excuses such as insanity. International criminal law seems to recognize excuses as well. The Rome Statute provides defenses such as duress, insanity, and intoxication for defendants before the ICC, although the Rome Statute is not entirely clear about which defenses are justifications and which are excuses. Moreover, in the Erdemovic case the ICTY recognized duress as a defense, albeit in limited circumstances. International law does recognize defenses for states that breach their international obligations, but it does not clarify which defenses are justifications and which are excuses. For example, in the 1838 Caroline affair, British forces entered United States territory to destroy an American ship that was supplying Canadian rebels during the Upper Canada Rebellion. In response, United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster argued in a letter to the British government that the British failed to meet the standard of self-defense, which requires “necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation." This definition combines elements of excuse and justification. The requirement that an exercise of self-defense is necessary suggests that self-defense is a justification, since jurisdictions generally recognize that a necessary action is justified. Yet, as George Fletcher and Jens Ohlin explain, the requirement that one could not do otherwise invokes the idea of self-preservation, which is more an excuse than a justification. Moreover, that requirement that one has no moment of deliberation invokes the idea of provocation, which is arguably a partial justification and a partial excuse. Yet more recently international law has abandoned the language of excuse. The United Nations Charter authorizes the use of force if Security Council approves the use of force, and also maintains "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations." In both of these circumstances, the use of force is justified, not merely excused: a state using force with UN Security Council approval or in self-defense has not committed a wrongful action. Since World War II, international law has continued to recognize defenses to breaches of international obligations, but it has not clearly distinguished between justifications and excuses. Yet defenses in international law seem more like justifications than like excuses. As an illustration, consider the Draft Articles on State Responsibility, which provides a set of defenses to breaches of international law. Consider the defense of necessity, which was described in the Draft Articles and recognized by the ICJ in the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Project case. The Draft Articles describe necessity as “a ground for precluding the wrongfulness of an act not in conformity with an international obligation,” which invokes the language of justification rather than excuse. Recently the UN General Assembly has commended the Draft Articles (now just "the Articles"), further solidifying their place in international law yet further entrenching the ambiguity between justifications and excuses. International law should consider recognizing excuses for states, as the theories that warrant the provision of excuses for individuals may apply to states as well. As an illustration, consider H.L.A. Hart's theory of excuses: agents should be punished for their actions only if they have “the normal capacity, physical and mental, for doing what the law requires and abstaining from what it forbids, and a fair opportunity to exercise these capacities.” Hart considers various excuses, such as duress, mistake, and insanity, and notes that in these circumstances the defendant “could not have done otherwise.” There are other theories besides Hart’s: scholars have advocated alternative theories of excuse grounded in causation, choice, character, utilitarianism, and other considerations as well. But given H.L.A. Hart’s influence, his theory is a useful starting point. Hart’s capacity and opportunity theory of excuse seems to apply to states as well as to individuals. Consider the prospects of a duress defense for states. States may be subject to coercive pressure from other states, and such coercive pressure may undermine the normal capacity of a government to act in conformity with international law. Moreover, coercive pressure from other states may deny a state a fair opportunity to conform their conduct to the requirements of international law. To an extent, international law already recognizes duress, as the Draft Articles recognize coercion as a defense. Yet international law should clearly recognize duress or coercion as an excuse, not a justification. The moral significance of coercion is not that coercion justifies an otherwise wrongful action, but rather that it transfers culpability to the coercive third party. Were international law to recognize duress as an excuse, it would open the conceptual space to condemn wrongful conduct without condemning those who lacked the opportunity and capacity to follow their obligations. As illustration of the effect of duress on state conduct,
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11 Aug

[Bart L. Smit Duijzentkunst recently received his PhD in international law from the University of Cambridge. He will be teaching international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, in the 2015 fall semester.] When, in December 2013, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) opened its gates to thousands of civilians fleeing violence in the wake of an alleged coup, it also opened a new chapter on the UN’s commitment to the protection of civilians. Two decades earlier UN troops had received vague orders to protect “safe areas” in Bosnia and Rwanda—with disastrous consequences. Today UNMISS is explicitly authorised to use “all necessary means” to protect civilians. Yet while the language of UN mandates has evolved, so have developments on the ground. UN policy-makers originally envisioned protection of civilians measures as short-term, localised interventions to ensure the physical safety of persons in acute emergency situations. In South Sudan, however, 18 months after the outbreak of hostilities almost 140,000 people continue to reside in so-called “protection of civilians sites” across the country. As a result, UNMISS peacekeepers are not simply called upon to protect against external threats, but also to maintain public safety and security within protection of civilians sites. But does their mandate cover these activities? This post briefly discusses the evolution of peacekeeping mandates before offering some reflections on UNMISS’ authority. Protection of civilians mandates emerged in UN Security Council practice on the eve of the new millennium. In “traditional” mandates, the protection of civilians had been an afterthought, the fortuitous consequence of other peacekeeping objectives. For example, the mandate of UNPROFOR, operating in the Balkans in the mid 1990s, merely called upon the mission to deter attacks on so-called “safe areas”, to monitor cease-fires and to promote the withdrawal of military and paramilitary units from these areas. UNPROFOR could only take “all necessary measures”, including the use of force, in self-defence. Similarly, when UNAMIR in Rwanda was authorised to establish “secure humanitarian areas” in 1994, the UN Security Council recognised that the mission might be required to take action in self-defence to protect the areas, but did not explicitly authorise it to use force to do so. Propelled by the failures in Bosnia and Rwanda, and encouraged by the emerging idea that the international community held a “responsibility to protect” vulnerable populations, in 1999 the UN Security Council started to explore the protection of civilians as an objective of peacekeeping. It began passing dedicated resolutions and included protection of civilians clauses in operational mandates. These “robust” mandates reflect a recognition by the Security Council that impartiality of UN peacekeeping operations “is not the same as neutrality or equal treatment of all parties in all cases for all time” and that in certain circumstances “peacekeepers may not only be operationally justified in using force but morally compelled to do so.” In the same year, the UN Security Council vested certain missions with far-reaching administrative powers. UNMIK in Kosovo and UNTAET in East Timor were tasked to provide administrative functions while developing domestic institutions. In line with their “executive” mandates, these missions were empowered to draft local laws, implement domestic policies and administer justice, including arresting and sentencing alleged criminals, until these powers were transferred to local governments (in 2008 and 2002 respectively). With these differences between traditional, robust and executive mandates in mind, let’s return to the situation of UNMISS. Following South Sudan’s independence on 9 July 2011, UNMISS’ initial mandate focussed on state-building and conflict resolution efforts; the protection of civilians was buried deep in its sub-clauses. These political ambitions went up in flames with the outbreak of violence on 15 December 2013, when an alleged coup triggered a civil war between Government forces, led by President Salva Kiir, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army – In Opposition (SPLM/A-IO), headed by former vice-President Riek Machar. In light of the persistent fighting and the massive influx of internally displaced persons and refugees onto UNMISS premises, the UN Security Council revised UNMISS’ mandate in November 2014 to make the protection of civilians its top priority. The new, robust mandate removes references to “imminent” threats, simply authorising UNMISS to “use all necessary means” to “protect civilians under threat of physical violence, irrespective of the source of such violence”. While housing, food and sanitation are principally provided by humanitarian organisations, UNMISS is in charge of “maintain[ing] public safety and security within and of UNMISS protection of civilians sites”. This is not the first time that the UN has provided shelter to civilians on its premises: from East Timor to Palestine, over the last decades civilians have flocked to UN bases in the face of violence. The UN has developed various policies to deal with these situations, which range from setting out general principles to providing specific guidelines on civilians seeking protection at UNMISS sites (the latter drafted prior to December 2013). All these documents stress the exceptional and temporary nature of these measures: they speak of protection in terms of hours or days, not weeks or months. Yet as the conflict in South Sudan persists and peace remains elusive, what might have seemed a temporary measure at first has turned into a prolonged situation with few prospects of resolution.
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