In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

13 Aug

[Stacey Henderson is a PhD Candidate and Teaching Fellow at Adelaide Law School, The University of Adelaide, South Australia] Children are among the most vulnerable during armed conflict.  The existence of special protections for children in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the existence of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, all attest to the special vulnerability of children.  The security of children during armed conflict has even been recognised by the Security Council as being a matter of international peace and security (see for example: SCR 1261, SCR 1314, SCR 1379).  Given the importance of protecting children and other vulnerable groups during armed conflict, does the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (‘R2P’) clarify the principles governing international responses to atrocity crimes? At its heart, R2P is about duty – the primary duty of states to protect their populations from atrocity crimes and the secondary duty of the international community to ‘use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means’ to help protect against atrocity crimes and to take action through the Security Council when the state ‘manifestly fails’ to protect its population.  Even if it is R2P-lite (.pdf), this formulation of R2P and the duty of the international community which flows from it, in practice appears to allow considerable scope for the international community to take significant steps to intercede in armed conflicts where atrocity crimes are being committed, provided those measures do not cross the threshold of use of force in the absence of a Security Council resolution.  In order to distinguish these less-than-force measures from the baggage that comes with the term “intervention,” in my view they are better described as “intercession.”  Although in its early stages, my research indicates that these less-than-force measures (intercession) include unilateral sanctions, trade restrictions, diplomacy, withdrawal of aid funding and even non-lethal support to rebel groups (.pdf).  These are measures taken by states, without Security Council authorisation, which are less than the use of force, but which appear to be the site of the most significant opportunities for change that protects the most vulnerable, including children. The increasing use of intercession by the international community in response to modern armed conflicts reveals an emerging norm in international law which recognises that there are international obligations to protect human rights, particularly the human rights of the most vulnerable such as children, and humanitarian ideals that are more important than, and overtake, sovereignty when atrocity crimes are being committed. 
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13 Aug

[Kristin Hausler is an Associate Senior Research Fellow in Public International Law and Robert McCorquodale is the Director of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. The views expressed here are those of the authors and not of BIICL.] On 30 July, a school operated by a UN agency in the Jabalia refugee camp, north of Gaza City, was shelled by the...

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11 Aug

[Lucas E. Barreiros is a Professor of Public International Law and Coordinator of International Human Rights Law Masters Program at the University of Buenos Aires.] While much attention has been paid to the differences and similarities between the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) as well as to the dialogue between them [see here, here, here and here for examples], none of that attention has been devoted to comparing the one aspect of their work that best and most synthetically captures all that sets them apart – that is, the doctrines of “margin of appreciation” and “control of conventionality”. It is proposed here that more attention should be paid to the explanatory power of these two doctrines in understanding the different identities and diverging trajectories of the ECHR and the IACHR. As known, the “margin of appreciation” doctrine was developed by the ECHR starting in its Handyside v. United Kingdom judgment. It has been understood to refer, as pointed out by Steven Greer, to “the room for manoeuvre that the Strasbourg institutions are prepared to accord to national authorities in fulfilling their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights”. The rationale for allowing this margin of appreciation, as pointed out by the ECHR in Handyside when referring to the conditions set out in the Convention to lawfully restrict the freedom of expression, is that national authorities, “by reason of their direct and continuous contact with the vital forces of their countries (…) are in a better position than the international judge to give an opinion on the exact content of these requirements”. For its part, the “control of conventionality” was first mentioned by the IACHR in its judgment in the Case of Almonacid Arellano et al v. Chile.The IACHR held that:
“(…) domestic judges and courts are bound to respect the rule of law, and therefore, they are bound to apply the provisions in force within the legal system. But when a State has ratified an international treaty such as the American Convention, its judges, as part of the State, are also bound by such Convention. This forces them to see that all the effects of the provisions embodied in the Convention are not adversely affected by the enforcement of laws which are contrary to its purpose and that have not had any legal effects since their inception. In other words, the Judiciary must exercise a sort of “conventionality control” between the domestic legal provisions which are applied to specific cases and the American Convention on Human Rights. To perform this task, the Judiciary has to take into account not only the treaty, but also the interpretation thereof made by the Inter-American Court, which is the ultimate interpreter of the American Convention.” (emphasis added).
It should be noted that there are two components to the doctrine – one deals with the responsibility of national authorities to ensure that the application of national legislation does not adversely affect the rights under the American Convention of Human Rights; the other, however, is the direct opposite of the “margin of appreciation” as it leaves no room for national authorities to conduct their own assessment and requires them to apply the interpretation of the IACHR.
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11 Aug

It has become quite common to describe the downing of MH17 as a war crime. In late July, for example, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that "[t]his violation of international law, given the prevailing circumstances, may amount to a war crime," More recently, William Burke-White has said that, for framing purposes, "[t]he time has come for governments...

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11 Aug

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Rwanda has placed a German student with Ebola-like symptoms in isolation, and is waiting for test results checking for the deadly tropical disease, the health ministry says. Guinea has announced the closure of its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia because of the virus and the World Health Organization...

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10 Aug

Events The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”) is organising an International Symposium on the Legacy of the ICTR to be held in Arusha, Tanzania on November 6-7, 2014. With the ICTR’s closure scheduled for 2015, the Symposium aims to provide an opportunity for experts in the field of international justice to reflect on the ICTR’s contributions to the development of international...

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09 Aug

Kirsty Brimelow QC, the chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee (BHRC) -- and a colleague of mine at Doughty Street Chambers -- has responded to my position on the 2009 Declaration, as recounted by Joshua Rozenberg in this Guardian article. Here is the relevant paragraph: Neither Rozenberg's opinion piece nor academic he relies upon, Kevin Heller, cite the text of the 2012 decision in support...

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09 Aug

This week on Opinio Juris, the main point of discussion was the ICC's jurisdiction over the situation in Gaza. Eugene Kontorovich put the spotlight on a recent development at the ICC in relation to Egypt that reduces the chances of the Palestinians' ICC accession bid being accepted, to which Kevin responded here and Eugene followed up here. In related posts, Kevin pointed out the Bar...

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08 Aug

[David L. Attanasio is a professor of law at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá, Colombia, and Doctoral candidate in philosophy at U.C.L.A.] The Inter-American Court of Human Rights—the highest authority dedicated to enforcing international human rights law in the Inter-American system—has received deep praise for its influential and innovative reparations decisions (.pdf). Nonetheless, its more innovative reparations measures suffer from a serious problem of legitimacy, in that they do not seem to respond to the human rights violations that the Court identifies. Specifically, in the vast majority of its reparations decisions since 2001, the Court has ordered what I call extraordinary reparations, measures such as human rights training, changes to law and policy, improvements in the justice system, and provision of education, water, food, or public services (preceding links to .pdfs). These typically are in addition to compensation payments and other measures explicitly designed to eliminate the violation’s consequences. Although the Court has not adequately defended its practice of ordering extraordinary reparations, several potential bases of legitimacy may justify its principal decisions. Some extraordinary reparations are disguised orders to cease violations, others seek to repair damage to communities, and some aim to repair victim trust in the state. Despite the importance of its innovations, the Inter-American Court has not explained why it may order extraordinary reparations, particularly when it has already ordered measures supposedly sufficient to eliminate the effects of past human rights violations. For example, following a forced disappearance (.pdf), the Court ordered monetary compensation for the victim’s family supposedly equivalent to the harm suffered, but went on to order, among other measures, a literacy program for the victim’s mother. The American Convention on Human Rights empowers the Court to order reparations only for identified human rights violations, not to order any measure it thinks might make for a better state or for a more human rights-friendly social environment. It is not an international legislature. However, extraordinary reparations, which often appear aimed at changing the victim’s circumstances, apparently lack any “causal nexus” (.pdf) with a past human rights violation. As states have complained (.pdf), they do not seem to address the violation’s effects, as other reparative measures such as restitution or compensation are supposedly sufficient for that objective. The Court lacks explicit principles in its jurisprudence sufficient to clarify when and why extraordinary reparations might be legitimate.
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08 Aug

Assuming there really was authorization from the Iraqi government, I don't have any doubt that the U.S. has the right under the international law to launch new airstrikes in Iraq.  But the domestic authority for the U.S. airstrikes is much more murky, and, as Ilya Somin argues here, Congress might need to authorize continuing military action. Jack Goldsmith goes through the domestic legal bases...

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07 Aug

[Eugene Kontorovich is a Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law.] Rumors and speculation about a Palestinian ICC bid continue to abound. However, news accounts about the process behind the PA’s consideration of the issue underline the point I made in a prior post that based on the Morsi precedent, Abbas could not accept the Court’s jurisdiction. I will elaborate on that here, and address some comments about my argument (partly concurred in by Kevin) about the relevance of the Morsi matter to a Palestinian referral. In a meeting last week Abbas sought "written consent to join the ICC” from other Palestinian factions. According to another account Abbas has a draft acceptance letter, and is "waiting for signature from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.” If the PA needs the written consent - not just a political nod- from the Gaza–based factions, it strongly supports the view that the PA government does not have full power to accept jurisdiction on behalf of Palestine, especially for Gaza. Some might say that if the government is divided and both possible claimants to full powers agree, then any defect is cured (this may be why Abbas wants written authorization).  The argument does not work: the sum of governmental authority is greater than its parts. To accept ICC jurisdiction, especially after the Morsi matter, it must be clear which particular government is in control, and it must be that government that accepts jurisdiction. The reason to require government control over a state for ICC jurisdiction is it is that government that will be responsible for enforcing the treaty. A joint signature raises myriad intractable problems. Who will ultimately be carrying out the obligations of the treaty? Abbas would presumably not mind signing over authority over Israeli crimes, but then not cooperate with the court in investigating Hamas crimes, saying he has no control there. If all factions give written consent to join, who has authority to terminate membership?
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