Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
12 Jul Reparations for War in Ukraine: A Harm-Based Approach
chronic pain or disability. A Harm-based Approach A harm-based approach would have three advantages over crime/violation specific approaches: eligibility; recognition; and avoidance or mitigation of secondary victimisation. With regards to eligibility, a crime or violation approach would make reparations too restrictive and arbitrarily excluded victims who have suffered similar harms, only their perpetrators’ intent or circumstances differed. We can see this through four examples. First a farmer in a tractor working on his land triggers an anti-tank mine and has his legs blown off. In this instance it may be...
04 Feb Guilty of Disloyalty to the Charter? The International Court of Justice’s Latest Advisory Opinion on Gaza
clearly name Israel as an occupier; instead designating Israel as having obligations under the law of occupation as its ‘effective control has increased’ over Gaza [86]. This ‘functional approach’ to occupation was also in the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion on Israel’s policies and practices in the OPT [93-94]. In an attached, partially dissenting Opinion, Judge Gomez Robledo powerfully called this approach ‘timid’, and instead ruled that the ‘Gaza Strip is occupied territory, and continues to be occupied territory’ (our emphases) [5]. The inability of the Court to explicitly name...
16 May Not a Leg to Stand on: Assessing the European Court of Human Rights’ Divergent Approach to Standing in the KlimaSeniorinnen and Cannavacciuolo Cases
applicants, who no longer need to prove a direct causal link between their individual circumstances and local pollution (Cannavacciuolo, paras. 390-392). Harm can be circumscribed to a specific group of municipalities that have endured the State’s neglectful waste disposal practices for decades. Every individual living in these ‘specially affected’ municipalities is granted automatic ‘victim status’ and no longer needs to prove any specific ailments caused by the pollution. The appeal to such clear-cut approaches is undeniable, and consistent with the Court’s case-law (Cordella, paras. 100-109). For once, a formalistic approach...
04 Feb ICC and Palestine Symposium: Mind the Gap– The ‘Palestine Situation’ before the ICC
does not transfer sovereignty under international law The second issue to consider is whether the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, established with the events of 1967 and continuing to the present day can corroborate Israeli claims to those parts. This can be answered conclusively by drawing on International Humanitarian Law as encapsulated in a maxim attributed to Oppenheim: ‘there is not an atom of sovereignty in the authority of the occupying power’. Based on this assessment, even a protracted, transformative occupation, which conceals the...18 Dec Guest Post: Has the US just called for unilateral interpretation of multilateral obligations?
transnational criminal law, not international human rights law. However, we accept that, for a variety of reasons it is legitimate to apply a dynamic interpretive approach to elements of international drug control law, particularly where drug control engages human rights. However, there are clear problems with the US’s use of this approach. The first is the limits of interpretation itself. The classic approach to dynamic interpretation, as established by the European Court in Tyrer v UK, is a process of broadening or expanding the understanding of an obligation based upon...
01 Feb Reproductive Violence in Palestine: The Need for a Feminist Approach to Justice
[ Ruby Mae Axelson is a Senior Legal Advisor with Global Rights Compliance specialising in the area of international criminal law and gender justice. Prachiti Venkatraman is a Legal Advisor with Global Rights Compliance, primarily practising in the areas of international criminal, human rights and humanitarian law.] The systemic oppression that has characterised the decades long Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestinian territory and the most recent attack on Gaza impacts all Palestinians: regardless of age, gender, or sexual orientation. Any attempt to seek accountability for international crimes should be...21 Jan International Law as Behavior Symposium: Playing the Negotiated Choice Architecture Game – Negative/Positive Listing in Services Trade Agreements
treatment, subject to appropriate exceptions and reservations (a negative list approach pushing parties to avoid discriminatory measures in services regulation in all sectors); and (ii) a GATS approach to listing commitments for market access (a positive list approach more geared towards letting parties avoid making new commitments in unliberalized sectors). Whether the same outcome would have been achieved in a perfected Coasean framework, we cannot tell; what is certain, however, that it is a compromise between negotiators who were playing the behavioral choice architecture game. *On another note, it is...
04 Sep Sea Level Rise and Its Implications in International Law
...global sea level has also rekindled the debate between fixed and ambulatory baselines under International Law. At the outset, Article 4 of the UNCLOS defines a Normal Baseline as the low-water line along the coast as marked on large-scale charts officially recognized by the coastal State. The normal baseline of a State is essentially used to calculate its Maritime Boundary and consequently, the extent of its Maritime entitlements under International Law. While an ambulatory baseline approach requires the limits of the Maritime Jurisdiction of States to correspondingly shift with a...
20 Jan From the Ashes of the “Empires”: Towards Global Convergence in Approaches to Data Governance?
[Alexandros Bakos is a Postdoctoral Fellow (Industrial Policy and Digital Development Project) at the College of Law, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Amna Zaman is a S.J.D. Candidate and Fellow at the Industrial Policy and Digital Development Project, College of Law, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Georgios Dimitropoulos is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at the College of Law, Hamad Bin Khalifa University.] Introduction In her book, Digital Empires, Anu Bradford discusses how the three global digital powers, the United States (US), China, and the European Union (EU), pursue...