Search: extraterritorial sanctions

...symposium. Our first contributor is Ramesh Thakur, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Professor Thakur’s article, ‘ Law, Legitimacy and United Nations’, identifies a gap between law and legitimacy in the practice of the United Nations and posits that this is a serious challenge to the authority of the organisation. Thakur detects this ‘ legitimacy deficit ’ with respect to a number of areas. He points to the difficulties with international sanctions regimes, the concerns regarding...

...in which judicial independence has been, or is being, eroded across the EU.  Illustrating the Range of Judicial Independence Issues Adjudicated Litigation has commonly responded to frontal attacks on judges’ independence, such as arbitrary dismissals, unfounded disciplinary sanctions, or even the growing criminalization of the judicial role, often as reprisals against judges exercising independence or opposing powerful actors abuse of power. Many cases involving Poland, such as Dolińska-Ficek and Ozimekf v Poland, challenged the arbitrary removal of Polish judges and their replacement by ‘neo judges’ on the judicial council, which...

...reaches 40. This means that many Israelis, if not themselves suspected of criminal acts, are potential sources of information regarding events in Gaza and the West Bank – whether a bomb dropped on a café, or tank and rifle fire directed at Palestinians seeking food or medical assistance. Israelis, understandably, want and like to travel – whether to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Africa, Europe or Latin America. If governments were serious about sanctions and about their international duty to prevent and to punish genocide and to bring an end...

...under customary international law, and many are widely recognised as being subject to universal jurisdiction. There is an obligation upon all states to enact effective penal sanctions in domestic law and an obligation to search for and to try or extradite persons suspected of grave breaches on the basis of universal jurisdiction, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator.’ (Al-Haq, para 33) The grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions documented in the Goldstone Report are alleged to constitute war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. The UN General Assembly resolution...

...with the UN Charter framework, I am led to the conclusion that aggression cannot be defined as a crime under international law at this time. But this should not be too troubling. The Security Council continues to have the authority under Article 39 to find that a state has committed an act of aggression. And the Council continues to have the authority to impose sanctions on the offending state. And it should not be forgotten that individuals can be held personally accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide....

...the existence of a grey zone is well-known. In practice the divide may not always be clearly visible. Yet, large parts of the debate have been devoted to the establishment of one or more criteria to decide what makes an instrument law (be it sanctions, formalities, intent, effect, substance, or belief). Thus, depending on how one distinguishes between law and non-law, informal law output may or may not be part of international law. If formalities or intent matter, a lot of the informal output would not be law. If, in...

...of all three legal regimes: to prevent human beings from suffering harm caused by acts considered to be the worst of the worst across the globe. Whether it entails prosecuting a war criminal or economic sanctions aimed at a State, the goal is the same, nonetheless. In my view, the divergence across the various enforcement bodies should be a question of degree of punishment, rather than the need for varying definitions of gravity across the different arenas of public international law. Admittedly, the malleability of gravity can be useful when...

...other measures based on their capacity to influence the events and their legal positioning vis-à-vis the situation concerned. Still, it is hard to see how, in at least certain atrocity situations and despite Article 103 of the UN Charter a member wielding the veto against a Chapter VII resolution that, for example, imposes sanctions prohibiting all UN Members from supplying weapons to a brutal regime that is known to use those weapons to commit genocidal acts against a protected group would be compatible with such positive duties. Admittedly, the present...

...food, health, etc.), represents the Council’s most effective system for independent human rights monitoring. In 2010, in the context of major discussions about the future of the Council, the same group of governments proposed the establishment of a Legal Committee to enforce compliance with the Code through sanctions. Other governments, the SRs themselves, and civil society groups have been highly critical of the way the Code has been used so far to stifle the work of the monitors and are strongly opposed to the creation of any compliance mechanism. In...

[Faraz Shahlaei is an Adjunct Professor/J.S.D. Candidate at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles and one of the authors of this communication] Photo credit: Mufid Majnun Introduction In 2016, two reports of the Independent Person appointed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to investigate allegations of State-sponsored doping of Russian athletes during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games (first report, second report) revealed that Russia had been running for years a sophisticated covert doping program. As a result, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA imposed sanctions on dozens of athletes...

...sea. Over the course of the conflict, several issues like  the law of blockades, high seas freedoms and blue humanitarian corridors have cropped up. However, a crucial development which has almost sailed under the radar, has been the United Kingdom and Canada’s decisions to block all Russian-linked ships from their ports. Notably, similar deliberations are also currently ongoing in the European Union and the United States of America. The United Kingdom has given effect to this ban via the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2022, and Canada...

[Kristina Daugirdas is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School.] Absent a contractual relationship, individuals who have been harmed by the acts of international organizations rarely have access to institutions to hear their claims. National courts are often unavailable on account of organizations’ immunities. Some organizations have established alternative mechanisms to resolve such claims. The World Bank Inspection Panel is one example; the Ombudsperson for the ISIL and Al-Qaida UN Security Council Sanctions regime is another. Such accountability mechanisms must be deliberately designed, adopted, and implemented....