...but did not have the authority to conduct prosecutions. Syrian civil society organizations, including victims’ groups, also played a critical role in gathering and analyzing information to support accountability and advance justice. With their help, European courts prosecuted some of these crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction or other forms of extraterritorial jurisdiction. This has led to multiple trials that have so far been the only, though limited, justice avenues available to victims and survivors. The broader impact of impunity for crimes in Syria is evident. For example, the...
...violation of the principle of non-intervention (p. 395). But Roscini acknowledges that this goes against the mainstream position, which would consider this as an extraterritorial enforcement of the hacker states’ power, in terms of violation of the other states’ territorial sovereignty (p. 392). A position which the UK and US, however, do not align with, as they do not consider cyber operations on another state’s territory to constitute violations of international law per se. Further grey areas include ambiguity as to how cyber activities are to be considered under the...
...process. Debate around the redundancy of the right to development in light of the existing human rights framework exists and is periodically reanimated. Mainstream criticism of the right to development revolves around the liberal implications of a right seemingly legitimising economic development to the detriment of social and environmental factors, or misconstrues the right to development as merely ‘a synthesis of more traditional human rights’ (p. 481). More recently, critiques have contended that the redundancy of the right to development stems from the emerging recognition of the extraterritorial applicability of...
[Alireza Dadkhah Aseman is an Independent Researcher in International Law at the University of Tehran. Rezvan Bagherzadeh is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Bu-Ali Sina University.] Introduction International law has long sought to preserve an equilibrium between sovereign equality and collective security. Yet that balance becomes increasingly fragile when doctrines developed in response to contemporary security threats begin operating beyond clearly defined legal limits. The “Unwilling or Unable” doctrine reflects this tension. Although several states have invoked the doctrine to justify extraterritorial force against non-state actors, its legal...
...born there, possessing no experience of life outside a detention environment. International law is unambiguous that they are victims, not security threats. The Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees every child’s right to a nationality, to identity, and to have their best interests treated as a primary consideration. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has affirmed the extraterritorial reach of the Convention in the specific context of children detained in northeastern Syria. European courts have grappled with the implications. In September 2022, the Grand Chamber of...
...fear for their life. These evolving extraterritorial control mechanisms raise profound questions about the circumvention of established protection frameworks that have traditionally governed asylum policy. A Continuum of Externalization To understand the significance of this new “staging expulsion” model in the U.S., we must place it within a broader trend in migration governance: the externalization of migration control. Externalization refers to policies by which countries like the U.S., Australia or EU countries shift their migration enforcement responsibilities onto third countries – often in exchange for financial support, visa waivers or...
...how India, Honduras, and Switzerland have introduced laws with an extraterritorial reach that clarify these states’ responsibilities for overseeing private security operations abroad. Finally, data protection principles and legislation are particularly relevant in controlling the data processing activities of PMSCs. Over 130 countries around the world have introduced data protection and privacy legislation that would be directly applicable to the companies operating in their jurisdiction. Also, the Council of Europe Convention 108 – officially titled ‘Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data’ –...
...over territory. Furthermore, States must ensure their cyber capabilities and operations comply with existing international obligations, including human rights law, international humanitarian law, and treaty commitments. The extraterritorial application of human rights obligations takes on new dimensions when State surveillance technologies can monitor individuals globally or when State cyber operations affect critical infrastructure providing essential services. In December 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted the Eleven Norms of Responsible State behaviour in cyberspace. Although these norms are voluntary, they are based on international law obligations. However, it is concerning that...
...aggression by Germany and Japan. Israel’s obligations in the law of occupation and international human rights law (applicable extraterritorially), which govern how it exercises its military authority in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, oblige it to secure public order and protect human rights. However, even if these obligations, especially those in occupation law (specifically, Article 43 of the Hague Regulations, part of occupation law) can be understood as a general matter to encompass an obligation to use force in occupied territory to neutralize threats emanating from there to...
...to international crimes experienced by the Rohingya – this formal complaint puts the assertion to the test. So far, the complete lack of response to Setara’s complaint confirms that justice for the Rohingya is not possible. In other parts of the world, initiatives utilising universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction are also underway, in which Rohingya women and in particular, survivors of sexual violence play a critical role. In November 2021, a court in Argentina decided to open investigations into crimes committed in Myanmar, under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Prior to...
...region. See generally Ashley S. Deeks, “Unable or Unwilling”: Toward a Normative Framework for Extraterritorial Self-Defense, 52 Va. J. Int’l Law 483 (2012) (discussing the development and limitations of the unable and unwilling test); Essentially, the US is claiming that the invasion of Venezuela was legitimate self-defence because at the time of the invasion the government of Venezuela was led by Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, not Nicolas Maduro, and Gonzalez was unable to prevent Maduro from using Venezuelan territory to launch armed attacks against the US. A more bizarre invocation of...
...East Jerusalem (paras. 14–16); (ii) the establishment of settlements and outposts in the West Bank, and the associated exploitation of natural resources, building of settler-only roads and infrastructures, demographic engineering measures, and extraterritorial application of Israeli domestic law to settlements and settlers (paras. 24–47); and (iii) the unequivocal statements by Israeli officials of the intent to appropriate permanently portions of the West Bank (paras. 48–53). The importance of the COI’s report is that it considered Israel’s violation of binding rules of international law not in isolation, but in the context...