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This article surveys the existing international legal framework governing China’s energy cooperation with the Belt and Road countries at multilateral, regional and bilateral levels. A satisfying international legal framework should manage to balance the legal certainty and political acceptability needed for energy cooperation. We argue that political acceptability was the primary goal driving the current energy legal framework, providing basic rules for energy cooperation. However, these rules did not sufficiently legalize and institutionalize the investment environment. China should endeavor to promote a comprehensive Belt and Road Energy Framework on the basis of intra-network diversification. By increasing the redundancy of the energy network infrastructure and allowing countries to import and export energy via multiple routes, China can contribute to the achievement of a more secure energy market.

Cases with international elements appear more and more frequently in the daily practice of Polish courts. They are related to the performance of the judging function (issuing judgments) and auxiliary activities (supporting the trial process, e.g. delivering correspondence, taking evidence abroad). Increasingly important in the judiciary is the correct and active application of European Union law, other international law and national law linked to foreign affairs. Polish courts and their staff are unable to handle international elements. Court employees are incompetent in the field of international services, avoid applying the rules of international law, and incorrectly perform international auxiliary activities. The problem is deficits in education, human and technical resources and the lack of connection with the outside world. Year by year, the Polish justice system alienates more and more from effective participation in international court cases. In the years 2016 to 2019, sociological and legal research was carried out among Polish lawyers, representatives of regional bar councils. As part of the interviews conducted using the method of in-depth structured interviews (SSI), a diagnosis, evaluation and explanation of the functioning of Polish court and non-judicial lawyers in the era of internationalization of the Polish justice system was made. The present article is an attempt to evaluate the international activity of Polish court lawyers (judges and other court employees).

Many features of today's jobs have not been produced by market forces emerging in individual private contracts. Instead, they resulted from social struggles and union bargaining, and they appear in collective agreements, labor regulations, and international laws. This paper presents one hypothesis explaining this observation: A negative correlation between workers' taste for amenities and unobserved productivity. I show that such correlation implies a sub-optimal provision of amenities by the market since providing such amenities leads to lower quality workers. Mandating amenities is optimal when the correlation is strong, or the dispersion of worker productivity is large.

Traditional Knowledge plays a vital part in sustainable economic development in a indigenous country. The innovations by community members with the help of Traditional Knowledge need to be protected under a legal regulations. This paper explores various laws and economic benefits for protecting and enhancing the Traditional knowledge in a competitive society. The importance of Domestic and International law for recognition of economical right for both Positive and Defensive Protection of Traditional Knowledge for legalization of original works. It further highlights the innovations in medicinal, artistic, mineral, forest, herbal formulas, organic farming, generic products, biotechnology etc... International agreements are signed in this regard to protect the rights of developing and underdeveloped countries.

The chapter argues that international economic law dispute settlement bodies (IEL DSBs) have generally apply deferential standard of review when analysing national tobacco control measures. While the approaches taken by different IEL DSBs are not identical, all of them seem to aim at guaranteeing a considerable margin of discretion to national regulators, thus promoting unity in the IEL field and reinforcing legitimacy of DSBs’ decisions. This also means that the DSBs have actually broadened in the analysed category of cases, rather than undermined, the regulatory space available to States. Interestingly, this result has been achieved not so much through re-interpretation of relevant treaty provisions but through the application of a specific category of the secondary rules of international law pertaining to the intensity of the judicial review.

This Article coins and explains the phenomena of IP nationalism. Just as some nations engage in vaccine nationalism by hoarding limited COVID vaccines, so, too, some nations are hoarding critical knowledge and technology by resisting modification of usual IP rules during the pandemic, such as a proposed waiver of international IP obligations. Countries that are home to IP-owning pharmaceutical companies often benefit from strong global IP rights, since that usually improves domestic GDP for IP-intensive products such as drugs. Even nations without strong IP exports may embrace IP nationalism because current international laws provide economic benefits to these countries in terms of increased trade for non-IP goods. As this Article explains, countries that embrace IP nationalism raise incomplete, or affirmatively false arguments asserting that barriers to accessing medicines are primarily caused by non-IP issues, which hides how IP and IP nationalism are nonetheless creating barriers to access. IP nationalism is harmful. Failure to modify traditional IP rights has contributed to inadequate supply of COVID vaccines, which will likely result in more variants that threaten global health and suppress global economic recovery due to disruption of global supply chains. Even outside a pandemic, where IP nationalism could economically benefit countries with IP-intensive exports, it still creates other harms. For example, IP nationalism results in strong global IP rights that often make necessary goods, such as life-saving medicines, unaffordable to many people worldwide. Furthermore, these rights primarily promote innovation that is most profitable, rather than what is most socially desirable. For example, companies are incentivized to pursue and market treatments of questionable utility, such as the newly approved Alzheimer’s drug that may not even be effective, simply because they generate substantial profits. In contrast, vaccines beyond COVID and antibiotics, though desperately needed by all, are generally not pursued due to low profitability. This Article argues that IP for essential treatments such as COVID vaccines should be considered “global public goods” available to all, contrary to beliefs held by supporters of IP nationalism. This would be an admittedly radical, yet necessary change from current norms. First, this could encourage countries to embrace the proposed waiver of international IP rules for COVID treatments. Although waiving traditional IP rights will not immediately increase vaccine supply, it would permit available and interested companies to expand vaccine capacity and create competition that would likely increase supply and lower costs, allowing poorer countries greater access to the vaccine. In addition, recognition of IP covering pandemic treatments as global public goods would help avoid replicating the current vaccine apartheid in subsequent pandemics and begin to counteract well-documented racial and ethnic disparities regarding access to medicines.

In the 1970s, high-powered multinational companies were regarded as agents of European colonial powers. This prompted a tidal wave of support, particularly from developing States for irresponsible corporate behavior. This LL.M. thesis posits that because States are failing to prosecute irresponsible corporate behavior and human rights abuses, international law provides a way to attribute liability to private corporations. It demonstrates the existence of numerous entities other than States and the United Nations in the international domain and dissects the oft-repeated objections by state-centric skeptics. This LL.M thesis scrutinizes international legal personality and reflects on the quasi-international legal personality of corporations. It chronicles the United Nations’ impact on transnational corporations and multinational companies compared to individuals under international law. Multiples sources of international law, utilizing transnational legal theory, are compiled to impute liability to private corporations. It then maps a meandering course from the Nuernberg Military Tribunals to the United Nations, then to the International Criminal Tribunals and corroborates its central thesis. What is more, it exposes the unwitting handiwork of intertwining sources of international law, whereby our conventional international legal order attributes liability to corporations. The denouement unveils an unforeseen source of international law that gives credence to the central thesis.

The paper focuses on an underdeveloped area of jurisprudence in international economic law, that of the remit of sovereign discretion on cultural and religious grounds when it intersects with investor protections under international law. An investigation on the limits of sovereign discretion on issues of religion and culture is the next frontier in debates on investor state dispute settlement. While issues of expropriation, the meaning of fair and equitable treatment, exclusions from protection based on public policy, or on grounds of national security, have been thoroughly examined by international investment tribunals; this aspect of public policy that relates to culture and religion leaves many key issues unexplored. The paper explores options in investment arbitration for foreign investors affected by changes brought about by sovereign decisions based on religious and cultural grounds, shedding light in this politically and emotionally charged corner of international economic law. The paper initiates this discussion by investigating the possibility that the Switzerland-Turkey BIT of 1988 may offer bases for compensation to SICPA, the -till recently- operator of the Hagia Sophia museum in Istanbul, a world heritage site of global religious and cultural significance transformed again into an operational place of worship in 2020.

For too long victims have been neglected in international criminal law. Most of the international criminal courts and tribunals established since Nuremberg to bring justice to victims of international crimes including the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) and International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia (ICTY), have not given their due consideration to the victims’ concerns. The Preamble of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court acknowledges the fact that 'during this century (20th century) millions of children, women and men have been victims of unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity' and adopting the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute has, however, been granted set of procedural rights for victims-reparations, participation, and protection. This paper starts by exploration of the development and growth of the victim’s rights in international law and, examine the extent to which victims’ interests are considered before the ICC. The endeavors have been made to define and understand the basic concepts central to the study such as victim, compensation, reparation, protection of victims and witnesses.

Given the current Trump´s stated trade policy it is interesting how the EU has established silently in the past trade barriers. The banana regime (BR) has been one of the most politically sensitive, technically complicated and economically complex legal disputes. The BR has started after WWII as a protection measure for former European colonies. With the single European market, a European-wide import regime was established. BR was introduced, even though the EC had to know that it conflicted with international trade rules. The paper shows the various effects caused by the banana import regime. The banana price increase reduced the banana consumption, which led to a dead-weight loss in the EU and welfare losses of the exporting countries. On the other side, the demand for substitutes (e.g., apple, pears) increased. The efficiency of the supply chain was impaired leading to additional environmental pollution. The regulation created incentives for customs fraud. The organized crime (Mafia) received an enormous cash inflow. The BR is a deliberate violation of international law; it reduces consumer welfare, it harms environment and sustainability and leads to an inequality of income distribution. Against this background, the paper examines why neither consumers nor European politicians perceived the BR as a problem, why was there no public pressure, why there was no ecological resistance, and why the WTO-negotiations could be delayed so long.

International law scholars have referred to the “magic” of jus cogens norms: their exalted status in terms of legal effects, symbolic impact and ability to shape the international legal order. The doctrine’s “magic,” however, is belied by the smoke and mirrors of the prevailing approach to norm identification. This paper explores how the positivist identification process creates an illusion of methodological soundness that serves to marginalize gender. The paper begins by demonstrating that the positivist approach to jus cogens identification, epitomized by the recent work of the U.N. International Law Commission (ILC), is irredeemably lacking in the rigor and objectivity to which positivism lays claim. The ILC’s methodology fails to set forth clear benchmarks for attaining jus cogens status; cherry-picks evidentiary items relevant to each norm, in lieu of comprehensive assessments; provides minimal guidance regarding how evidentiary items are to be weighted; and draws from an unreliable pool of evidence. Next, the paper reveals that, as a result of these methodological deficiencies, judicial and non-judicial decision-makers have unfettered discretion in selecting which norms do and do not qualify as jus cogens. They may elect to make decisions based on instinct (“I know it when I see it”), assorted normativist theories (including natural law) or self-interest (as State actors are wont to do). The true bases of their decision-making are unknown, and a sense of jus cogens agnosticism is appropriate. The paper then explains how the discretionary selection process is cloaked and obscured by the positivist promise of an objective, rigorous evaluation — such is the illusion of jus cogens. This illusion facilitates the marginalization of gender, consistent with structural and pervasive biases within international law. The paper concludes with a reflection on potential alternatives to positivism that could yield a more inclusive jus cogens. The novelty of this paper is three-fold. First, although not the first to lament the methodological failings of jus cogens positivism, it seems to be the first to identify and detail these failings. Second, the paper exposes the discretionary basis of jus cogens decision-making, which is obfuscated by the promise of a rigorous evidentiary calculus. This understanding disrupts the positivism-normativism binary that characterizes much of jus cogens scholarship. Third, the paper shows how the positivist illusion results in the exclusion of feminist priorities. Despite the voluminous scholarship on jus cogens, there appears to be a stunning paucity of feminist literature addressing the doctrine; the paper seeks to fill this lacuna.

The image of international legal decision-makers emerging from socio-cognitive studies is significantly different from the prevalent view among diverse actors operating in this field. The socio-cognitive perspective of international law underlines that sensory objects are not 'objectives' or self-evident, and that their internalization in legal decision-makers' minds always involves intermediating mental processes (such as perception, categorization, and interpretation). Limited cognitive resources available to such decision-makers (including military commanders, national decision-makers, and international adjudicators) often lead them to utilize heuristic shortcuts (though occasionally involving some well-known biases). These cognitive processes and heuristics are frequently influenced by socio-cultural patterns (such as norms of attention, stereotypes, or languages) prevailing in the decision-makers' social groups, and often below their conscious level. The increasing awareness to the constraining influence of default socio-cognitive systems on individuals tends to diminish the significance of human agency in real life social situations. On the theoretical level, the latter tendency in socio-cognitive literature supports a shift towards the structural pole of the agency–structure continuum. The formation, interpretation, and implementation of international law interact with diverse socio-cognitive processes. Equipped with insights drawn from socio-cognitive and sociological theoretical literatures, the last section of this chapter focuses on international criminal law, emphasizing its intensified multi-cognitive character and the significant effects of socio-mental patterns on defendants and additional actors (such as adjudicators and prosecutorial staff). This discussion suggests that where it is credibly proven that the particular crime directly involves a distinctive socio-cognitive pattern predominant in the defendant's community, it is desirable that the tribunal considers the defendant's socio-cognitive background as a mitigating or aggravating factor at the sentencing stage.

In this paper, I seek to analyse the need to recognise “Climate Refugees” in the realm of International Law. Climate change is catching up with the human race, so much so that we have perhaps reached a point of ‘no return’ for the planet itself. However, people displaced by this phenomenon can still be saved – as long as the international community recognises their need and legality. I highlight prevalent gaps and issues in the current framework, and certain solutions that may be put in place to ensure that people displaced by climate change are not without a home and rendered ‘stateless’. The Kiribati Case, discussed later, provides hope that the international community is perhaps finally waking up to reality. The problem of climate refugees is not something that will happen; it is happening now. I believe that this is an issue that will dominate policy making in Environment and International Law in the near future and thus, set about finding possible solutions to inevitable problems. I discuss the need to formally recognise such refugees, the challenges of a new framework which eventually gives recognition, and possible short-term solutions before a nuanced framework is developed. We must begin with a change in the Refugees Convention for a start and face the reality that millions are being displaced because of a lack of acknowledgment of the world to an ever-growing problem.

Over the last decade, a growing number of countries have adopted new laws and other mechanisms to address a longstanding gap in national criminal legal systems: the absence of meaningful procedures to raise post-conviction claims of factual innocence. These legal and policy reforms have responded to a global surge of exonerations, which have been facilitated by the growth of national innocence organizations that increasingly work across borders. It is striking that these developments have occurred with little help from international law. Although numerous treaties recognize extensive fair trial and appeal rights, no international instrument—in its text, interpretation or implementation—explicitly recognizes the right to assert a claim of factual innocence. We label this omission as international law’s innocence gap. The gap appears increasingly anomalous given how foundational innocence protection has become at the national level, as well as international law’s longstanding commitment to the presumption of innocence, fair trial, and other criminal process guarantees. We argue the time has come to close international law’s innocence gap by recognizing a new human right to assert post-trial claims of factual innocence. We discuss three national models for reviewing innocence claims and highlight international law’s limited influence on these models. Next, we review the criteria for determining whether and how to categorize a human right as “new,” analyze the right to claim innocence against those criteria, explore how to define the content of the right, and address institutional and advocacy issues. A brief conclusion highlights the implications of our proposal for efforts to reform criminal legal systems and protect human rights.

EU law is a separate legal framework, different from international law, and integrated into the legal systems of the Member States. The Union's legal framework is based on autonomous legal sources. Different nature of these sources requires the introduction of a hierarchy among them. At the top are the primary law enshrined in the Treaties and the general principles of law followed by international treaties concluded by the Union and by secondary law based on the Treaties.

Pacta sunt servanda is a key principle in international law, which ensures order, stability and legal security in international relations. It renders commitments in international law generally binding unless a country decides to withdraw from them. This paper argues that the protection of market access rights requires considerable flexibility in order to remain suitable for the strict application of the principle pacta sunt servanda, since market realities change quickly, therewith altering the nature of corresponding international obligations. With regard to the interpretation of the legal scope of, in particular, the general exception clauses in international economic law, otherwise inconsistent trade measures originating in a popular vote qualify in principle as ‘necessary for the protection of public morals’ (within the meaning of GATT Art. XX(a) or GATS Art. XIV(a)). Reverting to majority decisions in a popular vote on most pressing concerns regarding trade policy would, thus, provide a legal way of mending the gap between international economic law and governance of trade-related issues.

The right to health has inherent characteristics and qualities. It is crucial to the pursuit of justice and is a prerequisite for the realization of other rights. The first objective of the paper is to have a historical and theoretical overview of understanding and contemporary concepts of health and the right to health. The second objective of the paper is to track the shifting place of the international right to health and human rights-based approaches to health in the scholarly literature and United Nations.

Detention is among the most invasive and potent exercises of government power over an individual. Investigative detention — the pre-charge detention of a suspect for the purpose of obtaining evidence for use at a subsequent criminal prosecution. This differs from other kinds of detention that are relevant to counterterrorism operations (such as battlefield detention under the law of armed conflict) in that it is a detention power that exists within the ordinary, domestic criminal law frameworks of various jurisdictions. This paper explores the international and domestic legal developments related to investigative detention as it is carried out in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. As part of this discussion, I explain the evolving threat environment that features investigative detention. This paper discusses the way in which each legal regime — based on its respective legal tradition and history — shapes the way in which investigative detention is exercised. Relatedly, this paper also highlights the way in which international law has served as a vector for change and convergence among these otherwise divergent legal systems — creating a rough similitude in the evolving approaches of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to the problems associated with the investigative detention of terrorist suspects.

The novel coronavirus was a public health emergency that impacted the world throughout 2020. Governments and health officials faced monumental problems that often demanded monumental solutions to help curb the spread of the virus and save lives. State and local governments followed other nations and pursued technological solutions to conduct contact tracing more efficiently and attempt to outpace the spread. Some pursued digital contact tracing apps, including centralized and decentralized, to track the spread via Bluetooth or GPS and alert possible contacts. Others conducted manual contact tracing and directly telephoned the possible contacts. Each of these methods has its own variety of applicable laws that affect how the data is stored and gathered. While these tools may have provided large utility for governments and the public, these tools brought into the light the deficiencies of sector-based privacy laws in the United States. This Article evaluates the privacy issues in human and digital contact tracing in the United States through several bodies of laws, including international laws, federal laws and regulations, federal agency guidelines, Supreme Court privacy cases, and state laws. Understanding that there exists holes in the current United States privacy framework, this Article calls for legislation to reform current privacy laws that were designed for a world of paper records . This Article proposes Congress and the Executive Branch to emulate its existing laws and regulation to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which can prospectively increase privacy protections for new and upcoming technologies like digital contact tracing apps.

The question of how to define accomplices is both important and vexing, spawning a series of competing, muddled doctrines in U.S. and international law. I argue that the confusion we see in the application of complicity law stems from a deeper theoretical confusion about the nature of accomplice liability. Causal theories of complicity define it by reference to causal contribution: helping bring about the crime makes one an accomplice. But, these theories apply complicity far too broadly -- the taxi driver who unknowingly takes the victim to the site or the worker who maintains the streets all causally contribute to the crime. Recognizing this, John Gardner in particular uses rational attention as a limiting principle, putting some boundaries on the causal chains that the law should take into account. Judges, commentators, and other legal actors, encountering the same problem, have operationalized Gardner's idea in the foreseeability doctrine that similarly limits complicity to consequences that were foreseeable. All else being equal, murder is not a naturally foreseeable consequence of road maintenance. Experience with this doctrine, however, shows that it is not adequate to the task of limiting causal theories of complicity. Even with it in place courts still have to resort to ad hoc policy judgments to avoid unreasonable, overly harsh, punishments. This renders the law arbitrary and inconsistent as like cases end up with different results depending on these ad hoc judgments. Rational attention and foreseeability are therefore not sufficient. Instead, joint intention-based approaches to complicity show more promise and put foreseeability and similar epistemic concepts in their proper place.

In this paper it is controversially suggested that international tax law is broader than the traditional view of most academics. In addition to domestic laws that cover cross-border transactions and double taxation agreements (or their multilateral counterparts) there is a special consensus international tax law (CITL) based on the institutions, instruments and interpretation implemented by international consensus. It is essential to understand how international laws and norms shape national tax systems and whether they constrain domestic taxation choices? In other words, are there limitations on States introducing domestic rules which cut across the obligations designed to make the international tax regime coherent? Also, to achieve fundamental, consensus-driven change, such as that in the area of the taxation of the digital economy requires significant cooperation by States. Understanding these parameters will inform whether, how, and why, States should get involved in the design and structure of the international tax architecture. International tax law has components drawn from different areas of law, some parts of which are peculiarly domestic or sovereign in the sense that they are the exclusive decision of a state to impose taxation. In contrast, other parts reside in public international law because they deal with the rules, norms, and standards generally accepted in relations between nations. This dual dynamic is central as to why international tax law is influential on national tax systems. States impose taxes and deal with their citizens (or for most countries their residents) on their worldwide income, and non-residents in respect of income sourced in their jurisdiction. It is precisely because of this residence and source taxing matrix and the resultant double taxation that States need to deal with other States to make the international tax regime more coherent and fair. In respect of public international law, most focus has been on the part of international tax that relates to bilateral and multilateral treaties. In contrast, the area of law focusing on international law from other sources, such as customary international law (CIL), receives less consideration. This paper explores what is meant by international tax law. The focus then shifts to that part of tax law which is public international law. Clearly, bilateral and multilateral treaties have a direct impact on the legal systems of participating States. Treaties are not the only source of international law even though in the tax arena they clearly are by far the most important. So important that some suggest they are “perhaps the source, of international law”. Other highly respected scholars suggest that CIL has a part to play in influencing national tax systems. This suggestion is controversial, and the weight of opinion does not support the view that CIL presently creates any binding tax obligations on States. This paper proposes that there is, however, an emerging system based on common understandings, with the legal duties of cooperation and underpinning expectations of implementation which should be recognized as creating obligations upon States even though it does not constitute CIL. CITL is highly influential on national tax systems and is a phenomenon that recognises both the sovereignty and politics of national tax laws, as well as the need for harmonisation and reasonableness in international dealings with other States and their tax systems.

Hannah Arendt contributed one of the most enduring and insightful examinations of the paradox of human rights in her articulation of the existence of a right to have rights. This article provides a unique intervention into the scholarship, arguing that the interpretation of a right to have rights most faithful to Arendt’s vision is the creation of an enforceable right, enshrined in positive international law, in which human rights can be realized separate and apart from the rights of citizens. In the nearly 70 years since Arendt articulated the existence of a right to have rights, there has been a proliferation of human rights treaties, conventions, and declarations enshrining what are deemed to be universal rights guaranteed to all people. As this article outlines, even with these important advancements, the modern human rights framework fails to guarantee a right to have rights. The plight of the Rohingya illustrates the tragedy that can unfold due to our failure to guarantee the right to have rights. The Rohingya have endured decades of persecution that culminated in a violent crackdown and massive displacement in 2017. Even with an investigation by the International Criminal Court, a case before the International Court of Justice, and the establishment of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, the Rohingya are likely to persist in a state of rightlessness nearly identical to that described by Arendt nearly 70 years prior. This article provides a solution. It argues that a right to have rights must be guaranteed through positive international law. The right would guarantee the legal personality of the individual under international law, thereby strengthening the individual as a subject of international law, and take the form of a procedural right to the restoration of human rights. As this article demonstrates, only when the right to have rights is guaranteed will the loss of a nationality no longer result in the loss of all rights.

One of the main disputes in regard to how courts should interpret the federal Constitution pertains to the legitimacy of relying on international law in constitutional interpretation. This Article examines the interpretative status of international law, in general, and the controversy over the use of international law in constitutional interpretation, in particular. The Article offers an innovative approach to the controversy based on the significant difference between customary international law and treaty law; namely, that constitutional interpretation with reference to international law should be limited to customary international law, as opposed to treaty law.

This chapter, forthcoming in the Cambridge Companion to the International Court of Justice (Carlos Esposito and Kate Partlett, eds.) provides an institutional analysis of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Institutional analysis is an approach drawn from the social sciences that examines the ways in which an organization’s internal structures and external environment shape outcomes. For the ICJ, this requires examining its features as a court, as an international body, and as an organ of the United Nations. As a a court, the ICJ has both a dispute resolution function as well as a lawmaking function. and the position of the ICJ in the UN system has significant consequences for its caseload, role and effectiveness.

Freedom of expression as guaranteed by international law and the constitution of Kenya 2010 is difficult to realize because of claw-back provisions in relevant statutes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the fragility of the international refugee protection system. It turns out that on account of public health concerns, many high-income countries, Canada included, are quick to abandon their legal duties with respect to the right of asylum and non-refoulement, as well as their commitment to responsibility sharing in the context of refugee resettlement. This has led to an immobility crisis among asylum seekers and refugees, exacting a heavy toll on this already-marginalized group.This paper explores such impact of COVID-19 related travel restrictions on international refugee protection. It begins by providing a bird’s-eye view of the global situation before zeroing on the Canadian context. It shows that as the global demand for asylum persists, travel restrictions either trap asylum seekers and refugees in precarious circumstances or force them to attempt more dangerous routes to arrive at intended destinations. Leaning on international law as well as Thomas Pogge’s theory of global justice, this paper argues that affluent countries have a duty to ameliorate these harms perpetrated against one of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

May a threatened state use force against armed nonstate actors situated in another state? Proponents of the “Unable or Unwilling Doctrine” (UUD) answer in the affirmative, provided that the territorial state in which the nonstate actors are based is either unable or unwilling to tackle the threat by itself. Opponents reject the UUD, arguing that it has no place within existing international law. The intense, multi-layered debates over the UUD have thus far been grounded primarily in the international law of self-defense. Moreover, both proponents and opponents of the doctrine have tended to treat its two prongs as interchangeable, such that the legality of a use of force or the consequences that follow from it are unaffected by which of the two explains the territorial state’s failure to negate the threat to the targeted state. This article challenges both of these features of UUD analysis. Our first contention is that, while states enjoy limited leeway to use defensive force against nonstate actors in another state’s territory, the prerogative to enter the territorial state without other authorization is rooted in principles of necessity, not self-defense. In turn—and here we reach our second main contention—grounding the UUD in necessity suggests that, for cases in which the territorial state is unable, rather than unwilling, to deal with the threat, the threatened state is obligated to compensate the territorial state for its unpermitted entry, as well as for any resulting personal injury or property damage (other than harm to legitimate targets). Our third contribution is to explain why compensation might be owed, as a matter of equity, even in circumstances in which a state can claim, reasonably, that it bears no international legal responsibility. All of these claims, we contend, are bolstered by interpreting international law through the lens of private law, particularly the Anglo-American law of tort and restitution and its rules for the imposition of liability in cases of “private necessity.”

Here is a small Supplement to previously uploaded reports on Israel Parties Programs and History. The Short Review of Parties’ Platforms Towards Elections of XXI-th Knesset. Reference Guide for Conservative Voter and to the more detailed report XX Knesset Elections: What Do These Parties Really Stand for? The issues covered are: • Sovereignty • Kfar Duma anti-Jewish blood libel test: party caved in and supported ‘Jew Section’ of Shabaq (GSS) - Yes or Not • COVID-19 response position means 3 issues: Lockdowns, Compulsory masks at the streets, semi-compulsory vaccination (position: Yes, No, Ambiguous) • Judiciary reforms: Attorney General separate from Legal Advisor to Government; Supreme court Override Clause (Amendment to the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty ); Government appoints Judges, Knesset agrees; Judges appointed after a public hearing in the Knesset; Our military personnel protection against application so-called ‘International Law’ not ratified by the State of Israel promoted since 1977 by Military Advocate General's Corps.

According to Black's Law Dictionary, a right means just, morally correct, consonant with ethical principles or rules of positive law. It is important to note that Human rights are defined by different scholars, that's why we are going to have different definitions in the following: human rights are rights we have simply because we exist as human beings and are not granted by the state but inherent. According to Equality and Humana Rights Commission, human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world from birth until death. They apply regardless of where one comes from, what he or she believes or how they choose to live their lives. They are based on shared values like dignity, equality, fairness, respect, and independence. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy, Human rights are norms that aspire to protect all people everywhere from severe political, legal, and social abuses. Generally, Human Rights are those rights which provide basic standard to humans to live with dignity and maintain status quo in the society. Human Rights can also be defined as the rights we have simply because we exist as Human beings and they are not granted by the state for they are inherent universally regardless of color, religion, language, or ethnic origin as they are fundamental such as right to life, education, work, health and liberty. The concept of Human Rights was evolved in 539 B.C when the city of Babylon was subjugated by the King of Ancient Oersia, Cyprus who stopped slavery and endorsed citizen to follow their necessary religion and outcasts any kind of racial discrimination and these rights are intrinsic in nature and should be provided to all human beings without any discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, color or language. The two world wars led to the foundation of United Nations, which was formed to maintain peace between countries and protect people from any kind of atrocities faced by them thus the UN (United Nations) body of law known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which created mandate to the government to provide necessary rights and protect them from their outrages. With the forming of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and establishing two important covenant which were the international covenant on civil and political rights and international covenant on economic, Social and cultural Rights which were treated as international law after their enforcement on 1976 they were treated as international law after their enforcement in 1976 they were new face of Human Rights guaranteed by these covenant would be dealt by international laws in any part of the world.

The chapter “Jurisdiction” of the International Law Association’s Guidelines on Intellectual Property and Private International Law (“Kyoto Guidelines”) provides where international intellectual property claims can be brought to court. It defines the basic forum at the defendant's domicile and alternative fora for contractual, infringement, and other kinds of claims. It also provides grounds that should be taken as insufficient for the granting of jurisdiction. The chapter states to what extent validity and registration claims should be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction. Finally, it comprises Guidelines for the coordination of claims pending before different courts.

The article analyzes the phenomenon of mercenary activity. The authors, applying legal analysis, give a legal interpretation of this phenomenon from the standpoint of both international law and in accordance with Russian legislation. The object of the study is mercenary activity as a socially dangerous modern phenomenon.

Eighty-six years after his death in exile from Nazi Germany, the socialist public lawyer Hermann Heller received his most extensive commemoration and engagement yet in the English language. The first-time translation in 2019 of what is often regarded as the magnum opus of his brief scholarly career, the 1927 book Sovereignty, allows much of Heller’s insight and erudition to come through, but very little of his views on political economy. Moreover, David Dyzenhaus's quixotic new presentation of Heller’s thought - as a grand defense (almost apotheosis) of international law as such - has almost nothing to do with his actual arguments.

On Saturday 20 March 2021, Turkey did the unthinkable. It was announced that Turkey had withdrawn from a human rights treaty. In a presidential decree, Turkey had declared that it had denounced its obligations from the (hereinafter Convention). The convention is a legally-binding Council of Europe treaty, covering domestic violence and seeking to end legal impunity for perpetrators. It covers 34 European countries and took effect in 2014. It bears the name of a famous Turkish city (Istanbul) which straddles Europe and Asia across the Bosphorus Strait. Sitting at the epicenter of trade and commerce, one expects the leader of the aforementioned Convention to lead by example.

A complex process of constitutionalisation is currently under way within contemporary society. A multiplicity of normative counteractions is emerging to address the challenges of the digital revolution. However, there is no single constitutional framer. In a globalised environment, constitutionalisation simultaneously occurs at different societal levels. Not only in the institutional perimeter of nation-states, but also beyond: on the international plane, in the fiefs of the private actors, within the civil society. This paper examines to what extent international law scholarship may offer a useful theoretical toolbox to understand the multilevel phenomenon of constitutionalisation of the digital ecosystem. International law theory indeed already projected the notion of constitution beyond the state dimension, helping explain how the emergence of globalised problems in the digital ecosystem necessarily engenders the materialisation of a plurality of constitutional responses. It will be argued that the sense of this Gordian knot can be deciphered only if these emerging constitutional fragments are interpreted as complementary tesserae of a single mosaic. Each one surfacing with a precise mission within the constitutional dimension, each one compensating the shortcomings of the others to achieve a common aim: translating the core principles of contemporary constitutionalism in the context of the digital ecosystem. Constitutionalising the digital ecosystem is not synonymous of en bloc codification, but rather represents a gradual process of translation of principles and values. Constitutionalisation does not merely imply the imposition of new constitutional rules, but also includes a substantial bottom-up societal input. All the various scattered components of the process of constitutionalisation of the digital ecosystem equally contribute to substantiate the ideals and values of digital constitutionalism, which represents a new theoretical strand within contemporary constitutionalism aiming to adapt its core values to the needs of the digital ecosystem.

Situations of occupation are as likely to affect the life and well-being of both wild and domestic animals. Notwithstanding these instances, writing a chapter on the legal protection of animals in occupied territory may appear, prima facie, a pointless exercise since the law of occupation never mentions explicitly animals. Unsurprisingly, to the best knowledge of this author, no study on this topic has been published so far. However, as in relation to other areas of IHL, some rules embodied in the law of occupation and concerned with the protection of private and public property apply to animals. The law of occupation also allows, under certain conditions, the application of other branches of international law that may be relevant for the protection of animals. This chapter explores this intricate legal regime, offering an overview of the ways in which international law can offer protection to animals in occupied territory. The indirect nature of this protection, coupled with the scant state practice, will be crucial in order to assess the effectiveness of animal protection in these circumstances.

Not all ontological concerns which surround the concept of (customary) international law (CIL) have disappeared, rather they have shifted. Whereas the existence of a genuine international legal system is taken as a ‘given’, questions still remain about its genesis and the position of CIL within it. Some for example, still question whether we can truly speak of customary international law, while others recast the concept of CIL through a formalist perspective. Accordingly, formalism, in its moderate form, treats formal sources, documents and/or proclamations as ‘better’ tools for both a) the preservation of existing rules of CIL, and b) the ‘creation’ of new legal rules. At its more extreme, formalism purports the view that c) IL (or even CIL) finds its genesis only in formal sources, documents, or proclamations. While some formalisation is undeniably helpful and even necessary, we should be more critical of this formalist paradigm. In this way, the chapter seeks to respond to these positions through a revival of the legacy of Sir Henry Maine and the evolutionary conception of law that he laid out the first foundation for. By operationalizing this conceptualization, a new vision spawns for CIL: a vision beyond mere formalism.

Since the dawn of the space age, the use of space for intelligence gathering has been one of the most predominant uses of outer space. Military intelligence gathering is crucial for national and global stability in many different ways. The availability of satellite imagery from commercial satellites is rapidly improving and becoming more affordable, while the resolution of such imagery is becoming progressively more refined. Thus, in international relations, this is a new and interesting development, which would have significant implications and challenges in contemporary international law, including space law. This paper addresses some of the international legal issues in the sourcing of military intelligence from commercial satellites. Specific topics discussed include, the legitimacy of espionage generally in international law and space law, State responsibility, exposure to criminal and civil liability and to targeting, and individual criminal responsibility. The paper concludes that in principle the current rules of armed conflict are applicable to the collection of military intelligence by commercial satellite operators. However, there is an urgent need for clarification to determine what precisely is applicable and what is not applicable. Therefore, it is recommended that a more elaborate study of at least the suggested issues should be undertaken.

How do we know what ‘counts’ as valid law? Determining legal norms, tracing how their normative meaning may change over time, and how the validity of legal norms is constructed and contested are crucial for IR research into legal norms. In this chapter, we use an interdisciplinary approach that bridges IR, legal philosophy, and the sociology of international law to advance norms research by emphasizing the importance of epistemology for research on legal norms that takes their validity and inherent normativity seriously. Revisiting long-standing debates on legal realism in legal philosophy, we distinguish between two fundamentally different epistemological starting points of research on legal norms: axiological and empirical legal validity. To do so, we draw on some of our previous work on what we called European New Legal Realism, and outline how such a research approach can be applied to empirical studies, including by using both Bourdieusian approaches and the concept of communities of practice. We illustrate our position by the case of normative contestations in and around climate change law and litigation and argue that our fundamental epistemological distinction is significant for how we research legal norms, as it not only determines how scholars identify valid law, but ultimately also whose contestations are made visible in empirical research.

In the aftermath of Operation Phoenix (military operation of Colombia in Ecuadorean territory) Colombia faced a diplomatic crisis that revolved around the different understandings of the right to self-defence. Colombia faced two opposing views: state-centred self-defence and the “unable or unwilling” doctrine. These put Colombia between a rock and a hard place, not only because of the legal and practical problems of either position in general but also because of the consequences that they may bring to Colombia and the region in the future. The purpose of this paper is to explore such problems and consequences, how Colombia dealt with them in the aftermath of Operation Phoenix and how it may deal with them again in case the Phoenix rises from its ashes.

Some scholars assume that the content and validity of international legal norms turns upon the existence of convergent attitudes and behaviours of state representatives and other ‘international legal officials’. By converging upon the criteria for what counts as a ‘formal source’ of international law and what does not, such officials provide a ‘rule of recognition’ in relation to which the normative content of the international legal system is determined. In this paper I present two theoretical problems with this view, arguing that, depending on exactly what role this rule is intended to fulfil within international legal theory, it is either metaphysically insupportable or fundamentally at odds with the disagreements that persist in relation to the formal sources of international law. Both problems risk undermining the rationality of international legal argumentation and any reliance upon the existence of an international rule of recognition should be eschewed as a result.

The cross-border character of the designer drugs crimes forced the UE countries to cooperate in criminal prosecution. At first sight, in European Union law, there are proper instruments to enforce such cooperation. The Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant introduces the model of cross-border prosecution and abandons the requirement of double criminality in case of the group of the 32 crimes, listed in the Article 2 (2) of the FD EAW. The question is whether such a simple variant of EAW (without checking double criminality) may be enforced in designer drug cases. The work presents an argumentation that the normative meaning of Article 2 (2) of the FD EAW has to be established under European and international law. As long as a particular new drug is not internationally recognized as ‘psychotropic substance’ or ‘narcotic drug’, its trafficking cannot be treated as one of the 32 crimes, mentioned above.

Roman Legal System is the oldest legal system of the world except some of the religious legal system. It is the foundation of civil legal system and continental Europe’s civilization and cultural development. Later, it evolved into customary law of the Europe that flourished into civil legal system with the initiation of the universities of the Europe along with renaissance period and with modern legislative reformation, it was expanded further across the globe because of the military strategy relationship, colonization and mutual friendship with different countries of the world. Recently, almost all countries of continental Europe except the UK are the member of the European Union. They are flourishing civil legal system form the point of view of supranational and international law point of view. Yet, France is the mother country for civil legal system. Even Japan received civil legal system in Meiji period.

Parliamentary scrutiny of treaties is important - like other laws they can directly impact our daily lives. In December 2020, the House of Lords Liaison Committee recommended the appointment of an International Agreements Committee. This was established in January 2021, following on from the work of the EU International Agreements Sub-Committee, which operated during the Brexit transition period. The creation of these new committees highlighted the inadequacy of the previous scrutiny regime for treaties in the UK, which are normally laid under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, but were almost never subject to analysis, debate or votes. This paper is the text of a talk delivered to Durham Law School in March 2021 and considers the challenges of treaty scrutiny under the 2010 Act.

The UN human rights treaty bodies have decided an extensive amount of complaints brought by asylum seekers and immigrants against the Nordic states. This development forms part of a larger shift in international accountability routes that have emerged from the uptake of migrants’ rights claims by human rights courts and treaty bodies. The article examines what this development engenders in both international and national contexts, using the Nordic litigation as a focal point. The first part posits that the litigation has played a significant role in developing international law. It further explains that the significant amount of these cases in the region, but also variance across states, partly comes down to the degree of strategic litigation and the design of national asylum systems. The second part examines what emerges from this oversight, and identifies four factors from which to understand these national contexts: the design of the asylum system; the question of ‘credibility’; existence of parallel jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights; and communicative and functional processes that exist beyond final merits decisions. Overall, attention to the aftermath of these – formally soft law – decisions reveals that they do have quasi-judicial effects in the national contexts.

The systematic and well-planned coup d’etat attempt orchestrated in the morning of February 1, 2021 in Myanmar poses an international law breach indication, specifically pertaining humanitarian law and international human rights law. This research aims to analyze the qualification of such phenomenon as international law issue and the plausible acts of the international community pertaining this phenomenon. The method utilized is normative-legal approach by qualitatively analyzing the compliance between the international legal regulation and the series of events occurs in Myanmar during the coup d'etat. The result reveals that the current phenomenon of Myanmar coup d’etat have been firmly considered as an international issue through the violation of the international humanitarian law as its pivotal point. In relation to the plausible acts, the launching of humanitarian intervention to stop the extreme human rights violation in Myanmar shall be considered. Furthermore, ASEAN shall take an immediate action through a collective measure by recalling the purposes and principles enshrined in the ASEAN charter.

For decades, the world has seen legal, policy and practical interventions to advance women’s rights. Yet there is no country in the world where women and men are equal. In pursuit of such equality, this article promotes the relatively obvious and simple strategy of embedding international women’s rights norms into domestic legislation. While acknowledging the limitations of the binary approach to the rights of men and women as reinforced by the CEDAW Convention, the article draws from international law to offer standards for domestic legislation in three areas: reproductive health, labour law and taxation. Across those areas, concrete benchmarks for gender-responsive legislation are provided, as well as examples of what constitutes neutral, blind and regressive provisions. While acknowledging the limits of the law in disrupting the political and economic structures of society, this article offers a framework that can enable legislators and legal systems to utilise international law to deliver domestic laws that work for women.

In 1804 Haiti declared its independence from France, after defeating French forces in a twelve-year long slave insurrection turned revolutionary war. Two decades later, France finally agreed to recognize Haitian statehood on the condition that Haiti pay a substantial indemnity to compensate French colonists for their losses from the Haitian Revolution. To the victor belong the spoils, or so the saying goes. So why was the nascent Haitian nation made to foot the bill for France’s defeat twenty-one years earlier by paying French property owners? And might Haiti have a legal claim to restitution of its debt? This article attempts to answer these questions, and in doing so, it interrogates the limitations of international law as a means for redressing colonial-era harms.

In political rhetoric surrounding the implementation of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol, especially in the UK, Article 16 has played a central part. It has been suggested, even at the highest political levels that invoking or “triggering” Article 16 is the ultimate response to dissatisfaction with the operation of the Protocol and particularly the impact of border checks in the Irish Sea on economic relationships between Ireland and Great Britain. But what exactly is Article 16 supposed to do? This chapter examines its design and structure, as well as some of its detailed textual features in light of international economic law and public international law. The function and legal effects of Article 16 come to sight as far from obvious. On its face not a derogation clause, it is also clear that Article 16 provides no legal path toward renegotiation of the Protocol itself. Given the uncertainty and complexity surrounding the interpretation of Article 16, its invocation is a high-risk strategy, both legally and politically.