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It is increasingly likely that, due to the impacts of climate change, entire populations of low-lying States – Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives – will need to relocate to other States' territories. Such en masse relocations would jeopardise these peoples' national identities and manifestations of their ways of life: cultures, languages, customs, and social, political and economic systems. Legal writers analysing this topic focus mainly on maritime boundaries and statehood questions. This thesis examines the right to self-determination. The principal finding is that the peoples of low-lying States are entitled to enjoy self-determination in climate change-related relocation and that there are practical ways this can occur. After explaining the factual scenario and the approach to this research, the analysis has four key components. First, it defines the right to self-determination in context of the low-lying States, including entitlements flowing from this collective right. The populations of low-lying States' are "peoples" entitled to self-determination, including in relocation. Self-determination comprises various elements, resembling a bundle of rights. A framework is devised for unpacking this bundle and understanding what self-determination entails. The framework divides the right into strategic and operational elements. The strategic elements are the right's objectives of peace and human rights, as well as its classic expressions; external and internal self-determination. The operational elements seek to secure the right's objectives through substantive and procedural entitlements. Substantive entitlements include the right of peoples to continuity of their States, to be different, to freely-determined political statuses, and to freely-pursued economic, social and cultural development. Procedural aspects include processes for determining the substantive elements, plus democratic governance, and some degree of autonomy from other political

New Zealand will increasingly be confronted with human rights issues arising from the extradition of individuals to China due to perceived inadequacies in China’s criminal justice system and the practice of using force to extract confessions by China’s law enforcement agencies. This thesis examines the failings of New Zealand’s current ad hoc extradition system with its reliance on diplomatic assurances to guarantee fair trial rights and protection against torture for individuals extradited to China. Due to these inadequacies it is possible that the only way in which New Zealand can fulfil its obligations under the United Nations Convention against Corruption in cases involving corruption is for New Zealand to exercise its extraterritorial jurisdiction as an alternative to extradition. The Law Commission’s approach in its 2016 report recommending changes to the Extradition Act 1999 fails to comprehend the essential role bilateral treaties are likely to play in terms of New Zealand’s extradition relationships with countries such as China in the future. It is argued that a more structured approach is needed by concluding a legally binding treaty with China that provides for specific human rights guarantees and a monitoring regime. This treaty should also allow either state party to offer to try an individual sought for extradition by exercising the requested party’s extraterritorial jurisdiction as an alternative to extradition. Furthermore, consideration should be given to expanding the scope of New Zealand’s extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction in cases involving individuals requested for extradition under the treaty.

Over the past decade, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance as a result of armed conflict has grown to unprecedented levels. The rapid and effective provision of such assistance constitutes one of the greatest challenges faced by the international community in protecting civilians and other protected persons in times of conflict. While international humanitarian law imposes extensive obligations on the parties to a conflict to grant access to humanitarian actors and facilitate the provision of relief assistance, these rules are routinely violated. This results in significant and prolonged suffering of civilian populations. If the law governing humanitarian assistance is to be better respected, those who act unlawfully must be held accountable. One of the most effective mechanisms for ensuring such accountability is prosecution of international crimes at the International Criminal Court. In its present form, however, there is no provision in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which provides specifically for the prosecution of the unlawful denial of humanitarian assistance in non-international armed conflict. This paper argues that this leaves a significant gap in the accountability framework, and examines possibilities for reform.

This paper explores the nature of principal liability in international criminal law. In prosecuting high-level leaders most responsible for crimes, both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have used modes of principal liability to convict high-level leaders. In examining the elements of joint criminal enterprise (JCE) and the control over the crime theory (control theory), this paper seeks to identify steps for the ICC to take in its future prosecutions. Whilst the ICC’s control theory is an appropriate mode of liability for the conviction of high-level leaders, the ICC must justify its recourse to the control theory. This paper questions whether the ICC can use the control theory as a source of law, identifies aspects of the ICC’s jurisprudence that should be clarified, and looks at indirect co-perpetration as a future tool of principal liability. If these steps are taken, the ICC can on more justified grounds continue its mission of ending impunity for high-level leaders.

Detention is a necessary part of armed conflict, and is thus permitted by international humanitarian law in conflicts of an international character. However, detention also raises human rights concerns and is limited by human rights instruments, like the European Convention on Human Rights. The recent case of Hassan v United Kingdom constitutes the European Court of Human Rights’ first substantive discussion of the relationship and conflict between these two areas of law. The Court concluded that, as the United Kingdom was acting in accordance with international humanitarian law, its actions were not a breach of the European Convention, even though the Convention does not permit internment in armed conflict. In Serdar Mohammed v Minister of Defence the United Kingdom Court of Appeal continued the discussion of detention in armed conflict and in doing so reached the conclusion that there is no international humanitarian law authority to detain in conflicts of a non-international character. This paper examines the issues raised by those two cases. It highlights problems with the reasoning in Hassan and suggests a logical alternative: derogation from the European Convention. The paper also analyses the decision in Mohammed, and concludes that while the finding is concerning, it is likely to change in future due to customary law developments.

The impunity of high-level military and political leaders sits at the heart of the challenge for feminist legal advocates to champion sexual violence's equal recognition of a crime at international law. Repetitively, sexual violence crimes are a particular risk of the failure of the criminal law to surpass a number of pervasive assumptions about the nature of these crimes. In 2014, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued three judgments that analysed the relationship between sexual violence and common purpose liability in ground criminal conduct. This paper provides a critique of these judgments by drawing out the inconsistent and limited interpretation of the law and engendering legal concepts for a crime that is inherently gendered.

This paper explores the legality technology lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). Recent literature has claimed that LAWS should be subject to a pre-emptive ban, as they are incapable of abiding by the principles of international humanitarian law (IHL), and they will increase the risk of harm to civilians. This paper disputes that contention, arguing instead that LAWS could be capable of compliance with IHL. However, there are other moral and policy reasons which could justify further regulation, and therefore a form of partial ban, combined with a soft law instrument, could be helpful in international regulation of the more problematic aspects of LAWS. This paper does not seek to explore questions of accountability and liability for the actions of LAWS in any depth.

The negotiation of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction proved to be highly controversial during the Diplomatic Conference at Rome in 1998. Despite this, the jurisdiction of the Court has not yet been a major issue in practice. Present situations before the Court, such as the situation in Palestine, however, mean that a re-examination of the Court’s jurisdictional scope is timely. In this vein, it is argued that territorial disputes between a State Party and a non-Party should not act as a bar to the exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction, and that the Court’s territorial jurisdiction may be properly understood as encompassing ‘objective territoriality’. The Court’s territorial jurisdiction, however, cannot be understood as permitting an application of the ‘effects doctrine’. Finally, the issue of nationality jurisdiction is explored, and it is concluded that this jurisdictional basis will be of limited practicality in the Court’s goal of ending impunity. If such a goal is to be achieved, States must be willing to try serious international criminals municipally.

The impacts of climate change threaten to cause the displacement of millions of people worldwide by the middle of this century. In spite of this looming crisis, international law provides insufficient protection to those who will be forced to migrate. In most cases, those who are displaced will fall outside of current protection frameworks. This paper examines why this protection deficit should be of particular concern to New Zealand, and it argues that there are significant incentives for New Zealand to develop a response to the issue of climate change displacement in the Pacific. The paper concludes that in order to ensure Pacific peoples are able to migrate with dignity, pre-emptive, voluntary migration schemes should be put in place to facilitate migration flows. These should build upon the current immigration framework, and include the extension of current permanent and temporary migration schemes, as well as the introduction of labour-training migration schemes.

This paper examines the victim participation framework at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC or Court), established to deal with crimes during the Khmer Rouge regime. The background which has led to the creation of the ECCC will be explained, before the paper will look at the way the Court is structured to include civil parties. The Court has consistently limited the civil parties’ role since its establishment and these limitations and the justifications are outlined in the paper. Solutions in the context of the ECCC are then considered, although due to the political environment, no changes in favour of victim rights are likely. Future models are considered, with the benefits of a Truth and Conciliation Commission’s analysed by looking at Sierra Leone and East Timor, as examples of successful frameworks where both a Court and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceeded simultaneously. This paper concludes that although every situation requiring a judicial response will be different, the option of having both a Court and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission can fulfil multiple victim needs.