Appropriately enough in light of our recent discussions of international constitutionalism, today the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in the case of Sejdic and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (application nos. 27996/06 and 34836/06) (our previous coverage here; judgment here, but the HUDOC link might not be permanent). The case is by any definition a landmark for Strasbourg, not to mention Sarajevo.

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Dr André de Hoogh is a senior lecturer in International Law at the University of Groningen. His Ph.D. dissertation (1995) dealt with the topics of obligations erga omnes and international crimes of State.  Recent publications have focussed on the powers of the Security Council, the attribution of conduct to States, legislative powers of UN peacekeeping operations, the war against Iraq, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence, and jurisdiction of States.

The Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, solicited by the European Union, covers an impressive breadth of topics ranging, aside from factual matters, from statehood, self-determination and secession, use of force, human rights and international humanitarian law. Having read the Report with appreciation and generally agreeing with its conclusions, nevertheless various queries and concerns may be raised by the Mission’s treatment of the regulation of the use of force in international law. Some concerns relate to the treatment of sources of international law, others concern matters of substantive analysis. This comment will consecutively deal with the applicability and interpretation of the prohibition of the threat and use of force in article 2(4) of the Charter, the requirement of a report on measures of self-defence to the Security Council, and the permissible goals of self-defence under international law.

The Applicability of the Prohibition of the Use of Force

The Report concludes that the use of force, in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict, “is ‘inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations’, and therefore the prohibition of the use of force is applicable to the conflict, for the following reasons.” Besides putting the horse behind the cart (after all, if the prohibition is not applicable, how could force be inconsistent with the Charter?), the reasons then set forth do not quite support the applicability of the prohibition in article 2(4) Charter. First to be mentioned in the Report is a clause in the preamble of the 1992 Sochi Agreement, which reaffirms “the commitment to the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act”. This is said to amount to Georgian acceptance of the applicability of the prohibition, because, though South Ossetia is not a party to the Agreement, the purpose of the Agreement is to “bring about a cessation of bloodshed” and achieve a settlement of the Ossetian-Georgian conflict. The Report considers, sensibly enough, the prohibition to be included in the reference to the Charter, but fails to consider the (legal) status of a clause in a preamble and does not, as such, account for the fact that the reference may be explained by Georgia and Russia being parties to the Agreement. (more…)

Dr Tarcisio Gazzini is Associate Professor at the VU University Amsterdam. He has previously taught at the Universities of Padova (Italy) and Glasgow (UK_. He is an alternate member of the ILA Committee on Non-State actors and a member of the editorial board of the Leiden Journal of International Law. His publications include The Changing Rules on the Use of Force in International Law, Manchester University Press (2005).   

The recently published Report of the EU’s Independent Fact-Finding mission on the conflict(s) in Georgia can be considered in many respects as a successful experiment and a significant contribution to the establishment of the causes of the conflict(s) and the violations of jus ad bellum and of jus in bello.

Although the report offers several elements for reflection to international lawyers, this short comment focuses on the legal status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia which is crucial for the purpose of attributing international responsibility for violations of international law committed by these entities and their forces; qualifying the armed conflicts between Georgia and these entities, and identifying the applicable law, including the rules governing the use of military force and humanitarian law.

Legal Status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia

The question is discussed essentially in the first two sections of Chapter 3. The report seems to accept the view – clearly predominant in State practice and literature – that recognition is not a constitutive element of statehood. (see for eg, the Arbitral Commission of the Peace Conference in Yugoslavia, Opinion No. 1, 31 ILM (1992) 1494, ‘the existence and disappearance of the state is a question of fact’.) As a result, statehood needs to be determined on the basis of factual elements or criteria, although these criteria, according to the report, have not authoritatively been defined yet.

The report continues by listing three ‘minimal pre-conditions’ for statehood: (1) defined territory; (2) permanent population and (3) effective government. It then refers to the respect of legal principles of international law, notably self-determination and the prohibition to use force, as ‘additional standards’ for the qualification of an entity as a State (pages 127-8). The reader may have the impression that an entity must satisfy cumulatively ‘minimal pre-conditions’ and ‘additional standards’ before claiming statehood.

The report introduces three categories of entities: (1) (full) states fulfilling the relevant criteria for statehood and universally recognised; (2) state-like entities fulfilling the relevant criteria, but which are not, or not universally, recognised; and (3) entities short of statehood not fulfilling the relevant criteria, or only some of them, or only in a weak form, but eventually recognised by one or more states (page 128). (more…)

Over the next couple of weeks, EJIL:Talk! will host a discussion of a recent book edited by Jeffrey Dunoff and Joel Trachman – Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance (Cambridge, 2009). This is a major work by leading scholars which examines constitutionalism and constitutional discourse in a range of areas of international law. According to the book’s publishers (Cambridge University Press):

Ruling the World?: Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance provides an interdisciplinary analysis of the major developments and central questions in debates over international constitutionalism at the UN, EU, WTO, and other sites of global governance. The essays in this volume explore controversial empirical and structural questions, doctrinal and normative issues, and questions of institutional design and positive political theory. Ruling the World? grows out of a three-year research project that brought twelve leading scholars together to create a comprehensive and integrated framework for understanding global constitutionalization. Ruling the World? is the first volume to explore in a cross-cutting way constitutional discourse across international regimes, constitutional pluralism, and relations among transnational and domestic constitutions. The volume examines the core assumptions, basic analytic tools, and key challenges in contemporary debates over international constitutionalization.

Contributors to the EJIL:Talk! discussion will include Jeff Dunoff (Temple University), Joel Trachtman (Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy), Andreas Paulus (Gottingen), Mattias Kumm (New York University/Harvard) and Neil Walker (Edinburgh Law School), all of whom are contributors to the book. Commentators on the book will include: Robert Howse (New York University), Gráinne de Búrca (Fordham/NYU), Nico Krisch (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin) and David Schneiderman (University of Toronto).

As always readers, are encouraged to join the discussion using the comments feature on the blog. For those who don’t yet have the book, you can find excerpts at the CUP site (see here) and on SSRN (see here).

The table of contents of the book is as follows: (more…)

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention has become the most widely ratified treaty after the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (which have 194 States Parties). There are now 193 States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, meaning it has more parties than to the Charter of the United Nations (which has 192). Only the United States and Somalia are not party to the Convention. Two Optional Protocols additional to the Convention were adopted in 2000. One on the involvement of children in armed conflict and the other on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

In addition to specific rights the Convention lays down the basic principle that:

In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration

Major news outlets have reported the (perhaps somewhat surprising) conviction of 23 American and 2 Italian intelligence agents by an Italian court for the 2003 ‘extraordinary rendition’ of Abu Omar (for coverage, see here, here, here) and here. This is I believe the first such conviction in any Western country – the decision itself was announced orally, while the written reasons will follow eventually. Our readers might be interested in a topical article (available on SSRN) on the Abu Omar case by Francesco Messineo, which is due to be published shortly in the JICJ, and which I’ve had the opportunity to read in draft.

The trial of Radovan Karadzic at the ICTY was supposed to begin this morning, but, true to his word, Karadzic decided to boycott the trial because he was allegedly not given enough time for preparation. In reality, however, it has been more than a year and three months since his transfer to the Hague – time that he spent wastefully, mainly by bombarding the Tribunal, states, and the public with his theories regarding an alleged immunity deal with Richard Holbrooke, that he claimed was somehow supposedly binding on the Tribunal (for our earlier coverage, see here, and for some discussion see here). The proceedings will resume Tuesday afternoon, and we shall see what the judges make of it.

That the trial is off to a rather bumpy start is of course entirely the Tribunal’s own fault – not because it denied Karadzic adequate time for preparation, but because it allowed him to represent himself in the first place. The ICTY’s overly generous (to put it mildly) approach to self-representation, first in the Milosevic and then in the Seselj cases (see more here), quite simply allowed determined defendants to turn the courtroom into a circus. It is not just deeply flawed legally, practically, and symbolically – it also in my view rests on a mistaken psychological assumption: that the defendants in question actually wish to persuade the judges of their innocence.

But high-ranking defendants want no such thing. It is not the judges who are their intended audience – they perform for the history books, and for those same besotted masses whom they once led and whose fate they still want to control. They wish to validate their own heroic self-image; the courtroom is only their final stage, and the judges a part of the decor. They do so not just because of the narcissistic, prima donna personality that is almost invariably a part of the pathological mental make-up of a successful politician/war criminal. Rather, they are in a sense perfectly rational in their irrationality. That they have nothing to gain by having counsel defend them to the best of their ability is plain – either they already know that they are guilty, or they believe that there’s a conspiracy out to get them, of which the judges naturally form part.

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Yesterday the ICTY Appeals Chamber issued (what is to be hoped is) the final decision in the Karadzic/Holbrooke immunity agreement saga. For previous commentary on the issue at EJIL: Talk!, see here and here. Though the Appeals Chamber had some quibbles with the Trial Chamber’s approach in denying an evidentiary hearing, accepting facts alleged by Karadzic pro veritate, and then discounting them, it nonetheless (quite rightly) dismissed Karadzic’s appeal.

Thus, the Appeals Chamber held that even if the alleged Karadzic immunity agreement existed, and was made with the actual authority of the Security Council (not merely an apparent authority, as Karadzic contended), this agreement could still not alter the jurisdiction of the Tribunal without a Security Council resolution to that effect (paras. 34-38). Likewise, the Chamber held that not even an agreement entered into by the Prosecution could bind the Tribunal itself (para. 41), and that Karadzic could not avail himself of the abuse of process doctrine. Like the Trial Chamber, the Appeals Chamber allowed Karadzic to pursue the Holbrooke agreement issue insofar as it may be relevant to sentencing and mitigation (paras. 54-55).

Antonios Tzanakopoulos, D.Phil. cand. (Oxford), LL.M. (NYU) (Athens), is Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Glasgow. A relevant paper presented at the University of Vienna in September 2009 can be found here in draft form.

I. Introduction: the 1267 Regime and Domestic Courts

For quite some time now there has been significant discontent about the fundamental rights implications of Security Council sanctions, in particular individual sanctions under the regime established by Resolution 1267 (1999) and subsequent Resolutions (see eg this blog here and here). The 1267 regime obligates UN Member States to freeze the assets of persons designated by the relevant Sanctions Committee as being ‘associated with’ Al-Qaida and the Taliban. But those identified by the Committee have no recourse against their designation, and no other remedy except the possibility to petition the Committee for delisting. Decisions on such petitions are taken in camera and no justification is required (see the Committee’s Guidelines).

Since Security Council decisions are not directly enforceable in most municipal legal orders, Member States of the UN have had to transpose the relevant measures imposed by the Council. This was done through the adoption of domestic implementing acts, usually of administrative character, in order to comply with their obligations under Article 25 of the UN Charter. The fact however that sanctions were imposed ‘on the ground’, as it were, by domestic administrative decisions, combined with the lack of any other recourse, has led affected individuals to attack the domestic implementing measures in the courts of various Member States (see here for the Monitoring Team reports, detailing challenges in the Annex).

II. Domestic Courts Have Teeth

The ECJ, in a decision controversial in its reasoning, if not in its outcome, was the first  court to finally annul such ‘domestic’ implementing measures (in this case adopted on the EC level) acceding to the claim of two listed persons, Kadi and the Al Barakaat Foundation. That decision would have effectively forced the 27 Member States of the Community in breach of their international obligations under the Resolutions and Article 25 of the Charter. The ECJ, however, suspended the effect of the annulment for three months, by which time the Community had adopted new implementing measures.

Still, the ECJ may just have provided the impetus that other domestic courts needed in order to embark upon their own ‘decentralized resistance’ against Security Council sanctions under the 1267 regime. The CFI annulled the domestic implementing measures with respect to Othman, another listed person, without even granting the grace period that the ECJ provided for in Kadi. But most importantly, a month after Othman, on 10 July 2009, the Queen’s Bench of the English High Court quashed the Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 (‘AQO’) in Hay v HM Treasury ([2009] EWHC 1167 (Admin)). (more…)

Elizabeth Prochaska is a Barrister at Matrix Chambers, London. She has recently completed a period as Judicial Assistant to Baroness Hale and Lord Brown in the House of Lords.

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen captured by US forces in Afghanistan at the age of 15 and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for 7 years, recently succeeded in convincing the Canadian Court of Appeal to order the Canadian government to request his immediate repatriation by the US  (Khadr v. Prime Minister of Canada 2009 FCA 246). This is no small achievement. Until the Court of Appeal’s judgment, no court – international or municipal – had recognised an obligation on a government to exercise diplomatic protection to safeguard nationals from ill-treatment at the hands of a foreign state.

 The doctrine of diplomatic protection under which the state asserts its right to make claims on behalf of nationals injured abroad is a promising remedy for the human rights abuse of aliens. Governments can engage in all manner of conduct (some of it traditionally diplomatic, some of it outright hostile) under the guise of the doctrine. But as this brief summary of the current status of diplomatic protection shows it has yet to reach its full potential in either international or municipal human rights law.

 In its report on the subject in 2006, the International Law Commission (ILC) proposed a Convention on Diplomatic Protection which would attempt to resolve the dislocation between the traditional understanding of diplomatic protection as a discretionary right of the state and contemporary human rights vested in individuals. However, the ILC did not adopt the recommendation of its Rapporteur, John Dugard, that the Convention require states to guarantee an individual right to diplomatic protection. Instead, Draft Article 19, entitled ‘Recommended Practice’, suggests that states should be encouraged to exercise diplomatic protection ‘especially when significant injury occurred’ to the national. Drafted in soft language, the Article does not purport to create any binding obligations on the state. Discussions in the Sixth Committee at the sixty-second session of the General Assembly 2007  raised the prospect of imposing a positive obligation on states to protect their nationals abroad, but diplomatic protection is not up for consideration by the Sixth Committee again until next year and it remains to be seen whether a Convention will ever be approved. For now at least, customary international law offers little comfort to those suffering human rights abuse abroad.

 In municipal law, the status of an individual right to protection, or a duty to protect, as the Canadian courts conceptualised it in Khadr, is equally uncertain. (more…)