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CERD and Hate Speech

Published on April 19, 2013        Author: 

An important case on hate speech was recently decided by the CERD Committee, TBB v. Germany, dealing with the intersection or conflict between the prohibition of racial discrimination and the freedom of expression (thanks to Marty Lederman for the pointer). The case concerned an interview given by a Mr Sarrazin in a journal that contained derogatory and offensive statements against the Turkish population in Germany; the statements were however given in the context of at least a superficially reasoned discussion dealing mainly with the economy. The TBB, a Turkish association in Germany, wanted Mr Sarrazin to be prosecuted for hate speech; the German prosecutors refused to do so, finding that while some of S’s statements were offensive, a prosecution would under the circumstances run afoul of the freedom of expression.

Article 4 CERD explicitly requires states parties to ‘declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred’; however when doing so they must give ‘due regard to the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ including the freedom of expression. The Convention itself thus even at the purely textual level creates a potential conflict between the duty to incriminate hate speech and the freedom of expression, without providing much guidance as to how this conflict can be resolved. Text aside, the same set of issues is of course raised under other human rights treaties, such as the ECHR and the ICCPR, or in the domestic context.

Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Freedom of Expression, Prohibition of Discrimination
 

Is it the right time to reconsider jus ad bellum proportionality?: a response to Kretzmer’s “The inherent right to self-defence and proportionality in jus ad bellum”

Published on April 18, 2013        Author: 

 Dr Gina Heathcote is a lecturer at SOAS, University of London

I shall begin by answering the question posed in my title in the negative.  The very technical and detailed discussion of the scope of jus ad bellum self-defence, as is found in David Kretzmer’s article, plays down the contemporary spaces where the Charter is being re-imagined by States. The post-millennium era has been characterised by state practice that seems to conveniently forget the constraints of the Charter structure, in particular the importance of Articles 2(3) and 2(4) of the Charter, in favour of unilateral force. In returning to the scope and permission embedded in the principle of proportionality, Kretzmer acknowledges but neatly avoids contemporary debates on the use of force in humanitarian crisis and the use of targeted strikes through identification but little analysis of the rhetoric, practice and confusion of the vast literature that has characterised post-millennium debates on jus ad bellum. This is an unfortunate consequence of Kretzmer narrowing in on, first, a component of the use of force (self-defence) and, second, to a specific aspect of that component (proportionality). This avoids looking, seeing or acknowledging the harm – the deaths – caused by targeted strikes and the consequences of both collective and unilateral interventions justified on humanitarian grounds, allowing international lawyers to retell stories of technical legal knowledge that are far removed from ‘what we talk about when we talk about war’ (see B.Stark ‘What We Talk about When we Talk about War’, 32 Stanford Journal of International Law (1996) 91). Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: Armed Conflict, EJIL, EJIL: Debate!, Self Defence, Use of Force
 

Comments on David Kretzmer’s “The inherent right to self-defence and proportionality in jus ad bellum

Published on April 17, 2013        Author: 

Dr Noam Lubell, Reader, School of Law, University of Essex

I’ve been asked to begin the discussion of Professor David Kretzmer’s new article on proportionality. Having benefitted from David’s wisdom in the past 20 years both academically and in my previous NGO life, I am not surprised to once again have thoroughly enjoyed reading his work. In particular I’m thankful to have been asked to take part in this discussion, as his latest article contains many thought-provoking points, of which we will probably only begin to scratch the surface (I urge you to read the article itself!). Considering the limited space in a discussion of this kind, I’m going to focus on just a few points related to two issues that arise a number of times in the article. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: Armed Conflict, EJIL, EJIL: Debate!, Self Defence, Use of Force
 

Discussion of David Kretzmer’s “The inherent right to self-defence and proportionality in jus ad bellum”

Published on April 16, 2013        Author: 

Over the next week or so we shall be hosting a discussion of Professor David Kretzmer’s latest article “The inherent right to self-defence and proportionality in jus ad bellum” which has just been published in the first issue of volume 24 of the European Journal of International Law.  The discussion will be started by Dr Noam Lubell (University of Essex), and then be continued by Dr Gina Heathcote (SOAS, University of London), Thomas Lieflander (St Hugh’s College, Oxford), Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell (Notre Dame), and culminate in comments by Professor Kretzmer himself.

Professor Kretzmer’s article is free to view at the link above.  Please read it and join in the conversation.

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis
 

The Tallinn Manual on the International Law applicable to Cyber Warfare

Published on April 15, 2013        Author: 

Liis Vihul is the Tallinn Manual Project Manager, NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, Tallinn, Estonia.

Although scholars began to assess how international law applies in the cyber context during the late 1990s, it was not until the 2007 cyber operations directed at Estonia that the international community became fully sensitised to the subject. For the first time, it became publicly clear that cyber operations are a powerful tool for conveying political or strategic messages by States, non-State groups and individual hackers.  The operations also made the international community aware of how cyber operations could be used to dramatically disrupt life in a country.

The incidents led in part to the establishment of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE), an international military organisation located in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.  The Centre is a partnership between eleven States.

In late 2009, NATO CCD COE invited a group of twenty international law scholars and operational legal advisers (the International Group of Experts), under the directorship of Professor Michael Schmitt of the United States Naval War College, to conduct a three year research project examining the norms applicable during cyber warfare. The product of this effort is the “Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare”, published in March by Cambridge University Press.

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Filed under: Cyber Warfare, EJIL Analysis, International Humanitarian Law, Use of Force
 

Progressive Development of International Human Rights Law: The Reports of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic

Published on April 13, 2013        Author: 

Tilman Rodenhäuser is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

The crisis in Syria has entered its third year and violence has risen to unprecedented levels. This is not only the case for acts committed by regime forces but also for violence by members of different armed groups fighting the Assad regime. At a time when the situation in Syria was still marked by the crackdown of regime forces on protesters, the Human Rights Council decided in August 2011 to establish a Commission of Inquiry. The Commission is mandated to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011, to establish facts, and to identify perpetrators in order to ensure accountability in the future. Documenting human rights violations at the different stages of the crisis, the Commission of Inquiry made some remarkable findings, particularly on the law applicable to acts of violence committed by opposition forces. First, in a situation where international humanitarian law did not apply because the Commission was unable to establish the existence of an armed conflict, it found that armed groups were bound by human rights obligations constituting peremptory international law. Second, in its recent report of February 2013, the Commission found armed groups in violation of Article 4 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

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Filed under: Armed Conflict, International Humanitarian Law, Syria
 

The Law Applicable to Peacekeepers Deployed in Situations where there is No Armed Conflict

Published on April 10, 2013        Author: 

Siobhán Wills  is Professor of Law at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland.

I have been researching the peacekeeping operation in Haiti, MINUSTAH, and in doing so coming up against a problem that I would appreciate the  thoughts of EJIL:Talk! readers on. There have been a number of incidents that have raised complaints of excessive use of force and counter arguments that the force was not excessive.  My query is simply ‘what law applies’ to the peacekeeping mission (in particular in the context of the use of force) given that there is not, and never was, an armed conflict in Haiti. When the Security Council authorises use of force (whether in an enforcement action against a State or in a peacekeeping operation) I assume that the coalitions of the willing or UN troops undertaking the action must exercise their authority to use force in accordance with international law. But if there is no armed conflict what law governs peacekeepers’ use of force under Chapter VII?

Reports and commentaries by MINUSTAH personnel suggest that the commanders of MINUSTAH, and their political advisors at the UN, and advisors from the US, France and Canada, believe that since MINUSTAH has a Chapter VII mandate they can use whatever force they deem necessary to carry out that mandate so long as they comply with their Rules of Engagement (ROE). However, presumably the ROE must be drafted to fit within the constraints of the applicable international law framework. MINUSTAH’s ROE are not publicly available but the language used in MINUSTAH reports and commentaries suggests that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is the overall governing framework within which the mission believes it ought to be operating. (Certainly mission personnel do not appear to be thinking within a Law Enforcement framework and frequent references to ‘collateral damage’ suggest an IHL framework). This would not be surprising since IHL is the law in which peacekeepers are primarily trained ie when peacekeepers initiate use of force they do so within a legal framework (they don’t make up their own rules just because they have a Chapter VII mandate) and that framework is normally IHL.

I have not spoken to anyone from MINUSTAH but I have spoken to commanders that have served in UN peacekeeping missions in other countries where there is no armed conflict (UNMIL in particular) and their view is that, regardless of whether or not there is an armed conflict in the country to which they are deployed, if the mission has a Chapter VII mandate it may use whatever force is necessary to carry out that mandate; and when the mission does use force for this purpose IHL becomes applicable to that particular operation.

I have sympathy for commanders trying to carry out their tasks under a Chapter VII mandate in a violent and volatile situation; but I do not understand how (or on what basis) IHL can be applicable where there is no armed conflict. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: Armed Conflict, International Humanitarian Law, Security Council
 

What is the Meaning of “Consensus” in International Decision Making?

Published on April 8, 2013        Author: 

On 28 March, the negotiators at the Final UN Diplomatic Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty failed to adopt the Arms Trade Treaty (see BBC report here) by consensus.  A few days later the Arms Trade Treaty was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (by a vote of 154 in favour, three against and 23 abstentions – for a really useful account of the negotiations see the Arms Trade Treaty Legal Blog). At the Diplomatic Conference, the rules of procedure required that the treaty be adopted by “consensus”. However, at the end of that conference, Syria, Iran and North Korea objected to the text. According to the bloggers at the ATT Legal Blog there then ensued a discussion of whether the objection by these three States could stand in the way of the adoption of the treaty by consensus, with some States taking the view that acceptance of the text by the overwhelming majority of States was sufficient to establish consensus despite the expressed opposition of three States. However, the President of the Conference ruled that there was no consensus and that the treaty could not be adopted.

The wranglings about the meaning of “consensus” have a broad importance for decision-making with regard to treaties and in other international conferences. Since the 1970s it has become standard practice in many important diplomatic conferences that decisions are taken, where possible, by consensus. Although this procedural device is ubiquitous, as well as being important for the way in which international law is made, the arguments at the ATT conference lay bare the ambiguity that lies at the heart of this concept. There is no consensus on the meaning of “consensus”. The consensus procedure is an important device for achieving broad based agreement on international treaties. It is therefore important to have some clarity on what it means. Lack of clarity on the procedure might well have an adverse impact on the process by which treaties and other international decisions are reached with the result that the substantive outcomes might be less desirable.

The ATT Legal Blog reports that:

“Mexico said that the overwhelming majority of States were in a position to adopt the treaty text. Mexico suggested to proceed to the adoption of the text as there is no established definition of the term “consensus” in the United Nations. Nigeria supported Mexico. Japan also supported Mexico. Costa Rica then supported Mexico’s statement. Chile then supported Mexico’s statement. Colombia “resolutely” supported Mexico. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: Arms Control, EJIL Analysis, Treaty Law, United Nations
 

James Stewart on Perisic

Published on April 7, 2013        Author: 

Readers might be interested in James Stewart’s analysis on OJ (here and here) of the ICTY Appeals Chamber’s Perisic judgment – James is rightly highly critical of the Chamber’s analysis with regard to aiding and abetting liability and specific direction. For my own take on the judgment and an outline of the issues see my earlier post here.

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, International Criminal Law, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
 
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Announcements

Published on April 7, 2013        Author: 

On 11/12 April, the Schools of Law of the University of Glasgow and Queen Mary, University of London, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, are hosting a workshop entitled ‘Structural Challenges Facing International Organisations: Re-Assessing the League of Nations’ (Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London). The workshop will discuss key challenges facing international organisations, such as the tension between coherence and wide membership and the balance to be struck between stability and reform. It does so by looking at the example of the League of Nations as the first attempt at ‘world organisation’. The keynote address on ‘Lessons from the League of Nations’ will be by Mr Stephen Mathias, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs (New York). To attend, please register here or email Christian J. Tams at christian.tams {at} glasgow.ac(.)uk

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis