EJIL Analysis

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Response to Alison MacDonald’s and Dapo Akande’s comments

July 14, 2009

We thank Alison MacDonald for her illuminating and extremely useful perspective on the developments in the approach of the British courts to adjudication based on international law. In many respects the changing attitude toward international law,  headed by the House of Lords under the unmistakable leadership of Lord Bingham, has provided an example for other national courts (NCs) to follow, starting in 2004 with the so-called Belmarsh Detainees judgment, that stunning 8-1 majority declaration that found the detention of foreign suspected terrorists incompatible with the Human Rights Act.  Such leadership is critical to change the status quo not only within a jurisdiction but also regionally and perhaps even globally (and no doubt, as MacDonald suggests, it facilitated a mutually reinforcing relationship between the House of Lords and the ECtHR). Other useful observations of MacDonald's that are worth highlighting include the reference to the Court of Appeal's blend of interpretive biases as leading - as often is the case - to conceptual confusion (in this case between customary and conventional international law); the…

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Three Cheers for the Application of International Law by Domestic Courts! Or should that be two? A response to Benvenisti & Downs.

July 13, 2009

Last month, Professors Eyal Benvenisti and George Downs posted a summary of their latest EJIL article - "National Courts, Domestic Democracy and the Evolution of International Law"  - which set out the issues discussed in that article (available here) in the context of the authors' scholarship in this area. The article impressively surveys trends regarding the extent to…

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Is Sudanese President Bashir Immune from Arrest?

July 11, 2009

In a post last week, I mentioned a forthcoming article of mine dealing with Bashir's Immunity. That article titled "The Legal Nature of Security Council Referrals to the ICC and its Impact on Al'Bashir's Immunities" has now been published in the latest issue of the Journal of International Criminal Justice (available here).  The  abstract of my article is as…

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The Strange Case of Florence Hartmann

July 9, 2009

Ruth Wedgwood is Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy; and Director of the International Law and Organizations Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University, Washington DC. She is also a  visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Previously, she served as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District…

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A House of Kadis? Recent Challenges to the UN Sanctions Regime and the Continuing Response to the ECJ Decision in Kadi

July 7, 2009

Devika Hovell is a DPhil Candidate in international law at the University of Oxford, and Associate Fellow  at Chatham House. She worked formerly as Director of the International Law Project and Lecturer in International Law at the University of New South Wales. Her doctoral thesis applies a procedural fairness framework to Security Council …

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