In this Issue

This issue opens with an article that is sure to provoke discussion and perhaps disagreement. Yishai Beer argues that the principle of necessity should be understood as constraining military action, particularly when infused with the standards of a modern professional military. We continue with three articles focusing on the European Court of Human Rights. In the first, Helen Keller and Cedric Marti propose a novel framework for understanding – and further enhancing – the more assertive stance of the Court, during various phases of its work, in ensuring the implementation of its judgments. The next article, by Anna Dolidze (who was recently appointed the Deputy Minister of Defence of Georgia), examines the Court’s borrowing of the amicus curiae participation procedure from the UK, and offers a theory of the conditions under which such internationalized legal transplants may take place. The third article, by Mathias Möschel and Ruth Rubio-Marín, considers how the Court’s jurisprudence has been distorted by what they call the ‘Holocaust Prism’, through which the Court views and responds to cases involving racial discrimination. Rounding out the main Articles section in this issue is a piece by An Hertogen, which argues that the well-known ‘Lotus principle’ reflects a misreading of the majority opinion in that landmark case, and should be re-cast in a manner that is more compatible with contemporary needs.

The first entry under our new rubric, For the Classroom, is an article by John Morss on the claims to statehood under international law of the Vatican/Holy See. In For the Classroom we select articles on discrete classical areas of International Law whose subject matter, comprehensiveness and quality make them particularly suitable for teaching purposes.

Roaming Charges takes us to Tel Aviv where we share a moment of dignity with a shoemaker at work.

In the first issue of this volume, we launched our new rubric, the EJIL Foreword. Appropriately, then, this last issue of the year includes an ‘Afterword’ in which the author of the Foreword responds to his critics. The Journal’s blog, EJIL: Talk!, has already carried a discussion of Jan Klabbers’ important article on ‘The Transformation of International Organizations Law’. Here, we present three further critical reactions to that article, by Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, André Nollkaemper and Guy Fiti Sinclair, together with a rejoinder by Klabbers.

Two of our regular rubrics complete the issue. Our EJIL: Debate! in this issue centres on an article by Erika de Wet, which considers the doctrinal implications of recent developments in state practice in relation to military intervention by invitation. Dino Kritsiotis responds, and we hope that the debate will continue on EJIL: Talk! Finally, an article in our Critical Review of International Jurisprudence rubric by Ronagh McQuigg brings us back to the European Court of Human Rights, with an analysis of the Court’s recent jurisprudence on domestic violence.

The Last Page presents a poem by Guillaume Landais entitled ‘Mur sous ma main’, particularly pertinent at this time.