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1. Reservations and Time: Is There Only One Right Moment to Formulate and to React to Reservations?

Author:
Daniel Muller
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Time is an important element in the process of reservations to treaties and, consequently, in the legal regime established by the Vienna Conventions for reservations and reactions thereto. The very definition of reservations, embodied in Article 2(1)(d) of the 1969 and 1986 Vienna Conventions, as well as in Article 2(1)(j) of the 1978 Vienna Convention, and incorporated in the definition adopted by the International Law Commission in its Guide to Practice, includes precise indications and limits concerning the moment in time for a reservation to be formulated. In practice, however, reservations have been made before and after this peculiar moment. The work of the International Law Commission has shown that these are still reservations, even if they are not contemplated by the Vienna regime. But they can nevertheless deploy their purported effects under some additional conditions. The same holds true with regard to objections to reservations which can be formulated prematurely or late. They are still objections even if their concrete legal effects may be affected. Whereas time is important for the legal consequences attached to reservations and reactions thereto, it plays a less important role in the overall process of reservations dialogue.
Topic:
International Law
Political Geography:
Vienna

2. Reservations to Human Rights Treaties: From Draft Guideline 3.1.12 to Guideline 3.1.5.6

Author:
Ineta Ziemele and Lasma Liede
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article addresses the issue of reservations to human rights treaties in the light of the work done by the International Law Commission and its Special Rapporteur, Mr Alain Pellet. Section 1 gives a short historical background for the topic. Section 2 provides a concise overview of the variety of arguments that have been raised in the debate on the character of human rights treaties and the permissibility of reservations to those treaties, as well as their relationship with the reservations regime established under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Section 3 gives a number of specific examples of reservations permitted under the human rights treaties and describes the approach taken by some human rights treaty bodies in that respect. It also depicts the manner in which some of these bodies have dealt with the intricate issue of the consequences of impermissible reservations. Section 4 analyses the guidelines adopted by the ILC and offers some reflection on their contribution to the development of international treaty law on this topic. Section 5 concludes by praising the comprehensive work of the ILC on the subject.
Topic:
Human Rights and International Law
Political Geography:
Vienna

3. A Call to Arms: Fundamental Dilemmas Confronting the Interpretation of Crimes in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Author:
Leena Grover
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article seeks to initiate a dialogue within international criminal law (ICL) on treaty interpretation. The state of the art is reviewed and three fundamental interpretive dilemmas are identified and analysed. In the author's view, these dilemmas need to be addressed before a method of interpretation for crimes in Articles 6, 7, and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court can be formulated and operationalized. The 'normative dilemma' highlights how the normative tensions underlying ICL might be perpetuated by the interpretive imperatives in Articles 21(3) and 22(2) of the Rome Statute. The 'interpretive aids dilemma' concerns the respective roles of the Elements of Crimes and custom as aids to interpreting crimes in the Rome Statute. The 'inter-temporal dilemma' pertains to whether these crimes are 'frozen' or are to be interpreted in light of relevant and applicable legal developments. Throughout, the aforementioned dilemmas are grafted onto Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to illustrate that they are, at their core, universal problems of interpretation.
Topic:
International Law
Political Geography:
Vienna

4. Treaty Interpretation by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Expansionism at the Service of the Unity of International Law

Author:
Lucas Lixinski
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The article examines the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in several areas of adjudication which initially did not fall under the instrument, such as environmental rights, international humanitarian law, and investors' rights. In all these areas, the Court has used instruments 'foreign' to the Inter-American system as a means to expand the content of rights in the American Convention. As a result, the umbrella of protection of this instrument, and the reach of the Court, is far greater than originally envisaged. After analysing the specific provision on interpretation of the American Convention on Human Rights as compared to the equivalent mechanisms in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the article analyses several case studies of expansionism in the case law of the Court, asking throughout the analysis the question whether this helps the unity or the fragmentation of international law. The article argues that this exercise in expansionism, albeit imperfect, eventually contributes to the unity of international law. In this sense, this expansionism happens within controlled boundaries, and the use of external instruments is more of a validation of findings the Court could make based solely on the Inter-American instruments, rarely creating new rights.
Topic:
Human Rights and International Law
Political Geography:
America and Vienna

5. Justice in International Economic Law? From the 'International Law among States' to 'International Integration law' and 'Constitutional Law'

Author:
Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
The UN Charter and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties require interpreting treaties and settling international disputes “in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.” This contribution discusses procedural and substantive principles of justice which the international judge may take into account in interpreting international economic agreements. The “sovereign equality of states” underlying the “international law of coexistence” as well as the “international law of intergovernmental cooperation” must be interpreted in conformity with the universal recognition of human dignity as a source of inalienable human rights. The universal recognition of economic and social human rights further requires taking into account solidarity principles, as proposed also by the sociological approach to international law. The constitutional structures and citizen-oriented functions of the law of international economic organizations liberalizing and regulating mutually beneficial market transactions among citizens require judges to engage in a careful balancing of state-centered and citizen-oriented principles of international law, including respect for the emerging human right to democratic decision-making. This modern “international integration law” and the increasing number of “international constitutional rules” promote the reconciliation of the various state-centered approaches, human rights approaches, sociological approaches and policy-approaches to international law as a system not only of international rules and “legal pluralism” but also of constitutionally limited decision-making processes and struggles for human rights.
Topic:
Economics, Human Rights, International Law, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Vienna