Number of results to display per page
Search Results
5682. The European Lesson for International Democracy: The Significance of Articles 9 to 12 EU Treaty for International Organizations
- Author:
- Armin von Bogdandy
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article argues that Articles 9–12 of the EU Treaty provide a promising way to conceptualize and develop the democratic legitimation of international organizations. To be sure, the current European Union is not a democratic showcase. However, an innovative concept of democracy, neither utopian nor apologetic, has found its way into its founding treaty. It can point the way in conceiving and developing the democratic credentials not just of the EU, but of public authority beyond the state in general. Since comparison is a main avenue to insight, this article will present those Articles and show what lessons can be learnt for international organizations.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
5683. The Crisis of the European Union in the Light of a Constitutionalization of International Law
- Author:
- Jürgen Habermas
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The crisis of the European Union showcases the asymmetry between transnational capacities for political action and social as well as economic forces unleashed at the transnational level. But recovering the regulatory power of politics by way of increased supranational organization frequently arouses fears about the fate of national democracy and about the democratic sovereign, threatened to be dispossessed by executive powers operating independently at the global level. Against such political defeatism this contribution uses the example of the European Union to refute the underlying claim that a transnationalization of popular sovereignty cannot be achieved without lowering the level of democratic legitimation. It focuses on three components of every democratic polity – the association of free and equal legal persons, a bureaucratic organization for collective action, and civic solidarity as a medium of political integration – to argue that the new configuration they take at the European level does not in principle diminish the democratic legitimacy of the new transnational polity. The contribution continues to argue, however, that the sharing of sovereignty between the peoples and citizens of Europe needs to be better reflected in a symmetrical relationship between Council and Parliament while political leadership and the media must contribute to a greater sense of civil solidarity.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
5684. Roaming Charges Places of Entry: Tel Aviv Airport
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- We deal in EJIL with the world we live in – often with its worst and most violent pathologies, often with its most promising signs of hope for a better world. But, inevitably, since our vehicle is scholarship, we reify this world. Roaming Charges is designed not just to offer a moment of aesthetic relief, but to remind us of the ultimate subject of our scholarly reflections: we alternate between photos of places – the world we live in – and photos of people – who we are, the human condition. We eschew the direct programmatic photograph: people shot up; the ravages of pollution and all other manner of photojournalism.
5685. The WTO Legality of the Application of the EU's Emission Trading System to Aviation
- Author:
- Lorand Bartels
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The aviation industry has been included in the EU's emissions trading scheme (ETS) since 1 January 2012. Airlines now have to acquire and 'surrender' allowances for the carbon emissions produced by their flights. The scheme is comprehensive: it applies to EU and non- EU airlines (subject to a potential exemption), to passenger and cargo flights, and to flights between EU airports and between EU and non-EU airports. An airline that fails to surrender allowances is fined 100 per allowance and must make up the shortfall the following year. The EU's scheme has already given rise to legal action in connection with the EU's international civil aviation obligations. But, due to its impacts on trade in goods and services, the scheme also has implications for the EU's obligations under WTO law: specifically, under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Some of these issues are specific to this scheme, but in other respects they are connected with the current debate on the WTO legality of border carbon adjustments (BCAs). As this article shows, it is challenging to design a carbon scheme that is both administratively feasible and justifiable under WTO law.
5686. EU Climate Change Unilateralism
- Author:
- Joanne Scott and Lavanya Rajamani
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The EU is engaged in an ambitious, controversial, and high-stakes experiment to extend the reach of its climate change law. It is seeking to use its market power to stimulate climate action, and to substitute for climate inaction, elsewhere. This is most apparent in relation to the EU's decision to include aviation in its emissions trading scheme. While we are sympathetic to the EU's objectives, and do not take issue with its unilateral means, we argue that the EU is not giving adequate weight to the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDRRC). While the status, meaning, and implications of this principle are contested and unclear, it requires that developed countries should take the lead in addressing the causes and effects of climate change. We argue that the concept of CBDRRC retains relevance in the context of unilateral climate action, and that the EU's Aviation Directive should be interpreted, applied, and where necessary adjusted in the light of it. We put forward two concrete proposals to achieve this end.
5687. Boundary Agreements in the International Court of Justice's Case Law, 2000–2010
- Author:
- Alberto Alvarez-Jimenez
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Boundaries are a key element of the exercise of states' power and sovereignty. One of the cornerstones of boundaries is consent, as the ICJ has made clear. One should then expect from states that they be extremely careful when concluding agreements in such a critical realm. The undisputed character of consent as the pillar of boundaries by no means implies that the existence of a boundary or the attribution of sovereignty over territory is always clear when states have negotiated on these issues. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the different modalities of disputes over boundary agreements, in the ICJ's jurisprudence over the first decade of the new millennium; to present the Court's pronouncements on this particular issue; and to offer a general overview of this jurisprudence. Basically, this case law reveals that there are two general kinds of dispute. First, there were controversies relating to the existence of a boundary agreement. The second type of dispute involved controversies relating not to the existence of a boundary agreement but to its validity. As a conclusion, it can be said that the Court's jurisprudence displays two trends. First, the Court was strict in finding the existence of a boundary agreement between the parties relating to a particular territory. Secondly, once the Court decided that a boundary agreement existed, it was reluctant to declare its unlawfulness.
5688. Three Case Studies on 'Anti-Discrimination'
- Author:
- Jakob Cornides
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- In recent years, the EU has adopted a series of new directives to promote 'equality' and to fight 'discrimination'. Further measures are planned. But given that they are based on highly abstract concepts leaving wide margins of interpretation, the true meaning and impact of these new laws is difficult to understand in advance. In this article, I analyse three recent cases that give a foretaste of where European legislators, in their quest for more 'equality', may be heading.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
5689. 'The Secret of Tomorrow': International Organization through the Eyes of Michel Virally
- Author:
- Jorge E Viñuales
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The contribution of the late French Professor Michel Virally to international law is vast and touches on most areas of this discipline. Yet, Virally devoted particular attention to two main areas of inquiry, namely the philosophy of law and international organization. I have analysed Virally's contribution to the former elsewhere. This article focuses on his contribution to international organization widely understood as the study of international organizations and that of world organization. Virally considered international organization as a new political phenomenon, which would shape the dynamics of the two main driving forces of the second half of the 20th century, i.e., the East–West and the North–South divides. He developed a sophisticated theory of international organizations, with a strong functional focus. He used this theory to shed light on questions such as the management of international conflicts, the decolonization process, or the increasing influence of newly independent and developing states. His views on how these forces would shape the evolution of international law were far - sighted and allowed him to identify, with remarkable accuracy, the areas of international law where development considerations would require deep transformation, namely trade, investment, and the environment. In this regard, Michel Virally is also our contemporary and his contribution remains fully relevant for the analysis of international organization at large.
5690. A Transnational Take on Krisch's Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law
- Author:
- Gregory Shaffer
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This essay critiques Nico Krisch's Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law. The book's primary foil is the turn to rethinking the international legal order in constitutionalist terms. Its contrasting normative vision is a post-national, pluralist one in which there is no legal centre or hierarchy. This vision, although less ambitious than the constitutional programme, is nonetheless quite radical, and shares more with most constitutionalist visions than it acknowledges. Krisch's critique of his constitutionalist foil could be more radical than it is, and the essay provides arguments for such a critique. Nonetheless, the essay finds that Krisch's post-national vision is also too radical for the world outside Europe in being grounded in a European experience, as reflected in his case studies. The essay contends that a framework addressing transnational legal ordering in which states continue to play a central role is superior, given the ongoing centrality of the nation state in governance. The essay also finds that Krisch's normative framework fails to address variation in its evaluation of institutional alternatives in which some hierarchy at times is preferable. Krisch's vision is pluralist all the way through, while there are strong pragmatist arguments to be more context-specific in prescriptions.