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11011. The European Convention on Human Rights, the EU and the UK: Confronting a Heresy

Author:
Andrew Williams
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The orthodox view of the ECHR and its Court as regime in the context of both the EU and UK has been that it has considerable value albeit with systemic flaws. The purpose of this article is to challenge this orthodoxy. Four inter-related submissions are made: that the ECHR has failed human rights conceptually (1); 'good' or lauded decisions of the ECtHR cannot remedy or sufficiently counter-balance this conceptual failure (2); 'bad' decisions further expose and exacerbate the failure (3); the procedural problems of the ECHR regime may contribute to the underlying failure of concept but their resolution cannot solve it (4). These submissions are to provoke a more intense assessment of value and how such value could be enhanced. It may be too late to see any influence on the accession process but this does not reduce the relevance of the critique for the future of human rights in both the EU and the UK. Ultimately an approach to the ECHR system needs to determine whether it continues to be lauded or its influence resisted (thus seeking reform or replacement - the alternative candidates being the EU Charter and/or a national Bill of Rights) and retained only as an iconic scheme of moral importance.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

11012. The European Convention on Human Rights, the EU and the UK: Confronting a Heresy: A Reply to Andrew Williams

Author:
Stelios Andreadakis
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This reaction piece responds to the article by Andrew Williams entitled 'The European Convention on Human Rights, the EU and the UK: Confronting a Heresy'. In his article, Williams contends that we should not further support the 'orthodox' view that the Convention (ECHR) has been very successful in protecting and promoting human rights across Europe, offering four submissions to that end. It will be argued that Dr Williams' submissions regarding the ECHR's success and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)'s role are not well supported and justified. The relationship between the ECHR and a future UK Bill of Rights will also be explored in the piece, as there is no sufficient link between the author's arguments about the ECHR regime and the UK legal system, making it rather artificial to refer to the UK as a possible model for human rights.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

11013. Horizontal Review between International Organizations: A Reply to Abigail C. Deshman

Author:
Rosa Rafaelli
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This short article aims to further the discussion over horizontal review between international organizations started by Deshman in her analysis of the role of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe after the H1N1 pandemic. The article compares the historical evolution of the European Parliament to that of the Parliamentary Assembly and examines how the EP's involvement with issues such as human rights and international relations served to build its identity, to gain international recognition, and to obtain more formal powers. It suggests possible additional reasons explaining the PA's willingness to perform horizontal review over action carried out by the WHO, and potential paths for future developments.
Topic:
International Relations and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

11014. Horizontal Review between International Organizations: A Rejoinder to Rosa Raffaelli

Author:
Abigial C. Deshman
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Dr. Raffaelli's Reply to my article highlights some very useful areas for further exploration in the realm of global administrative law and inter-institutional interactions. Calling this a rejoinder may be a bit of a misnomer since I believe we are actually in broad agreement. In the spirit of debate, I will first draw out one apparent point of divergence – whether this is actually an instance of horizontal review – before canvassing our substantive areas of agreement.
Political Geography:
Europe

11015. Traditional Knowledge Systems, International Law and National Challenges: Marginalization or Emancipation?

Author:
Gurdial Singh Nijar
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Traditional knowledge systems of indigenous and local communities have been of immense value over millennia. They have filled the breadbasket that has fed the world, provided medicines that have healed the world, and provided for the sustainable management of resources, including biodiversity. In short, these knowledge systems have fed, clothed, and healed the world. They may yet hold the key to dealing with the risks posed by climate change. Yet today they are in danger of being marginalized. This article identifies the threats, the inadequacy of the international legal architecture, and the faltering national attempts to reassert their role. It identifies the varying interests and elements and assesses their influence in the marginalization and resuscitation of traditional knowledge systems; and finally argues for the emancipation of these systems and their restoration to the plurality of knowledge systems to provide sustainable solutions to natural resource management.

11016. Commentaries on the Law of Treaties: A Review Essay Reflecting on the Genre of Commentaries

Author:
Christian Djeffal
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Commentaries on international law abound and proliferate. To reflect upon this trend in international legal scholarship, three commentaries on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are reviewed. They are compared with regard to the ways in which they deal with three pertinent issues in the law of treaties: the ascertainment of jus cogens norms, the notion of object and purpose and grounds of invalidity, termination, and suspension. As a scholarly genre, commentaries form part of the legal culture of legal systems. So the review discusses their function in the past, in the present, and in their possible future. Their roots lie in the schools working on Roman law in the Middle Ages. They gained importance for international legal scholarship when international law entered the process of codification. Today, commentaries fulfil several functions in international legal discourse, the most important of which is that they structure this discourse. Digitization will seriously impact on all fields of scholarly publishing. The review concludes by discussing the possible changes in this scholarly genre. Those are accessibility, layout, referencing, inclusion of other media, and the possibility of enhanced discourse within the commentary.
Political Geography:
Vienna

11017. Duncan B. Hollis (ed.). The Oxford Guide To Treaties

Author:
Tim Staal
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In the words of editor Duncan Hollis, The Oxford Guide to Treaties 'is a big book' (at vii). Yet, it is relatively small and accessible considering its ambition to 'explore treaty questions from theoretical, doctrinal, and practical perspectives'.
Political Geography:
Vienna

11018. Globalization and Sovereignty. Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy and Constitutionalism

Author:
Gráinne de Búrca
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The intersection of constitutional ideas and international law has been the subject of a significant wave of scholarship in recent years. This monograph, written not by a lawyer but by a political theorist at Columbia University, addresses these themes in an engaging and rigorous way. And although it is a deeply scholarly work, it is also very much a politically engaged book, grappling with many fundamental questions of international law and governance today while trying to argue for 'realistic-utopian' reform.
Topic:
International Law

11019. Sari Kuovo and Zoe Pearson (eds). Feminist Perspectives on Contemporary International Law: Between Resistance and Compliance? Gina Heathcote. The Law on the Use of Force: A Feminist Analysis

Author:
Loveday Hodson
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Her normative prescriptions, in other words, by insisting on a framework of constitutional pluralism and rejecting other forms of legal pluralism, leave aside the many other powerful global institutions and bodies that generate rules and norms, other than the UN Security Council or other UN bodies on which the book concentrates. While it is clear that the UN is the predominant global security organization, and the one with military power at its service, there are also many other organizations and bodies which have morphed or are morphing, as Cohen puts it in the book, into global governance institutions. Yet the book's focus on the need for political communities which participate in an overarching 'political community of communities' seems to leave many of these other important sites of legal and political authority out of the picture, and to reject as inadequate some of the more modest but perhaps also more currently feasible legal reform proposals which have been made.
Topic:
Human Rights and International Law

11020. John Harrington and Maria Stuttaford (eds). Global Health and Human Rights: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives John Tobin. The Right to Health in International Law

Author:
Erika George
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Two recent publications present a defence of the right to health as it is articulated in international law and also provide insights into the array of impediments to realizing the health right. Despite a perceived conceptual lack of coherence and a limited appreciation of its relevance among health care professionals identified in these two books, the right to health has nevertheless succeeded in capturing greater attention in global policy circles. Local health care system reform initiatives around the globe increasingly make reference to the right to health. Both books are particularly helpful additions to the literature in light of recent advances in the development of the health right. Yet, each offers a very different assessment of its present status and prognosis for its future development.
Topic:
Human Rights and Health Care Policy