Search

17351. 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.

17352. 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

17353. '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.

17354. 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.

17355. Humanity's Law

Author:
Gerd Hankel
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In Ruti Teitel's view there is absolutely no doubt that we live in a world in which legal relationships are undergoing ever more significant change, a fact of which she informs the reader right at the beginning of her book. States alone are no longer the main actors; instead persons and peoples are assuming greater prominence. Their interests and needs for protection increasingly dictate the content of international law which is becoming humanity's law as a result.

17356. Complicity and the Law of State Responsibility

Author:
Michael Byers
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
International law has long been seen as a 'primitive legal order' lacking key components such as a generally applicable enforcement mechanism.1 There is some truth to this view, as evidenced by the long absence of another component that is common to developed legal systems, namely responsibility for actors who deliberately aid, assist, or are otherwise complicit in illegal acts.

17357. International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law

Author:
Marina Mancini
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In order to make 'headway' in one of the most intractable debates in our field – the nature and workings of customary international law – authors seem to employ one of three tactics. One is to repeat and rehash the same narrow, doctrinal debates that scholars have been having for the last forty-odd years. Another and far more courageous approach is for the author to seek to completely re-imagine (and remake) customary international law. A third, finally, is to reflect on the nature of customary law more widely and to include insights from jurisprudence/legal theory, legal history, and moral/political philosophy.

17358. The Nature of Customary Law. Legal, Historical and Philosophical Perspectives

Author:
Jörg Kammerhofer
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In order to make 'headway' in one of the most intractable debates in our field – the nature and workings of customary international law – authors seem to employ one of three tactics. One is to repeat and rehash the same narrow, doctrinal debates that scholars have been having for the last forty-odd years. Another and far more courageous approach is for the author to seek to completely re-imagine (and remake) customary international law. A third, finally, is to reflect on the nature of customary law more widely and to include insights from jurisprudence/legal theory, legal history, and moral/political philosophy.

17359. Multi-Sourced Equivalent Norms in International Law

Author:
Filippo Fontanelli
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Many scholars have struggled to try to figure out ways to preserve a unitary perspective on international law in light of, and more frequently going beyond, the conservative guidelines formulated by Martti Koskenniemi and his ILC Working Group, collected in the 2006 Report on Fragmentation.

17360. Nocturnal Vision

Author:
Kiron K. Skinne
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Footlessly the ghost of her ghost thumps through the emptiness quaking in the quilted nothingness of maternal night before there was or there was not nihilating nothing in dusk of moonlight neither human nor angelic the animal divine treacherously trembling in tumult of time between river and rock the radiance secretes seed of immortal sap the cloudless destiny elapsed before dawn unfurled as the future in gleaming presence of everlasting past drifting like darts of dust with no reason to trust the passing of this night.