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21212. Strasbourg's Interpretive Ethic: Lessons for the International Lawyer
- Author:
- George Letsas
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The article offers an account of the judicial philosophy which underpins the European Court of Human Rights' approach to treaty interpretation. The first part argues that Strasbourg's interpretive ethic has been dismissive of originalism and textualism and has favoured instead the moral reading of the Convention rights. The second part of the article explains why Strasbourg's interpretive ethic is fully justified, by offering an account of the nature of treaty interpretation in general. It argues that treaty interpretation is intrinsically an evaluative task in identifying the moral values which normatively constrain the projects that states pursue on the international plane. Treaty interpretation is only derivatively an exercise in discovering drafters' intentions and in determining the meaning of treaty provisions. Which interpretive methods an adjudicative body should use depends on the nature of the treaty in question and the moral value in play.
- Topic:
- International Relations
- Political Geography:
- Europe
21213. 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
21214. 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
21215. Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body
- Author:
- Isabelle Van Damme
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article analyses how the Appellate Body in practice expresses its interpretation of the WTO covered agreements, and discusses whether the Appellate Body's hermeneutics is different from that of other international courts and tribunals. It shows that it is impossible to discern the Appellate Body's hermeneutics from the practical exposition of how it interprets treaties. It also addresses the alleged particularity of the Appellate Body's hermeneutics. The key thread is the function of treaty interpretation in the development of the judicial function in the WTO. From the outset, the Appellate Body made the conscious choice to function as if it were a court. This exercise of the judicial function relates to the tasks and powers of the international judge and transcends the mere mandate and context of a particular court or tribunal as established in its constitutive document and other procedural rules. The Appellate Body's use of principles of interpretation has been instrumental in making acceptable its early choice to function as a court and to build its judicial identity. After 15 years of jurisprudence, the response of WTO members and the broader audience for the Appellate Body's decisions shows general acceptance of this initial, but perhaps not unavoidable, choice and the strategy to achieve this objective. In turn, this response has prompted less formalism in the Appellate Body's recent interpretations of the WTO treaties.
21216. Mutual Supportiveness as a Principle of Interpretation and Law-Making: A Watershed for the 'WTO-and-Competing-Regimes' Debate?
- Author:
- Riccardo Pavoni
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article focuses on the principle of mutual supportiveness as a key legal tool to address tensions between competing regimes, with specific reference to the articulation of the WTO system with other subject areas protecting essential interests of the international community, such as in particular the right to health, cultural diversity, and environmental protection. It argues that the multiple references to mutual supportiveness found in recent treaties and other legal instruments should not be briskly dismissed as mere political statements devoid of any normative significance. On the contrary, while such reiterated references are important in terms of progressive consolidation of a general principle of international law, mutual supportiveness seems to be characterized by two remarkable legal dimensions. The first is its interpretative dimension, which serves the purpose of disqualifying solutions to tensions between competing regimes involving the application of conflict rules. The second is the law-making dimension of mutual supportiveness which comes into play when efforts at reconciling competing rules have unsuccessfully been exhausted. This dimension implies a duty to pursue good faith negotiations aimed at the conclusion of law-making instruments, including treaty amendments, which clarify the relationship between the competing regimes at hand. This duty is especially important for the ongoing WTO Doha negotiations which call into question non-trade regimes and values, for instance the fair and equitable use of biological resources under the 1992 Biodiversity Convention. Most importantly, either for its nature as a general principle or for its recognition as a standard internal to the WTO, mutual supportiveness under the guise of a duty to negotiate in good faith would also bind WTO Members which are not parties to the competing treaty regime which needs accommodation in WTO law.
21217. Disappearance and New Sightings of Restrictive Interpretation(s)
- Author:
- Luigi Crema
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article looks to the first formulations of 'restrictive interpretation' to identify with precision the content and meaning of this rule. First Vattel affirmed that odious clauses should be interpreted restrictively. Then, under the Permanent Court and the first decades of the ICJ, a restrictive interpretation emerged in favour of state sovereignty. Later, with the approval of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in 1969, the interpretation favourable to state sovereignty was abandoned in favour of an alleged neutral way of interpreting treaties. However, a new restrictive interpretation (of sovereignty) was established, as an expression of the new values emerging in international law. This interpretation was obtained by means of the application of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, an explicit argument, and Latin maxims. Through a parallel analysis of jurisdictions which hear claims between private parties and states, such as the Strasbourg and the San José Courts, and the ICSID arbitrations, the article reaches the conclusion that this mode of interpretation reveals some inconsistencies. It concludes, however, that international law already has the means to address these issues.
- Topic:
- Law
21218. Effective Investigations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Securing the Right to Life or an Onerous Burden on a State?
- Author:
- Juliet Chevalier-Watts
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Articles 1 and 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, when read together, require a proper and adequate official investigation into deaths resulting from the actions of state agents, both from the use of lethal force, and also in situations arising from the negligence of agents that leads to a death. The article considers the extent of the obligation to carry out an effective investigation since its explicit recognition by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of McCann and Others v. United Kingdom. The article assesses the jurisprudence of the duty to investigate in order to determine whether the obligation is now placing too onerous a burden on member states in order to comply with their duties under the Convention, or whether the duty does indeed secure the right to life, as is intended. To assess the original proposition, the article considers the jurisprudence of the duty to investigate in relation to the following applications: early forays into the application of the duty; fatalities arising from non-lethal force; the influential quartet of cases arising out of the Northern Ireland troubles; recent judgments concerning cases arising out of the conflict in Chechnya; and finally through to a critical review of the effectiveness of the European Court.
- Topic:
- Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom and Europe
21219. Litigating against the European Union and Its Member States – Who Responds under the ILC's Draft Articles on International Responsibility of International Organizations?
- Author:
- Frank Hoffmeister
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- In its 2009 Draft Articles on international responsibility of international organizations, the International Law Commission advocated a set of rules on attribution of conduct to the organization (Draft Articles 5–8) and additional rules on the organization's responsibility in connection with the Act of a State (Draft Articles 13–18). Moreover, it included a Draft Article 63 on lex specialis. The present article examines whether such a special rule exists for the European Union and its Member States, in particular with respect to the attribution of conduct of EU Member States to the Union where they act in the execution of EU law. It therefore reviews international case law in the field of trade, human rights, investment protection, and the law of the sea as well as the special rules of the European Union itself. The author concludes that such a rule does indeed exist and makes a suggestion for a formulation thereof.
- Topic:
- International Law
21220. Non-compliance Mechanisms: Interaction between the Kyoto Protocol System and the European Union
- Author:
- Anne-Sophie Tabau and Sandrine Maljran-Dubois
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The universality of climate change challenges and interdependence in the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions called for a collective response in a multilateral framework. However, because of discrepancies on the appropriate design for an international regime the European Community (EC) took the lead on the international stage in the negotiation and the application of the Kyoto Protocol. Thus, an international regime – a mixed agreement to which both the EC and its Member States are parties – and a regional regime in the framework of the European Union coexist. In both regimes, one of the core challenges remains to ensure the effective application of the law, which requires the setting up of compliance control mechanisms. At the international level, an innovative non-compliance procedure organizes a continuous monitoring which combines traditional techniques with more intrusive procedures. The system is also remarkable as regards the legal qualification of and reaction to non-compliance situations. For its part, the EC created a specific non-contentious mechanism and can make use of a reinforced jurisdictional armory and a reinforced sanctioning power. The EC's control mechanism should be able to take over from the Kyoto Protocol non-compliance mechanism in order to reinforce the effectiveness of adopted rules. Through the study of these mechanisms' interactions, this article aims to assess the capacity of the control system as a whole to ensure the very credibility of the Protocol and the reliability of the international and European economic tools to reduce GHG emissions at least cost. Finally, it allows the envisaging of the possible evolutions of the legal regime of the fight against climate change.
- Political Geography:
- Europe