Introduction
The establishment of International Criminal Tribunals greatly impacts both monist and dualist states reshaping their national law. The affect on national law directly affects the behavior of states. This new and evolving legal dynamics substantially alters the landscape of international relations and it is of vital importance that its impact is inspected. The fact that nationals and non-state actors are becoming agents in shaping international legal process touches upon very nature of states sovereignty and their role in international law. States have becoming increasingly aware that their international prestige depends on the compliance to international justice mechanisms- extradition of their nationals, waiving immunity of their officials and submitting them to supra-national institutions is seen as a painful encroachment on their national discretion.
Ad-hoc Tribunals are defined as ‘’the most ambitious international judicial experiment’’ (Baylies at al, 2011). Their proliferation and speedy development is often referred to as the ‘mushroom effect’. The pace of these developments might be the result of the state’s eagerness to belong to international community. The states have been increasingly eager to surrender their old boundaries of sovereignty in the name of transnational cooperation. It is interesting to investigate to what extent these new legal mechanisms tame the old concept of sovereignty.
Deeply entrenched Westphalian notion of sovereignty has watered down in regards to international criminal justice. The positivist notions based on binding reciprocity and respect towards sovereignty inevitably take neo-liberal twist. Recently developed legal tools have power to challenge and even ostracize certain stat...
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The ICTR had been created in November 1994 and installed in Arusha in February the following year. In April it had produced its own list of four hundred genocide suspects, supposed to be more neutral than the various lists produced in Rwanda itself. A year later it was still floundering about, complaining about “lack of means,” not having even produced any indictment, much less
The first element of international law is state practice. There are certain behaviors that are regarded as customs once they are practiced by a substantial amount of states over a prolonged period of time. However, it is important to note that this stand...
International law is a body of legally binding rules that are suppose to govern the relations between sovereign states. (Cornell Law School) In order to be a qualified subject, a state has to be sovereign. To be considered sovereign the state needs to have territory, a population, and a government that is recognized or legitimized to most other states. In the more modern explanation of international law now can include the rights and obligation on intergovernmental international organizations and even individuals. Examples of an international organization would be Greenpeace or the United Nations and an example of an individual would be war criminals, a leader of a state that violated human rights during a time of war. When a dispute arise and cannot be solved amongst the two actors involved they can turn to the U.N. to arbitrate and to the International Court of Justice, one of many courts within the U.N. to find a resolution to their problem. The International Court of Justice’s main task is to help settle legal disputes submitted to it by states and...
Treaties are the highest source of international law besides jus cogens norms that have binding effect on the parties that ratify them.2 International human rights treaties rely on the “name and shame” mechanisms to pressure states to improve practices.3 However with “toothless” international human rights norms, moral coercion is not always effective. An empirical study conducted by Professor Oona Hathaway assessing the effect of human rights treaty ratification on human rights compliance, maintains in its findings that ratification of human rights treaties has little effect on state practices.4 States do not feel pressured to comply and change their practices, rather, signing treaties is “more likely to offset the pressure rather than augment it.”5 So, is it time to abandon human rights treaties and remit protection of human right to domestic institutions. Hathaway posits elsewhere that despite this treaties “remain an indispensable tool for the promotion of human rights.”6 Instead of getting rid of the treaty system, it is necessary to enhance the monitoring and enforcements mechanism to strengthen the human rights regime to ensure compliance.7 This article evaluates the extent to which international law serves as a useful tool for protection of human rights.
In any kind of legal relations, subject always play an important role, and it is one of the signals to determine the relation that pertaining the adjustment of any legislation system. International law is a legislation system that is a set of thousands of documents from various sources. The research about the subjects is necessary since it helps to find out the source of law, which relation pertains the adjustment of law. The subjects of international law include sovereign states and analogous entities, intergovernmental organizations, the individuals, and multinational corporations.
...th 2001). Roth argues that the concept of international jurisdiction is not a new idea but was exercised by the US government in the 1970 after an aircraft hijacking. Also the war crime courts established after the end of World War II exercised international jurisdiction. In fact the Geneva Convention states that is a person regardless of their nationality should be brought before the court of any state in which that person has committed grave breaches of law and convention. Roth states that the concept of international jurisdiction is not a new one but that only in recent years have states been willing to act on universal jurisdiction and go after criminals of the international community regardless of their stating or power within the international community. Roth believes in the ability and authority of international organizations and institutions (Roth 2001).
It is therefore no longer is it credible for a state to turn its back on international law, alleging a bias towards European values and influence. All that humankind now requires to bring about the elusive, but eternal, dream of perpetual peace is a global citizenship based on a strong commitment to principles of equity and democracy grounded in civil society.
Members of The United Nations have a duty “to maintain international peace…in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.”[1] China, a core member of the United Nations since its formation in 1945, fails to comply with international human rights’ norms set forth by The United Nations Charter. This failure is noticeably prevalent in the practices of the Chinese Legal System. Its judicial proceedings in handling peaceful, political dissenters fail to provide the minimum protection of human rights guaranteed to all through international law. By examining accounts of Tibetans detained for such peaceful protests, this paper will set out to highlight the discrepancies between Chinese enforcement of international law in theory and in practice. Before this paper goes any further, the notion of international law must be explained. Providing a better understanding of international law will make easier the task of highlighting China’s struggles with enforcing such standards.
...., Raič, and Thuránszky J., The International Court of Justice: its future role after fifty
The international system is an anarchical system which means that, unlike the states, there is no over ruling, governing body that enforces laws and regulations that all states must abide by. The International System in today’s society has become highly influential from a number of significant factors. Some of these factors that will be discussed are Power held by the state, major Wars that have been fought out in recent history and international organisations such as the U.N, NATO and the W.T.O. Each of these factors, have a great influence over the international system and as a result, the states abilities to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development”.
Public International law International law contains of rules and principles, which preside over the relations and communication of nations with each other. International Law that is in most other countries referred to as Public International Law concerns itself only with questions of rights among more than a few nations or nations and the citizens or subjects of other nations. In dissimilarity, Private International Law deals with controversies among confidential persons, natural or juridical, arising out of situations having important association to further than one nation. In current years the line up connecting public and private international law have became more and more doubtful. Issues of private international law may also associate issues of public international law and numerous matters of private international law nave considerable meaning for the international group of people of nations. International Law consists of the basic, classic concepts of law in nationwide legal systems, status, property, responsibility, and tort. It also includes substantive law, procedure, process and remedies. International Law is rooted in receipt by the nation states, which comprise the system. Customary law and conventional law are primary sources of international law. Customary international law results when states trail convinced practices usually and time after time out of an intelligence of legal responsibility. Lately the customary law was codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Conventional international law derives from international agreements and may obtain any appearance that the constricting parties have the same opinion upon. Agreements may be complete in admiration to any substance except for to the leve...
Von Galhn and Taulbee. 2013. Law Among Nations. An Introduction to Public International Law. Pearson Education.
Before we delve deeper into this topic, it is imperative to properly provide a definition of sovereignty and lay down some foundation on this topic. There are four different definitions of sovereignty – international legal sovereignty, Westphalia sovereignty, domestic sovereignty and interdependence sovereignty. International legal sovereignty deals with “the practices associated with mutual recognition, usually between territorial entities that have formal juridical independence” (Krasner 4). The main definition of sovereignty that this paper will use is the ...