Evolution of the definition of the term "refugee"

The Nuremberg tribunal was the expression and the beginning of states' recognition of their duty to prosecute genocide and other gross human rights violations. It was a first step towards fulfillin...

Subtle Transformations:International Law, and Indigenous Rights Bronwyn Leebaw* (bio) Sheryl R. Lightfoot, Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution (Routledge, 2016), ISBN 978-1-138-94668-2, 264 pages. "Can the post-colonial world deploy for its own purposes, the law which had enabled its suppression in the first place?" This is a question that can never really be set aside, suggests Antony Anghie, in Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law, and one that is best addressed through an effort to recover and engage "alternative histories—histories of resistance to colonial power" and "history from the vantage point of the peoples who were subjected to international law."1 In Global Indigenous Politics, Anishinaabe scholar, Sheryl Lightfoot, powerfully demonstrates the transformative potential of such alternative histories by investigating the rise and influence of a global movement for Indigenous rights. Lightfoot makes a compelling case that the global movement for Indigenous rights has launched a "subtle revolution"—one that has the potential to remake the international order, confront the limits of human rights liberalism.2 Global Indigenous Politics has profound implications for research on Indigenous politics, human rights, international law, transnational activism, and international relations more generally. International laws and norms can be reconfigured and deployed in ways that radically challenge the parameters of international order, Lightfoot contends. The "subtle revolution" of transnational Indigenous activism has been uniquely powerful, she suggests, in exposing and confronting the subtle logics by which colonial relationships are maintained and reproduced. A number of important recent works challenge scholars to stop treating colonialism as a peripheral dimension of the history of international law, as if, writes Helen Kinsella, "it were simply a jarring note in an otherwise pleasant symphony."3 Works by Anghie, Kinsella, Laleh Khalili, Kamari Clarke, Keally McBride, and Robert Vitalis, among others, investigate how colonial encounters influenced and continue to influence the legal basis of sovereign recognition and the parameters of international humanitarian law.4 Although international law was mobilized in the service of decolonization, ostensibly [End Page 478] extending sovereign recognition to newly independent states, observes Anghie, this did not entail a meaningful effort to engage legal thinking or practices outside of the Western intellectual traditions that had influenced international law. Legal principles that justified the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius, were not effectively repudiated or confronted, but only evaded, writes Anghie. Many treaties that had granted territorial sovereignty to colonial powers remained binding, despite having been secured through deceit, conquest, and genocide. The international legal order that is championed as a triumph over "might makes right," Anghie suggests, has been more effective as a tool for masking persistent patterns of subordination and domination established through colonial rule than it has been as a tool for exposing and challenging such patterns. The expansion of human rights law and the rise of the human rights movement in the decades following World War II altered international law in important ways, influencing the legal basis for sovereign recognition and expanding the scope and reach of international humanitarian law. The emerging human rights framework had some impact on anti-colonial activism and anti-colonial activists would also influence debates on the meaning and role of human rights, though scholars continue to disagree over the nature and extent of these influences.5 The post-Cold War expansion of human rights laws and institutions ostensibly empowers transnational activists to challenge the terms of sovereign authority. Anghie recognizes the transformative potential inherent in the commitment to social justice and human dignity that is articulated in the human rights framework. However, he contends that this critical potential has been set aside in favor of an approach to institutionalizing human rights in ways that reassert the "civilizing" logic of previous eras by mandating liberalism as a universal model of "good governance." Anghie and Khalili both observe that powerful states have succeeded in eliding the critical implications of human rights and humanitarian law by normalizing certain legal anomalies, contradictions, or indeterminate jurisdictional spaces. These legally layered, ambiguous, jurisdictional spaces establish an alternative to accepting or rejecting legal authority, which Khalili refers to as a "third way," enabling those in power to select the...

Drawing upon the experience of century, nations have constructed a customary international law for transboundary fresh water resources built around the principle of equitable utilization. The earliest complete formulation of this body of law was the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of International Rivers of the International Law Association of 1966. Like all customary law, this body of international law retains flexibility by being vague while allowing only for relatively primitive enforcement mechanisms. In an effort to improve things, the United Nations drafted a convention to codify the customary law. Even before that the UN Convention enters into force, it has been taken as a cogent summary of the relevant customary international law. The UN Convention , however, fails to integrate the environmental or ecological concerns and relevant human rights that have emerged in international law into the older body of international water law. Beginning in 1996, the International Law Association undertook to reformulate the Helsinki Rules in order to incorporate international environmental law and international human rights law. The project, for which I served as Rapporteur, concluded in August 2004 with the Association's approval of the Berlin Rules on Water Resources . The Berlin Rules speak in terms of a new paradigm of international water law that focuses on ecological integrity, sustainability, public participation, and minimization of environmental harm—principles not reflected in the Helsinki Rules and only developed in rudimentary form and then only for transboundary waters in the UN Convention . This paper will serve to introduce the Berlin Rules .

Theory of International Law

Economic Sanctions Against Human Rights Violations

Ratner, Steven R. <i>The Thin Justice of International Law: A Moral Reckoning of the Law of Nations</i>.New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 496. $85.00 (cloth).

Theory of International Law

Contents: Foreword, Volker Turk Preface Part I The Refugee in Europe's Free Movement Regime: The 'new Europe' and the 'European refugee': the subversion of the European Union's refugee law by its migration policy, Nadine El-Enany The modern refugee in the post-modern Europe, Patricia Tuitt EU migration and the new EU treaty framework, Elspeth Guild Are European states accountable for border deaths?, Thomas Spijkerboer. Part II Safeguarding the Safety and Security of Refugees: Jonah and Socrates as refugees: repentance, redemption and responsibility, Howard Adelman Strengthening international refugee rights through the enhanced supervision of the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol, James C. Simeon Non-refoulement obligations in the public international law: towards a new protection status?, Francesco Messineo Country information and evidence assessment in New Zealand, Rodger Haines. Part III The Responsibility to Protect Displaced Populations: The shifting boundaries and content of protection: the internal protection alternative revisited, Penelope Mathew Territorial protection: cessation of refugee status and internal flight alternative compared, Maria O'Sullivan Sharing responsibility for asylum seekers and refugees in the Asia Pacific region, Savitri Taylor Disowned in their own land: the courts and protection of the internally displaced person, Geoffrey Care. Part IV Emerging Paradigms of Legal Protection: Human trafficking, asylum and the problem of protection, Satvinder S. Juss Child migration and the lacunae in international protection, Jacqueline Bhabha Unaccompanied children and their protection under international refugee law, Ilias Bantekas Forced displacement, the law of international armed conflict and state authority, David James Cantor. Part V Encampment, Detention and the Coercive Treatment of Asylum-Seekers: Asylum seekers, detention and the law: morality in abeyance?, Dallal Stevens Regulation 5.35: coerced treatment of detained asylum seekers on hunger strike. Legal, ethical and human rights implications, Mary Anne Kenny and Lucy Fiske 'Less coercive means': the legal case for alternatives to detention for refugees, asylum-seekers and other migrants, Alice Edwards The end of refugee camps?, Guglielmo Verdirame and Jason Pobjoy. Part VI Migrant Workers, Skilled Labour and the Control of Human Mobility: In defence of the Migrant Workers Convention: standard setting for contemporary migration, Bernard Ryan The movement of skilled labor and knowledge across borders, Shubha Ghosh Migration control and human security, Sharon Pickering, Marie Segrave, Claudia Tazreiter and Leanne Weber Collective remittances in comparative perspective: the cases of El Salvador and Mexico, Gustavo A. Flores-Macias. Part VII Transnational Migration, Citizenship and the Modern State: Global migratory policies: neither closed nor open borders, Raffaele Marchetti Transnational family relations in migration contexts: British variations on European themes, Prakash Shah Secret immigration business: policy transfers and the tyranny of deterrence theory, Mary Crock and Daniel Ghezelbash Family migration and New Labour, Helena Wray Elements of movement controls in post-sovereign governmentality, Thanos Zartaloudis Transnational citizenship and the democratic state: on modes of membership and rights of political participation, David Owen Index.

The paper is devoted to the study of issues related to the definition of international law as a species object of criminal protection for the act provided for in Art. 443 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It is determined that the international law and order as an object of criminal law is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, which also covers the peace and security of mankind, although narrower in content than international law as an international legal category. It is stated that the international nature of the social danger of criminal offenses against international order is due to the continuity of criminal and international law. International standards of criminal law protection of international law and order we include multilateral treaties. For 12 of the 15 criminal offenses against international law and order, criminal liability was established in view of Ukraine's international obligations. At the same time, not all of the international legal treaties contained provisions on criminalization of a certain act. For example, Part 1 of Art. 20 International Pact on Political and Civil Rights provides for the state to prohibit the law of war promotion, not to establish criminal liability for such propaganda. International law and order as a category of international law is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that covers the principles of international legal personality and international law-making process, international relations, international cooperation, human rights protection systems and means of resolving international disputes, as well as the principles of international legal liability. Section XX of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is entitled "Criminal offenses against peace, security of humanity and international law". Given that the grouping of articles in criminal law is carried out according to the criterion of the generic object, it can be concluded that the said section enshrines the rules on criminal offenses, united by such generic objects as peace, human safety and international law. On the basis of the above, we can conclude that the international law and order as an object of criminal protection is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, which also covers the peace and security of mankind, although narrower in content than international law as an international legal category. The primary element of social conditionality of criminal law is the social danger of certain acts, the awareness of which the legislator and society has a consequence of recognizing its criminal illegality. The international nature of the social danger of criminal offenses against international order, is due to the continuity of criminal and international law. For 11 of the 14 criminal offenses against international law and order, criminal liability was established in view of Ukraine's international obligations. And although in some cases, among the international obligations that the state has taken on the ratification of the relevant multilateral treaty, there were no clearly defined obligations for the establishment of criminal responsibility for a certain act (for example, for the illegal use of the symbolism of the Red Cross, the Red Central Century, the Red Creation.

The author deals in his contribution with the topic of the human right to the environment and the mechanisms of its protection in international law. Human right to the environment was implemented to the international law at the beginning of the seventies of the twentieth century in the scope of international environmental law. The legal arrangement of this human right was later logically connected with the international human rights law. That is why the international mechanisms of protection of this right are contained in two mentioned parts of international public law – international environmental law and international human rights law. The concept of the human right to the environment is included in the so called “third generation of human rights” under the scientific and special literature. Coming up from the analysis of the relevant international documents the author comes to the conclusion that the human right to the environment is anchored in international law in material form and also in the form of procedural rights, which the author calls procedural environmental rights. Procedural environmental rights include the right to access to information about environment, the right to public participation in decision making in environmental matters and the right to access to justice in environmental matters. The material dimension of the human right to the environment is characterised by the low level of international protection and enforcement. This right, firstly mentioned by the Principle 1 of the non-binding Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, is at the moment anchored directly and in a most profound manner in the United Nations European Economic Commission Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus, 1998). The other international instruments are not that precise in formulating this right or not in force. However, the Aarhus convention prefers to protect the material human right to environment by above mentioned procedural environmental rights. The material right to the environment could not be directly invoked and protected by this treaty. All of the mentioned facts show that the material right to the environment is not anchored in the international law in a reasonable manner. That is why it is not possible to state that the principle of the human right to the environment is a generally binding principle of international law at the moment. The ways how to protect the material human right to the environment are because of mentioned reasons limited to the protection through the other human rights like the right to life or the right to respect for private and family life. There are many examples of using this way of protection by individuals in the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee in Geneva, created by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and mainly in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, created by the European Convention on Human Rights and Basic Freedoms (1950). The procedural environmental rights are anchored in more non-binding and even binding international documents then the material right to the environment. The leading document in this sense is the above mentioned Aarhus convention. The controlling mechanisms of the Aarhus convention developed by the contracting parties include the right of the public and of contracting states to put communication or claim against the contracting state as for the breach of the provision of the Aarhus convention. The communications and claims are addressed to the international body – the Compliance Committee – created by the contracting parties at their regular session in October 2002. The Compliance Committee successfully started its activity and stated breach of the Aarhus convention in five cases. On the other hand, there is also the opportunity to protect the environmental rights on international level indirectly through the procedural rights like the right to fair trial, right to an effective remedy, or right to information included in the scope of the freedom of speech. This approach is shown mainly in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg created by the European Convention on Human Rights and Basic Freedoms (1950). The Aarhus convention influenced the human dimension of activities of the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recommended to create and additional protocol to the European convention (1950) as for the procedural environmental rights. The European Union acquis communautaire in the mentioned area is coming up from the Aarhus convention approach. The secondary rules of the European law contain a group of directives approved in order to implement the Aarhus convention or even older directives are directly anchoring environmental procedural rights without mentioning the Aarhus convention. There are first cases concerning the procedural environmental rights solved by the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg.

Two conceptions of the right to bargain collectively have influenced its protection in international law. In international labor law, the right historically has been conceived of as one of several workers' rights that protect domestic rights of workers from international competition. In international human rights law, the right is conceived of as a human right that protects a universal feature of what it means to be a human being. This paper examines the status of the right in both fields in light of economic globalization and transnational flexible production. Instead of a weakening of the right at the international level, both fields reveal a trend toward its enhanced protection. Economic globalization and transnational flexible production are also changing the normative relationship between international human rights law and international labor law. They have sparked a third conception of labor rights as international rights - as instruments that possess the potential to vest the international legal order with a measure of normative legitimacy by attending to state and non-state action that international law otherwise authorizes in the name of economic globalization or flexible production. Armed with this new conception, international labor law is realigning its relationship to international human rights law around a shared task of mitigating the distributional consequences of globalization and transnational flexible production - a task in which the right to bargain collectively performs a critical function.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsCurtis F.J. Doebbler Curtis F. J. Doebbler is Visiting Professor of International Human Rights Law at Tashkent State Institute of Law. He has worked in more then fifty countries advising governments and non‐state actors on issues of public international law. His most recent books are International Human Rights Law: Cases (CD Publishing) and Materials and International Human Rights Law (CD Publishing and TSIL Press). Both books are available from the Human Rights Internet Bookstore (www.hri.ca) or from CD Publishing (cdpublishing.publicist.com). Correspondence: CDoebbler@abaceeli.uz Maha W. Eid holds degrees in political science from the American University in Cairo, including a postgraduate degree in international human rights law. Her MA thesis was on the application of international humanitarian law to the conflict in Afghanistan. She has been working in the field of development for several years in Cairo. She is currently working on a book on the use of force under contemporary international law.

Volodymyr Mikhaylovich Koretsky was an eminent jurist, educator, organizer of academic legal scholarship, diplomat, Judge of the International Court of Justice, and its Vice-President. His entire life and professional activity stand as a testament to unwavering dedication to Ukraine and the advancement of legal science. Having received an outstanding university education in law, he commenced his career by teaching and conducting research on issues of civil law, and, following the Civil War, turned to the study of the methodology of legal science. During the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, he combined scholarly and pedagogical pursuits with public service in republican state agencies. Concurrently, he engaged in robust research in the field of private international law. In the 1930s, he took an active role in establishing higher legal education in Kharkiv, serving as Vice-Rector and Head of the Law Faculty while concurrently fulfilling professorial responsibilities. He chaired the Department of the History of State and Law at the Kharkiv Juridical Institute and, in 1939, defended his doctoral dissertation on the distinctive features of Anglo-American doctrine and international law. Following the attainment of his doctoral degree, all subsequent research by the scholar remained inextricably tied to the development of theories in private international law, international economic law, and public international law. After V. M. Koretsky was elected an Academician, he entered his Kyiv period. He founded the Institute of State and Law and the Department of International Law and Comparative Jurisprudence. Under his leadership, the institute was transformed from a modest research sector into a leading, advanced academic institution. During the 1950s and 1960s, V. M. Koretsky simultaneously engaged in scientific, organizational, and teaching activities alongside diplomatic service: he participated in three sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, served as an advisor to the representative of the USSR to the UN Security Council, worked on the UN Committee on the Progressive Development and Codification of International Law, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the UN International Law Commission, and contributed as a co-drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He took part in numerous forums held under the auspices of the UN. The pinnacle of Koretsky’s diplomatic endeavors was his election as a member of the International Court of Justice in The Hague (1960–1970) and his tenure as Vice-President of that Court (1968–1970). In the 1960s and 1970s, V. M. Koretsky’s scholarly work focused on the study of sovereignty, the international legal personality of republics, and the establishment of a stable international legal order based on principles of peace, security, and stability. He was actively engaged in public affairs in Ukraine, promoting the achievements of domestic legal scholarship abroad. His academic and diplomatic endeavors were duly recognized both nationally and internationally. He received the highest honors of the union and republican governments, was elected a member of numerous foreign academies and international associations, and his name was memorialized in the institute he founded, as well as through the posthumous publication of selected works. Key words: Koretsky, legal scholarship, researcher and theorist, doctrine, private international law, international civil law, international economic law, public international law, diplomat, Judge of the International Court of Justice.

VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee , Seite 185 - 185

Sean D. Murphy's in-depth survey of U.S. practice in international law in the period 2002–2004 draws upon the statements and actions of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government to examine its involvement across a range of areas. These areas include diplomatic and consular relations, jurisdiction and immunities, state responsibility and liability, international organizations, international economic law, human rights, and international criminal law. This summary of the most salient issues during 2002–2004 (ranging from the treatment of detainees during the Afghan conflict in the spring of 2002 to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003-2004) was originally published in 2006, and is a central source of information about U.S. practice in international law. Revealing international law in the making, this essential tool for researchers and practitioners is the second in a series of books capturing the international law practice of a global player.