Non-State Actors and International Law

There are competing definitions of what entities classify as nonstate actors. The broadest notion holds that nonstate entities are all entities different from states. Most theories concur in any case that nonstate actors differ considerably among themselves. Nonstate actors are examined in light of international law for multiple purposes. Some legal materials and analyses examine all nonstate actors, although it is often the case that they focus on certain types of nonstate entities, considered relevant for their purposes. Generally, nonstate actors are relevant for international law insofar as they are often able to impact legal values and must accordingly be regulated. The aforementioned impact may be a positive or a negative one, and this justifies both the existence of rights and the special status of nonstate entities that enables them to contribute in fields of their competence, as revealed by ECOSOC Resolution 1996/31 (consultative relationship between the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations), or to consider that they can have responsibilities, be they social and sometimes legal, as happens with international criminal law. Furthermore, responding to nonstate actions is crucial in certain fields. For instance, the fact that nonstate conduct can be inimical to human rights, as evinced by state obligations to prevent or respond to such violations and to protect rights, explains why several authors discuss if a human rights framework that ignores the need to directly protect individuals from nonstate actors is flawed and fails to uphold its foundation: human dignity. Altogether, although they have acquired greater power and formal relevance, nonstate actors have impacted international law and participated in international legal processes throughout history, which explains why state-exclusivist approaches to international law and international relations are deficient and the study of nonstate actors and their interaction with multiple international legal dimensions and processes is called for. The importance of nonstate actors and the possibility that they might be addressees of international law makes it troublesome to consider that they are irrelevant for international law. Moreover, given their power, participation, influence, and impact on legal interests and processes, some nonstate entities are properly referred to as actors. Furthermore, they may have direct, indirect, formal, or informal impact on such legal processes as lawmaking, law enforcement, or dispute settlement.

The notion “international constitutional law” refers to norms of public international law with a constitutional character or function. Thus understood, international constitutional law can be divided into three broad subcategories: (1) fundamental norms which serve a constitutional function for the international legal system at large, (2) norms which serve as constitutions of international organizations or regimes, and (3) norms which have taken over or reinforce constitutional functions of domestic law. Already the fundamental rules of the Westphalian state system that allocate competences and delineate spheres of state jurisdiction could be referred to as constitutional law of the international legal order. Since then, new layers of constitutional law have been added in the course of a long-term process, changing international law from an interstate order into an order which is also committed to the international community and to the individual. These added contents of international law restrain free “state will” and strengthen the autonomy of international law vis-a-vis state sovereignty. Figuratively speaking, modern international law no longer is solely the product of state consent but has a constitution of its own. Still, compared to domestic constitutions, the participation of individuals, their status activus in international legal processes, is extremely underdeveloped. The constituent instruments of international organizations constitute a second category of international constitutional law. They establish international organizations as legal entities; define their purposes, powers, and fundamental principles; establish rules on the admission of new members; and set up special procedures and majority rules for amendment. A “constitutional” understanding of institutional law is ambivalent. On the one hand, this understanding characterizes founding treaties as “living instruments” and thereby justifies a dynamic interpretation of their powers. On the other hand, it may restrict the ambitions of international organizations in the light of human rights concerns or based on constitutional doctrines such as institutional balance or separation of powers. Finally, certain norms of international law may be qualified as constitutional because they function as a supplementary constitutional law in the domestic context. This is particularly obvious for international human rights law, which constrains state action that risks violating those norms. Also, beyond human rights, international law regulates domestic governance to an unprecedented extent. For example, it prescribes that new states can only come into being if they are organized in a democratic fashion. Some regard WTO law as a “second line of constitutional entrenchment” to grant economic freedoms of market actors. In general, some authors distinguish global constitutional law from international constitutional law by its inclusion of private lawmaking actors, while others use these terms interchangeably.

Many observers view the 1972 United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, as the event that heralded the active involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in international policy making. In the intervening years, NGO participation in international policy making has grown exponentially, as has the number of multilateral environmental conventions, global environmental conferences and other efforts to facilitate a global governance of the human environment. The increasing numbers of NGOs with a stake in global environmental politics has been well documented, as has the presence at multilateral negotiations and their influence on negotiation outcomes (Betsill and Corell 2008). This paper examines the role and influence of non-state actors (NSAs) in multinational, supranational and transnational policy making. We have selected three models of rulemaking to help explain the role and influence of NSAs in different governance systems, reflecting developments within global environmental governance over the past three decades. Whereas multinational cooperation remained the model of choice whenever international environmental rules were created until the 1980s, the model has been joined in recent years by supranational and transnational rulemaking models. We begin by briefly reviewing the three models before presenting three case studies. In the first we examine how NSAs brought their influence to bear in a particular case of multinational environmental negotiations: the International Whaling Commission (IWC). This should shed light on some of the conditions that allow NGOs to exert such a high degree of influence in multinational policy-making processes. Next we explore the role and influence of NSAs in the making of the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading System (ETS). This is a prime example of supranational policy making, and serves to demonstrate the complexity of assessing the influence of NSAs in a dense institutional context. Focusing on social and environmental certification programs, the third case examines a growing tendency for NSAs to act as transnational rule makers in policy areas where states have been unwilling or unable to provide governance. Three Models of Rule Making and the Role of Non-State Actors In multinational cooperation, here represented by the IWC, member states enjoy in principle full authority. The legitimacy of rule-making is ensured by consent between sovereign states based on international law. In this liberal intergovernmental rule-making model, NSAs belong to the set of domestic special interest organizations with sufficient clout to influence negotiating positions. Of course, their efforts to influence negotiation positions meet with varying success; nation-states always have the final word. In supranational cooperation, in this paper represented by the EU ETS scheme, nationstates have transferred some of their sovereignty to other actors. In the EU case, this is most visible is the rules on qualified majority voting, co-decision making by the European Parliament and the policy-initiating role of the Commission. In short, as the consent of a state in itself is sometimes wanting in terms of legitimacy, there need additional sources of

Contents: Part I Introduction and Sources: Non-state actors in the international system of states, Bob Reinalda The Yearbook of International Organizations and quantitative non-state actor research, Elizabeth Bloodgood Researching transnational history: the example of peace activism, Thomas Richard Davies The United Nations Intellectual History Project and the role of ideas, Francis Baert. Part II Actors Other than Governments:Transnational religious actors, John T.S. Madeley and Jeffrey Haynes Transnational corporations and the regulation of business at the global level, Karsten Ronit Unravelling the political role of experts and expertise in the professional services industry, Angela Wigger Parliaments and parliamentarians as international actors, AndrA(c)s Malamud and Stelios Stavridis Autonomous agencies of the European Union as non-state actors, Martijn Groenleer. Part III Perceptions and Understanding: Liberal political philosophy: the role of non-state actors and considerations of global justice, Geoff Gordon and Roland Pierik Non-governmental organizations and non-state actors in international law, Anna-Karin Lindblom Intergovernmental organizations in international relations theory and as actors in world politics, Joel E. Oestreich Inter-organizational relations: an emerging research programme, Rafael Biermann Civil society and NGO: far from unproblematic concepts, Norbert GA tz Non-state and state actors in global governance, Martin Koch Limitations of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, Dennis Dijkzeul and William E. DeMars. Part IV Nature and Impact: Non-state actors and the transformation of diplomacy, Brian Hocking Dynamism and resilience of intergovernmental organizations in a world of persisting state power and rising non-state actors, Yves Schemeil International bureaucracies: organizing world politics, Steffen Bauer and Silke Weinlich Interest representation and advocacy within the European Union: the making of democracy?, Sabine Saurugger From agenda setting to decision making: opening the black box of non-governmental organizations, Liesbet Heyse Non-governmental organizations and decision making in the United Nations, Jutta Joachim The ongoing organizational reform of the United Nations, Yves Beigbeder Reporting and peer review in the implementation of international rules: what role for non-state actors?, Thomas Conzelmann Accountability of public and private international organizations, Steve Charnovitz Non-state actors and the proliferation and individualization of international dispute settlement, Eric De Brabandere. Part V Separate Worlds: Politics and the world of humanitarian aid, Wolf-Dieter Eberwein Non-governmental organizations in the human rights world, Anja Mihr Non-state actors in the global security world, Carolyn M. Stephenson Non-state actors in the development aid world as seen from the South, Moushumi Basu Cities for citizens in the global South: approaches of non-governmental organizations working in urban development, Diana Mitlin Non-state actors in the global health world, Peter Hough Non-state actors in multilateral trade governance, Dirk De BiAvre and Marcel Hanegraaff Non-state actors and environmental governance: comparing multinational, supranational and transnational rule making, Lars H. Gulbrandsen, Steinar Andresen and Jon Birger SkjA|rseth Bibliography Index.

Introduction International human rights law is widely acknowledged as having had a transformative effect on the position of the individual in the international legal system in the post-1945 period. But while there is widespread acceptance of the importance of human rights protection in international law, there is considerable confusion about its basis and role in international law. It is often suggested that human rights are defined as those fundamental rights to which every person is entitled to ‘merely by virtue of having been born a human being’; the character of human rights is commonly explained by reference to individual integrity and human dignity. From a rhetorical point of view, the reference to human dignity may be powerful, but it suggests that human rights adhere to individuals through some inherent capacity and fails to acknowledge that international human rights law is tied to the state system of international law: that human rights were initially (at least) conceived as rights held by individuals as against the state, without horizontal effect as between non-state actors. This chapter explores the extent to which international human rights law has engaged individuals. Of interest here is not the content of the rights in question, but how human rights law structurally treats individuals. The first section of the chapter considers the development of the abolition of slavery.

Kate Parlett's study of the individual in the international legal system examines the way in which individuals have come to have a certain status in international law, from the first treaties conferring rights and capacities on individuals through to the present day. The analysis cuts across fields including human rights law, international investment law, international claims processes, humanitarian law and international criminal law in order to draw conclusions about structural change in the international legal system. By engaging with much new literature on non-state actors in international law, she seeks to dispel myths about state-centrism and the direction in which the international legal system continues to evolve.

The subject. The interaction of modern national legal systems and the international legal system is still the most controversial legal phenomenon. An exclusively national approach to solving issues of the general theory of international law could not and cannot justify expectations and close the need for legal comprehension. The situation is aggravated by the fact that, at the level of universal international law, the solution of issues on the agenda with the help of positive methods of legal regulation, and, consequently, the implementation of the norms of existing international treaties today are criticized, tested and often completely violated. The implementation of the norms of existing international treaties is increasingly faced with attempts to refute their postulates using the "customs" under which those "rules" are veiled. In such conditions, national legal systems may experience an increased "feeling of jealousy" to their sovereignty and try to "close" as much as possible using the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of the state.Purpose of the study. In such conditions, it is most important to choose the right vector in improving international law, and not order, law based on normative principles. It is important to correctly "choose the key" to harmonizing the will of sovereign states of our time. The article is devoted to the search for a more correct way of developing international law through its interaction, and not counteraction with the national one.Methodology. The research was carried out using a formal legal interpretation of international legal acts, as well as a comparative analysis of Russian and foreign legal literature. Structural and systemic methods are also the backbone of the study. The conclusions of the work are based on dialectical unity and the struggle of opposites, as well as on interacting deduction and induction in relation to legal systems.The main results. The growing trend towards fragmentation of international law leads to a reduction in the base of sources in the universal sphere of international law. The intensification of regionalization and the creation of regional unions of sovereign states is becoming a source of polar processes: on the one hand, supranational control over the observance of international law by states within their legal system increases, on the other hand, natural situations of non-execution of decisions of international judicial bodies arise. Such situations, without a proper assessment of the reasons for the issuance of the international acts of law enforcement themselves, can lead to unfounded criticism. There is an impressive amount of work in the field of correlation between international and national law, as well as in the field of enforcement of decisions of international judicial bodies. Despite this, in the field of practical implementation of the norms of international law, there remains a lack of doctrinal developments. Such a situation will inevitably lead to attempts to create a semblance of a norm, an escalation of confrontation, and an inability to reach agreement on issues on the agenda. The situation at the level of the universal international legal system is aggravating, therefore, the verification of the limits of competence of regional education authorities, in particular of supranational judicial control bodies, becomes even more important.Сonclusions. The author comes to the conclusion that, on the one hand, in the sphere of universal international law, there is a reduction in the base of sources of international law. On the other hand, in the field of regional international integration, on the contrary, the number of sources of international legal regulation is increasing, and the process of their implementation is intensifying. Universal international law based on the principles of the UN Charter is the most qualitative regulator of the field of international public relations. However, at the present stage of development of the international community, regional integration may well come to its aid: through regional interaction, the consolidation of the wills of sovereign states can and should be achieved a legal constructive dialogue on key issues of already universal international law. Using the approaches of national legal regulation exclusively and unilaterally, it is impossible to productively approach issues of international law: neither in the field of creating international organizations of various types, nor in matters of fulfilling obligations under international law. According to the results of the study, it was concluded that only non-confrontational interaction of specialists in the field of international and national (primarily constitutional) law can provide the construction of the most effective model of interaction of these legal systems. This requires a transformation of the basic approaches to the issues of interaction between international and national law. The basic unity of the general theory of law and the specific features of legal systems should be the starting points for doctrinal research of existing legal structures and the practice of their implementation.

International Law as Operating and Normative Systems: An Overview - the Editors. International Law as Operating System. Sources of International Law: Hard and Soft Law in International Governance - K. Abbott and D. Snidal. Traditional and Modern Approaches to Customary International Law: A Reconciliation - A. Roberts. Normative Hierarchy in International Law - D. Shelton. Participants in the International Legal Process: The New Treaty Makers - J.E Alvarez. Nongovernmental Organizations and International Law - S. Charnovitz. Implementation and Compliance with International Law: Compliance with International Agreements - B. Simmons. Filling In the Gaps: Extrasystemic Mechanisms for Addressing Imbalances Between the International Legal Operating and Normative Systems - the Editors. Princeton Principles on Universal Jurisdiction - The Princeton Project. International Legal Structures: A Babel of Judicial Voices?: Ruminations from the Bench - R. Higgins. The Place of the WTO and its Law in the International Legal Order - P. Lamy. The Role of the International Criminal Court in Enforcing International Criminal Law - P. Kirsch. International Law as Normative System. To Regulate the Use of Force: 'Jus ad bellum,' 'jus in bello'...'jus post bellum'?: Rethinking the Conception of the Law of Armed Force - C. Stahn. Legal Control of International Terrorism: A Policy Oriented Assessment - M.C. Bassiouni. For the Protection of Individual Rights: The Evolving International Human Rights System - T. Buergenthal. The Responsibility to Protect: Humanitarian Concern and the Lawfulness of Armed Intervention - C.C. Joyner. For the Protection of the Environment: International Environmental Agreements: A Survey of Their Features, Formation, and Effects - R. Mitchell. Responsibility for Biological Diversity Conservation Under International Law - C. Tinker. Managing the Commons: The Territorial Temptation: A Siren Song at Sea - B. Oxman. Towards a New Regime for the Protection of Outer Space as a Province of All Mankind - D. Tan. The Future of International Law. The Yahoo Case and Conflict of Laws in the Cyberage - M. Reiman. The Future of International Law Is Domestic (or, The European Way of Law) - A-M. Slaughter and W. Burke-White.

Effective protection of fundamental human rights is one of the main features of a modern democratic state governed by the rule of law. Non-governmental human rights institutions are an important component of the international human rights protection mechanism, as they operate at the local, regional, national and international levels. The relevance of the study is due to several factors, including: increased attention to human rights in the international legal system, increasing cases of human rights violations in the world, and the lack of effectiveness of national human rights mechanisms. Among other things, the Russian-Ukrainian war is of particular relevance, as the level of human rights violations in the conflict zone is extremely high. In view of this, a comprehensive study of the role of international non-governmental organisations in international human rights mechanisms is clearly relevant. The aim of the work is defining the role of non-governmental organisations in the international human rights protection mechanism and determining the forms of participation of international non-governmental organisations in the protection of human rights at the international level. The methodological basis of the study. In order to achieve this goal, an integrated approach is applied, which determines the use of general and special scientific research methods. In particular, the functional method was used to determine the functions of international non-governmental organisations in the field of human rights protection. The formal legal method was used to analyse the provisions of international legal acts. The systemic-structural method was used to identify the main features of the participation of international non-governmental organisations in the mechanism of human rights protection at the international level. The methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, and analogy were also used to formulate conclusions and proposals. Results. The article examines the role of international non-governmental organisations in the international human rights mechanism. The study covers the results of the activities of international non-governmental organisations Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights First, Interights and other non- governmental organisations that draw the attention of citizens and governments around the world to human rights violations. It is noted that the activities of non-governmental organisations in addressing the issue of human rights protection are effective and have an important impact on the resolution of human rights violations. It is emphasised that the role of international non- governmental organisations is growing in the current context, as their activities have an impact on addressing human rights violations in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

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.

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).

Cosmopolitanism and the Development of the International Criminal Court analyzes a set of prominent and competing discourses that emerged in the context of the development and establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is the first permanent juridical body designed to prosecute individuals who commit offences including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Drawing on scholarship on public memory and human rights, the book argues that international law and the international human rights system play a key role for the development of transnational memory discourses and transnational or cosmopolitan subjectivities. Despite the International Criminal Court being recognized as a landmark development in global cooperation, an examination of key events in the development of the court shows how some state and nonstate actors advance calls for cosmopolitanism while others resist cosmopolitanism to bolster nation-state sovereignty. Drawing on the establishment of the International Criminal Court as a case study, the book examines several events that continue to shape national and international public discourse. The book examines debates that occurred during the drafting process of the international treaty at the United Nations and that led to the groundbreaking inclusion of provisions on gender and sexual violence in the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1998. The analysis discusses the tension between feminist advocates’ rhetoric and the discourse of anti–women’s rights actors involved in the treaty-making process who resisted such inclusions in international criminal law. The book analyzes other key events related to the establishment of the ICC that invoke tensions between competing demands of cosmopolitanism and national sovereignty, including advocacy campaigns by nongovernmental organizations working to drum up public support of the institution of the International Criminal Court and the debates surrounding the unprecedented act of the United States “unsigning” an international treaty. In sum, this examination of the rhetoric of state and nonstate actors attempting to shape the court according to their visions of global community shows how discourses about international criminal law and human rights are employed not only to advance cosmopolitanism but also to strengthen nationalist discourses.

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...

Economic Sanctions Against Human Rights Violations

According to the dominant view, the supposedly state-centric concept of war has been successively replaced after the Second World War by the concepts of use of force, aggression, and armed attack in international security law, on the one hand, and the concept(s) of armed conflict in international humanitarian law, on the other. Based on an analysis of post-war codifications, in particular, international human rights law, this article argues that it is yet still too premature to bid farewell to war as a concept that for centuries has shaped the practice and theory of international law. Rather, it should be treated as a dynamic umbrella concept recognizing that non-state actors may be capable of committing acts of war, i.e., armed attacks triggering a state´s inherent right to self-defence. As further explained by the authors, this 21st century concept of war might be located in international law´s general part, thus overstretching its different subareas and without altering the lex specialis-concepts contained therein.