International Law Section Research Articles

Gender Equality and Women at Law in Cuba

This paper addresses gender equality in Cuba, tracing its development from the days of the revolution to present day with an emphasis on women working in the field of law. This article is being published by the Florida Bar International Law Section Journal for its Spring 2016 edition, and is presently under editorial review.

The future of international humanitarian law and the peculiarities of its teaching in law schools of Russia, Belarus and Moldova (the work of International Law Section at the IX Kutafin Readings)

On the 25th of November 2015 Kutafin Moscow State Law University held an International Conference "The future of international humanitarian law and the peculiarities of its teaching in law schools of Russia, Belarus and Moldova" within the framework of IX Kutafin Readings. The conference was organized by the Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Moscow State University and the regional delegation of the ICRC in the Russian Federation, Belarus and Moldova.

Editorial

This issue focuses on the difficulties in implementation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in situations of conflict and occupation. It commences with a thought-provoking article by Rotem Giladi, which considers the inadequacy of the humanitarian law arguments regarding undercover operations by Israeli security forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The remainder of the issue is given over to a very successful symposium held at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in May 2009 by the International Law section of the Society of Legal Scholars. The papers explore the enigmatic relationship between international humanitarian law and international human rights law, which were kindly edited for the journal by Paul Eden and Matthew Happold. The papers present challenging and diverse views of the authors who are distinguished experts in the field—Iain Scobbie, Marko Milanovic, Bill Bowring, Charles Garraway and Robert Cryer. The editors can do no...

The Modern Development of American Comparative Law: 1904-1945

Sustained scholarly comparative law activity in the United States began in the early 20th century. Together with organized networks of communication, it developed along with the successful effort to establish scientific teaching and research at mostly university law schools. This article traces that development from the founding in 1907 of the Comparative Law Bureau, which published an Annual Bulletin, through the establishment of the American Foreign Law Association in 1925, to the Bureau's merger with the American Bar Association's International Law Section. From 1933, the American Bar Association referred to this new entity as the Section of International and Comparative Law. In the lean years of the 1930s and the war years in the 1940s, Tulane University College of Law took a leading role in keeping the comparative law flame alive, although professors at other law schools also made major contributions during a difficult period.

On the Principle of Complementarity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

On the Principle of Complementarity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Between a Rock and a Hard Place? A Legal Analysis of the Voluntary Repatriation of Guatemalan Refugees

1Research and Teaching Assistant, International Law Section, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. Research for this paper was conducted primarily by Julien Burda and Sergio Saba

I. The Use of Force Against Iraq

The answer of the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith to a question in the House of Lords and a paper produced by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office explaining the United Kingdom's position on the legal basis for the use of force against Iraq are reproduced immediately below (from the ‘Latest News’ section, 18 March 2003, of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website, www.fco.gov.uk). Contextual documentation and comment will be provided in the next Current Developments: Public International Law section in January 2004.

Louis Sohn: Grandfather of International Human Rights Law in the US

Louis Sohn: Grandfather of International Human Rights Law in the United States* Jo M. Pasqualucci (bio) “Louis Sohn has been affected by history as much as history has been affected by Louis Sohn.” 1 Introduction Dr. Louis Sohn has played a preeminent role for more than fifty years in the development of international law and the formation of international institutions. For the last half of this century he has patiently worked to build an international system that will protect individual human rights and provide for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. As a conciliator with a daunting intellect and an engaging nature, he brought divergent viewpoints together when it appeared that irreconcilable differences threatened a breakdown of international negotiations. His first such contributions proved important at the San Francisco Conference to draft the Charter of the United Nations and at the preceding Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the International Court of Justice. His suggestions for compromise at those conferences resulted in the passage of important provisions on the right to collective self-defense and the continuation of jurisdiction from the Permanent Court of International Justice to the International Court of Justice. As a professor at [End Page 924] Harvard Law School for more than thirty-five years, he mentored current leaders in international law such as Thomas Buergenthal, Thomas Franck, and Richard Bilder. Buergenthal said about Sohn: “His influence on our lives has been profound; he has affected our thinking and our professional careers in ways only truly great teachers do.” 2 Finally, as a meticulous researcher and scholar, Sohn has contributed to the codification and expansion of the law of the sea, international dispute resolution, and environmental law. In the words of the late Dean Rusk, former Secretary of State, “[Sohn] is a giant among international lawyers and has left a major imprint upon his chosen profession.” 3 Sohn is more than respected; he is loved. His kindness, willingness to mentor students, frequent laughter, and humble nature have endeared him to the many who have studied under him or worked with him. James Silkenat, the former Chairman of the International Law Section of the ABA, wrote: It has happened more times than I can count. There is a meeting with some dignitary: a Finance Minister in Africa, a small town mayor in Arizona, or the partner of a large law firm in London. As we walk across a room, a courtyard or an open field our conversation is interrupted by my host saying, “Oh, my gosh [or words to that effect]. Is that Professor Sohn over there? I must run over and say hello.” Almost no one in legal education, in legal practice, or in legal “anything” inspires more respect, admiration, and affection than Louis Sohn. 4 Jose Alvarez, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, said of Sohn: “Here is someone who truly is owed deference, yet refuses to solicit it. Here is that rarity in our field—a giant whose humility and generosity to colleagues and students has no equal, yet who refuses to be treated as the giant that he truly is.” 5 II. Personal History Louis Bruno Sohn was born on 1 March 1914 to a Jewish family in Lwów, Poland. 6 His parents were both medical doctors. 7 He had one sister. When Louis was a young boy, his father insisted that he study languages. He was taught German and Latin at school and he learned French from a Swiss woman who lived nearby. It was much more difficult to study English. To do [End Page 925] so, he used an old-fashioned radio, holding a filament to a crystal and listening to the BBC over headphones. Sohn was an exceptional student. He graduated first in his high school class, and went on to study at John Casimir University. Again, his father influenced his choice of study. Louis would have chosen history, but his father wanted him to pursue a more practical course of study. Sohn made a “bargain” with his father. He agreed to study the more practical field of law because the law school at that university was connected with a special school of diplomatic and international studies, an area that...

The Nineteenth International Trade Law Conference

For the first time, the International Law Section (ILS) of the Law Council of Australia in 1992 officially co-hosted the Conference. This successful arrangement broadened the client base of the Conference and allowed for additional input into the program from business circles and legal practice. The 1992 Conference placed an increased emphasis on the practical aspects of international trade law, having been particularly designed with the needs of the business community and their legal advisers in mind. The opening address to the Conference by Mr Michael Duffy, then Commonwealth Attorney- General, provided the occasion for a review of Australian attitudes and action in areas of international trade.

Human Rights and the Individual as Subject of International Law: A Soviet View

The restructuring (perestroika) of internal affairs in the Soviet Union has been accompanied by the development of new thinking in the area of external relations as well; new thinking which responds to the rapidly changing world of the late 20th century. In this world, while there hangs over humanity the threat of self-destruct ion either in the holocaust of a nuclear war or in the process of ecological destruction, yet there has emerged the hope that faced with these new threats humanity will more speedily become aware of its unity, of the interdependence of the fates of all peoples of the world, and unite to combat these threats. The basic social contradiction in this world can no longer be the opposition between capitalism and socialism, the resolution of which would be that one social system would either bury the other or leave it on the rubbish heap of history. Rather, the major contradiction of the contemporary world, the resolution of which must, for the foreseeable future, be the dynamic force in the development of civilization, the basis for an awareness of unity, has become the contradiction between the need for survival and global threats to that survival. The rejection of the dogmas aimed at setting East and West, socialism and capitalism, against each other, the search not for what divides us but what unites - that is what is most important today. In the light of the new political thinking, a review of many international law concepts is also taking place in the USSR. One of the most important issues requiring reconsideration is our approach to the role of the individual both in a given society and in the world as a whole. I feel that we have hitherto over-emphasized the role of the state, of the nation, and particularly of the classes, forgetting about the human being and humanity. In these times our primary concern should be the interest of humanity as a whole in connection with the global threats to its existence, as Director of the International Law section of the Institute of Stale and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

International Law Section in Belgrade

International Law Section in Belgrade