Notice Of Withdrawal Research Articles

Unintended Positive Complementarity: Why International Criminal Court Investigations May Increase Domestic Human Rights Prosecutions

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is controversial, acutely so in Africa. The first thirty-nine people it indicted were all African. It did not open any formal investigations outside Africa until the 2016 decision to investigate conduct related to the 2008 Georgia-Russia war. The first three notifications of withdrawal from the ICC Statute, each made in 2016, were by Burundi, South Africa, and Gambia. While South Africa and Zambia reversed their initial intentions, Burundi in fact became the first state party to withdraw from the ICC in October 2017. These maneuvers are closely connected to country-specific political and legal considerations, but they overlap with concerns expressed by governments in other countries including Kenya and Namibia. Among these concerns is that “the ICC has become the greatest threat to Africa's sovereignty, peace and stability,” and that “the ICC is a colonial institution under the guise of international justice.”

State Withdrawal Notifications from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: South Africa, Burundi and the Gambia

In 2016 three African states namely South Africa, Burundi and The Gambia submitted written notifications of withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) to the Secretary-General of the United Nations pursuant to Article 127 of the Rome Statute. Although the African Union welcomed and fully supported the three withdrawal notifications and considered them as ‘pioneer implementers’ of its ‘Withdrawal Strategy’, The Gambia and South Africa withdrew their notifications of withdrawal. Some other states – Kenya, Namibia and Uganda – have made threats to submit withdrawal notifications. This article examines four issues arising out of the said withdrawal notifications. First, why did the three states submit withdrawal notifications from the Rome Statute? Second, what is the impact of the three states’ withdrawal notifications? Third, is the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (or the yet-to-be-established African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights) a suitable African regional ‘alternative’ to the ICC? Finally, what steps might be taken to avoid, or at least minimise, further withdrawals in the future and to avoid impunity of perpetrators of international crimes in states that have withdrawn from the Rome Statute?

Situating the European Union within South Africa's foreign policy calculus

ABSTRACTThis article reviews the importance of the EU–South Africa Strategic Partnership in South Africa's foreign policy calculations after a decade in existence. While political differences have been open for all to see in cases such as Zimbabwe and South Africa's notice of withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, the enhanced political dialogue is important in ensuring that the partners have a greater appreciation of the complexities faced by foreign policy-makers on both sides. This study is thus interested in uncovering why political relations have lagged behind the economic and social aspects of the relationship. After assessing South Africa's foreign policy interests towards the EU, it then reviews where the political fault lines have been located since the adoption of the Joint Action Plan before identifying areas of cooperation in meeting South Africa’s interests as stated in the 2011 white paper on foreign policy.

Brexit and European Criminal Law

The Brexit vote of 23 June 2016 entails a lot of uncertainty with regard to the future relationship of the UK with the EU, not least in the field of criminal justice cooperation. With the adoption of the (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill and Prime Minister May’s actual triggering of Art. 50 Treaty of the European Union (‘TEU’) on 29 March 2017 formal withdrawal negotiations could start and have in the meantime actually started. This little essay will first describe the area concerned, i.e., European Criminal Law in the narrow sense (1), then we will look at the current relationship of the UK with the EU in the criminal justice area (2), and, last but not least, sketch out possible options of the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU in the criminal justice area (3). The piece is dedicated to Wolfgang Schomburg who did not only have a formative influence of the case law of the ICTY where he served as the first German judge from November 2001 to November 2008 but also edited the perhaps most important German commentary on mutual assistance in criminal matters. In this commentary, European Criminal Law plays a prominent role. In addition, Schomburg was appointed honorary professor in Durham Law School, UK, in March 2009. For both reasons I am confident that this paper will find his interest.

Legislative Sovereignty, Executive Power, and Judicial Review: Comparative Insights from Brexit

In June 2016, participants in a United Kingdom referendum voted to leave the European Union (EU) by a margin of 52% to 48%. The timing and terms of Britain’s exit (commonly known as “Brexit”) are the subject of on-going public and parliamentary debate. But the mechanism by which Brexit is to be formally commenced was clarified by the U.K. Supreme Court at the end of January 2017 in the landmark case R (Miller) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The question presented was whether ministers of Theresa May’s government could give notice of the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU “without prior legislation passed in both Houses of Parliament and assented to by HM The Queen.” The secretary of state argued that the power to withdraw was part of the royal prerogative exercisable by ministers without prior parliamentary action. However, in light of the far-reaching changes to domestic law that would result from terminating EU membership treaties, the court held that withdrawal “must be made in the only way in which the UK constitution permits, namely through Parliamentary legislation.” On the one hand, the Miller decision may be seen as a resounding reaffirmation of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty in British constitutional law. Notwithstanding the facts that a majority of voters supported Brexit and that government ministers ordinarily have the power to terminate treaties without legislative approval or judicial review, formal notice of withdrawal under Article 50 of the EU Treaties could not be given unless and until Parliament so agreed. Yet on the other hand, a comparative analysis of Miller also reveals some significant limitations on parliamentary power in the United Kingdom relative to congressional power in the United States—even though Congress is constrained by the Constitution and enjoys no sovereignty over the other branches of government. This Essay explores these limitations on parliamentary power and argues that legislative sovereignty is best understood not as an immutable principle laid down in Britain’s constitutional history, but rather as an evolving ideal that continues to develop to this day.

The Option Clause in Scottish Banking

A key question raised by the modern literature on laissez-faire money and banking is whether unregulated fractional-reserve banks could protect themselves from bank runs by purely contractual means. If so, banking stability would not require government to provide deposit insurance or to act as a lender of last resort. One possible run-proofing device discussed in the literature is an or notice of withdrawal allowing a bank temporarily to suspend the redeemability of some or all of its liabilities (notes or demand deposits) provided the bank pays a prespecified (penalty) rate of interest on the suspended liabilities. Before the practice was outlawed in 1765, many Scottish banks issued notes bearing option clauses. In an informative reappraisal of the option clause in Scottish banking, James A. Gherity (1995) suggests that his findings contradict other recent discussions. In particular, Gherity disputes three propositions that he attributes to us and others: 1. that option clauses were vital to preventing runs in Scotland; 2. that run-proofing was the purpose that motivated Scottish banks to employ option clauses; and 3. that option-clause notes were accepted by the public without prejudice. To set the record straight, we note here that we and several other authors Gherity cites have in fact avoided making claims 1 and 2. The conflict between Gherity's view and ours is thus much smaller than he suggests. We would defend claim 3, however, and argue that the evidence Gherity offers against it does not suffice to refute that claim. 1. The Potential and Historical Roles of the Option Clause An option clause can keep a solvent bank from being run upon by providing a contractual circuit breaker. By allowing an illiquid bank to suspend for enough time to liquidate assets without fire-sale losses, it prevents a run from forcing a sol-

PSDA in the Nursing Home

As long-term care providers comply with the Patient Self-Determination Act they will confront the substantial differences that exist between nursing homes and hospitals in relation to health care decisionmaking. These differences arise first from the notion that nursing home care is less trustworthy than hospital care and requires more public oversight. Second, the regulatory system applicable to nursing homes is quite different from that applicable to hospitals and other caregivers and has a significant impact on treatment decisionmaking. A third difference between nursing homes and hospitals lies in the structures of caregiving and governance in most nursing homes. Finally, the informed consent model of health care decisionmaking bas not found a precise fit in nursing home care. In Conroy (486 A.2d 1209 [N.J. 1985]), the New Jersey Supreme Court established a special regime for discontinuation of treatment in nursing homes which required, among other things, that a state Nursing Home Ombudsman be notified prior to any discontinuation of treatment. The ombudsman was directed by the court to consider every notification of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment as a possible abuse and, in consequence, to conduct an investigation. The contrasts between this approach and that of the same court in Quinlan are quite obvious and relate to the court's view that nursing homes require more public scrutiny than do hospitals. More recently, in Greenspan (558 N.E.2d 1194 [Ill. 19901) it was argued that withdrawal of a feeding tube from an incompetent patient would always violate Illinois law requiring nursing homes to provide shelter and assistance with meals and prohibited neglect of nursing home residents. Although the court ultimately rejected this claim, these two cases provide some glimpse of a deeply held assumption concerning nursing home care: that withdrawal of treatment is abusive and illegal. Whether nursing home residents as a group should be treated differently from other individuals in regard to treatment decisions is a public policy question that remains unresolved. Regulations governing quality of care in nursing homes are quite different from those applicable to hospitals, and that too has had an impact on how refusals of treatment are handled. Unlike the regulation of hospitals, nursing home regulation does not initially defer to the judgment of the individual health care providers or to the internal quality assurance mechanisms of the facility. Rather, enforcement is a high priority, capturing the lion's share of the budget for enforcing health care regulations in most states. The emphasis on enforcement and supervision by public agencies makes administrators risk averse to any action that would attract investigation. Substantively, the regulatory emphasis on treatment, which tends to view nontreatment as an abuse or violation of standards unless proven otherwise, makes discontinuation of treatments risky. Despite changes that allow withdrawal and withholding of treatment, in practice institutional policies on advance directives may still reflect a fear of nontreatment. Thus in complying with the Patient Self-Determination Act, facilities may communicate a de facto requirement of a written advance directive prior to decisions to discontinue or forgo treatment. …

Labor and hegemony

The United States' notice of withdrawal from the ILO is to be understood in terms of hegemonic power relations. “Tripartism” is an ideology based upon a dominant historical tendency, namely the emergence of a corporative form of state in both developed and underdeveloped countries. The AFL-CIO has participated in the construction of the corporative state in the US and has supported its hegemonic role in the world in concert with American business interests and the CIA. Neither the ILO nor international trade union organizations (especially the ICFTU) has enjoyed a stable relationship with the center of hegemonic power in the labor field, since the AFL-CIO has conducted a unilateral foreign policy. The functionalist strategy of executive leadership asserting the autonomy of an international organization through task expansion in technical fields has been almost totally irrelevant to the issue. Nor has the ILO found an alternative counter-hegemonic base of support, e.g., in the Third World. The existing hegemony has reasserted itself through the ILO program and ideology even as the US has withdrawn material support. Hegemony, which no longer operates through majority votes in international organizations, works instead through bureaucratic controls. This structure of power has prevented the ILO from confronting effectively the real social issues of employment-creation, land reform, marginality, and poverty in general. Initiatives that have been taken to deal with such issues have all ultimately been diverted into programs consistent with the hegemonic ideology and power relations.

Council gives notice of withdrawal from CEI

Council gives notice of withdrawal from CEI

The Lucknow Conference

was both timely and appropriate that the Eleventh Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations should have its setting in Asia. With the eyes of the world fixed anxiously on that disturbed continent, where the progress of events may quite literally determine the future of civilization, it was of the utmost value to have the discussions taking place in circumstances that brought the delegates directly into contact with Asian conditions. India is not strictly a part of the Pacific geographical area and is not immediately involved in its conflicts; yet she has an urgent concern with the developments in East Asia in their bearing on both her internal problems and her external interests. In her economic difficulties and aspirations, in her emotional nationalism with its sympathy for the movements in other Asian countries, she has broad common ground with the rest of the continent and exhibits many of the essential features of the ferment that is stirring the whole of the Far East. The Indian contribution took on added importance from the fact that the countries of the western Pacific were represented to a very limited extent. For the first time in over a decade there was a Japanese delegation whose members made a very good impression and proved most useful in their contribution to the discussions. But Australia, which was expected to be strongly represented, surprised and disappointed the Conference by a last-minute failure to produce any delegation at all. This was regrettable, for Australia occupies a unique position with a distinctive point of view toward Far Eastern questions, and more than once a point was reached in the discussions where some explanation of Australian interests and policies was needed to round out the picture. Still more regrettable, but probably more unavoidable, was the absence of the Chinese. It had been quite evident that the progress of events in China would have a disruptive effect on the Chinese I.P.R., and serious and sustained efforts had been made to mitigate this and to arrange for the presence of some Chinese representatives on whatever basis might seem practicable. No success was attained. The existing Chinese council, much of whose membership was outside the mainland, gave formal notice of withdrawal on the eve of the Conference. There were some last-minute indications from

International Labor Organization

The thirty-first session of the ILO Conference opened on June 17, 1948, in San Francisco. Six new members — Burma, Ceylon, El Salvador, Syria, Pakistan, and the Philippines — attended the session; Yugoslavia sent no representative after having given notice of pending withdrawal. The agenda of the conference included: 1) a report by Edward Phelan, Director-General of the International Labor Office; 2) the organization's 1949 budget; 3) reports on the application of conventions; 4) employment service organization, including the consideration of the adoption of a convention providing for national employment services; 5) vocational guidance; 6) payment of fair wages on government contracts and establishment of measures to protect wages; 7) freedom of association and protection of the right to organize; 8) industrial relations, including methods of guaranteeing the right to organize, collective bargaining, conciliation and arbitration, and cooperation between governments and management and labor organizations; 9) revision of a convention regulating night work of women; 10) revision of a convention regulating night work of young persons; and 11) privileges and immunities of ILO.