Suchergebnisse

Preface, -Table of Contents -- The Contribution of Benedetto Conforti to the International Law of the Sea -- The 'General Rule of Interpretation' in the International Jurisprudenc Relating to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea -- Part I -- Part II -- Part III -- Part IV -- Part V

The ongoing Russian aggression on Ukraine has prompted Ukrainian President Zelensky to seek the assistance of States and international institutions. One such institution that Ukraine approached is the International Court of Justice (ICJ), requesting provisional measures. Ukraine contends that the Russian Federation has falsely claimed that acts of Genocide have occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblast in Eastern Ukraine. In this article, the author details the provisional measures rendered by the ICJ; in doing so, it is contended that the interpretation of the ICJ vis-à-vis the Genocide Convention is flexible and broad, a stark contrast to its previous cases.

The advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice adopted by 9 votes to 5 on July 20, 1962, affirmed that the expenditures authorized for operations in the Congo (ONUC) by General Assembly resolutions from December 20, i960, to October 30, 1961, and the expenditures authorized for the operations of the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Middle East from November 26, 1956, to December 20, 1960, constitute "Expenses of the Organization" within the meaning of Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter of the United Nations. Though the Court, for reasons discussed below, refrained from declaring it explicitly, the opinion had the effect of holding that Members of the UN were legally bound to pay the assessments made by the Assembly to defray the costs of the two operations. The Court arrived at this conclusion by a relatively simple process of reasoning: first, it found that the text of Article 17, paragraph 2, related to expenses incurred in carrying out the purposes of the Organization; second, it examined the expenditures referred to above, and found that they were incurred with that end in view; thirdly and finally, it examined arguments which had been advanced against its conclusion and found them without merit. Some of these arguments will be examined later.

AbstractThe creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute war crimes poses a real puzzle. Why was it created, and more importantly, why do states agree to join this institution? The ICC represents a serious intrusion into a traditional arena of state sovereignty: the right to administer justice to one's one nationals. Yet more than one hundred states have joined. Social scientists are hardly of one mind about this institution, arguing that it is (alternately) dangerous or irrelevant to achieving its main purposes: justice, peace, and stability. By contrast, we theorize that the ICC is a mechanism to assist states in self-binding, and draw on credible commitments theory to understand who commits to the ICC, and the early consequences of such commitments. This approach explains a counterintuitive finding: the states that are both the least and the most vulnerable to the possibility of an ICC case affecting their citizens have committed most readily to the ICC, while potentially vulnerable states with credible alternative means to hold leaders accountable do not. Similarly, ratification of the ICC is associated with tentative steps toward violence reduction and peace in those countries precisely least likely to be able to commit credibly to foreswear atrocities. These findings support the potential usefulness of the ICC as a mechanism for some governments to commit to ratchet down violence and get on the road to peaceful negotiations.