Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article shows that the Tribunal in the Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration between Mauritius and the United Kingdom has contributed considerably to the creeping expansion of compulsory jurisdiction of courts and tribunals established under Part XV of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Tribunal has employed three techniques to do so. First, it has read down the jurisdictional precondition to exchange views in Article 283(1) of the UNCLOS; second, it has expanded the limited scope of compulsory subject-matter jurisdiction under section 2 of Part XV by broadening the meaning of the phrase 'any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention' to include incidental, related—and through the backdoor of a balancing exercise—even extraneous disputes; and, third, it has restricted the limitations and exceptions to compulsory jurisdiction in Articles 297 and 298 of the UNCLOS. Few would have predicted in 1982 that a Part XV court or tribunal would—within the context of such a balancing exercise—ever find that a colonial era undertaking created binding legal obligations under international law and that the United Kingdom was obliged to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius when no longer needed for defence purposes. The Tribunal's expansive reading of the jurisdictional provisions in Part XV opens up the possibility of future rulings, albeit incidentally, on issues that have little to do with the law of the sea.

On 27 February 2011, it was reported in the media that the United Kingdom had revoked the diplomatic immunity of Libyan leader Mu'ammar Qaddafi and his family.1 Earlier that day, the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show:[…] the people of Libya have risen up against Colonel Gaddafi. We have here a country descending in to [sic] civil war with atrocious scenes of killing of protestors and a Government actually making war on its own people so, of course, it is time for Colonel Gaddafi to go. That is the best hope for Libya and last night I signed a directive revoking his diplomatic immunity in the United Kingdom but also the diplomatic immunity of his sons, his family, his household so it's very clear where we stand on, on his status as a Head of State.2Although Colonel Qaddafi claimed not to have any 'official position' in the Libyan State apparatus,3 he has been widely regarded as the Head of State of Libya. The French Court of Cassation held in March 2001 that, as the serving Head of State of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, he was completely immune in respect of alleged complicity in acts of terrorism.4 William Hague's statement seemed to give the impression that the United Kingdom no longer recognized Colonel Qaddafi as 'Head of State' and thus denied him diplomatic immunity, despite the fact that he was still being listed as such on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's website 'Country Profile: Libya'.5 This impression was reinforced by his statement that a British special forces operation the night before which rescued some 150 oil workers from remote desert camps in Libya had been carried out without the 'official permission' of the Qaddafi Government.6

AbstractIn August 2008, Georgia instituted proceedings against the Russian Federation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to establish its international responsibility for alleged acts of racial discrimination against the ethnic Georgian population in South Ossetia and Abkhazia by 'thede factoSouth Ossetian and Abkhaz separatist authorities […] supported by the Russian Federation'. In order to establish the international responsibility of an outside power for the internationally wrongful conduct of a secessionist entity, it must be shown, inter alia, that the acts or omissions of the secessionist entity areattributableto the outside power. International tribunals usually determine the question of attribution on the basis of whether the authorities of the secessionist entity were 'controlled' by the outside power when performing the internationally wrongful conduct. Attribution thus becomes a question of how one defines 'control'. The test of control of authorities and military forces of secessionist entities has become perhaps the most cited example of the fragmentation of international law. The ICJ, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the European Court of Human Rights have all developed and applied their own tests in order to establish whether a secessionist entity has been 'controlled' by an outside power. There is a lot of confusion about the various tests, usually referred to as the 'effective control', 'overall control' and 'effective overall control' tests. This article sets out the various control tests, their requirements and areas of application, and asks which test or tests should be applied to attribute the internationally wrongful conduct of a secessionist entity to an outside power.

Mehr als 100 Jahre war die Debatte über die Wirkung der Anerkennung von Staaten geprägt von der Auseinandersetzung zwischen der deklaratorischen und der konstitutiven Theorie. Am Beispiel der international nicht anerkannten Türkischen Republik Nord-Zypern zeigt Stefan Talmon, daß keine der beiden Theorien die Nichtanerkennung von Wirkungseinheiten erklären kann, die die Staatskriterien erfüllen, aber unter Verstoß gegen das Völkerrecht entstanden sind. Der Nichtanerkennung eines bestehenden Staates kommt weder statusverhindernde noch statusbestätigende, sondern statusverneinende, d.h. negatorische Wirkung zu. Bei der kollektiven Nichtanerkennung handelt es sich um eine von der Staatengemeinschaft seit den 30er Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts eingesetzte Sanktion gegen schwerwiegende, die wesentlichen Interessen der Staatengemeinschaft als Ganzes verletzende Völkerrechtsverstöße. Bei der vom Völkerbund bzw. von den Vereinten Nationen koordinierten Nichtanerkennung werden dem 'illegalen Staat' nicht nur die optionalen zwischenstaatlichen Beziehungen und die sich der daraus ergebenden Rechte und Privilegien, sondern auch die zwingenden Grundrechte eines Staates (d.h. alle aus der Staatsqualität resultierenden Rechte, Kompetenzen und Privilegien) vorenthalten.