Suchergebnisse

SummaryNATO's seventy-nine-day campaign of air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has sparked a wide-ranging debate as to the legality of such military action. NATO has consistently justified its intervention on humanitarian grounds, thus clearly resorting to the controversial doctrine of "humanitarian intervention." The author argues that while a conventional analysis of the purported right of unilateral humanitarian intervention under international law and of NATO's acts on the Kosovo issue might lead some individuals to the conclusion that such acts were illegal (or, at best, of dubious legality), this conclusion fails to take into account the fact that state actors, particularly when acting in concert, tend to influence the content of international law itself. The author suggests that the true significance of NATO's forcible intervention in the Kosovo crisis is that it sets a clear precedent that may well crystallize an emergent norm of customary international law permitting forcible intervention by one or more states against another on humanitarian grounds, even without prior UN Security Council authorization. While such a norm may acquire universal status, it is also possible, in light of the regional concentration of the primary actors involved as well as of important objections from some quarters as to its legality, that it will acquire (at least in the first instance) a local or regional character, perhaps confined to the Euro-Atlantic area.

Cover -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART I: THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL "SYSTEM" -- PART II: STATE JURISDICTION -- PART III: CONSTRAINTS ON STATE JURISDICTION -- PART IV: RECOURSE FOR VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW -- TABLE OF CASES -- TABLE OF INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS -- ABOUT THE AUTHORS -- CHAPTER 1: THE CONCEPT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN CONTEXT -- CHAPTER 2: SOURCES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW -- CHAPTER 3: INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PERSONS -- CHAPTER 4: STATE JURISDICTION OVER LAND TERRITORY -- CHAPTER 5: STATE JURISDICTION OVER WATER

SummaryThis comment reviews the Supreme Court of Canada's May 2008 decision inCanada (Justice) v. Khadr, in which the Court announced an exception to its June 2007 holding inR. v. Hape. Hapeheld, on international legal grounds, that application of theCanadian Charter of Rights and Freedomsto the acts of Canadian officials abroad is "impossible."Khadrheld that this was not so if the acts of Canadian officials abroad amount to participation in a process that violates Canada's international legal obligations. The author welcomes this partial retrenchment of theHapeprinciple, which, it is argued, is ill-founded in international law. However, the author is also critical of the Court's failure to engage directly withHape's many flaws or to justify in any way the seemingly arbitrary exception to it propounded inKhadr. These failures, it is argued, serve only to deepen the legal and logical incoherencies that currently characterize, in the name of respect for Canada's international legal obligations, the rules governing the extraterritorial applicability of theCharter.

SummaryThe majority Supreme Court of Canada judgment inHape— a case concerning extraterritorial applicability of theCanadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms— is premised on three aspects of the relationship between international and Canadian law: (1) the interaction of customary international law and Canadian common law; (2) the role of Canada's international legal obligations inCharterinterpretation; and (3) the potential role of customary international law as a source of unwritten principles of the Canadian Constitution. This article reviews pre-existing law in all three of these areas and analyzes a number of innovations apparently introduced thereto, with little or no explanation, by the majority inHape. It concludes thatHapeseriously exacerbates an already uncertain relationship between international and Canadian law, with fundamental consequences for the rule of law in Canada.

SummaryIn this article, the author focuses in particular on Macdonald's writings on the relationship between the International Court of Justice and the UN Security Council. After considering the continuing uncertainties in that relationship, the author argues that the emerging practice of "evolving reinterpretation" of Security Council Chapter VII resolutions suggests yet another important role for the court — that of guardian of Security Council authority through authoritative, judicial interpretation of purported Security Council authorizations to use force.