Suchergebnisse

This volume deals with expulsion from and suspension of membership rights in international organisations. This is an area of the law of international organisations which has attracted limited attention by academic writers. The book examines some 35 different international organisations by analysing the relevant provisions in their constitutive instruments and, where available, discussing the practice. Additionally, it describes in considerable detail the practice of rejecting delegations' credentials as a means of excluding Member States from participation. Moreover, it suggests solutions for those international organisations lacking expulsion and/or suspension clauses by applying the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the theory of countermeasures in international law, especially as codified by the International Law Commission. Finally, the book offers a model expulsion and suspension clause to be incorporated in existing or future international organisations

In September 2014, the Member States of the League of Arab States approved the Statute of the Arab Court of Human Rights finalising a 20-year process to put in place a human rights protection mechanism which resembles mechanisms operating in other regions. This article examines the defunct Arab Charter on Human Rights of 1994, the revised Human Rights Charter of 2004 as well as the mandate and the activities of the Arab Human Rights Committee. It then explains the drafting of the Court's Statute, analyses the salient features of its Statute, which was concluded independently of the 2004 Charter, and makes pertinent comparisons with the European, Inter-American and African regional mechanisms.

Notwithstanding that during the last decades NGOs have been very active, their number has ever been on the rise and their influence has increased considerably, the Greek legal order still lacks a legislative framework regulating their establishment and operation. On account of this reality, NGOs have been using the legal personality of other types of entities to perform their goals and mission, for example non-profit companies, associations of natural persons, charitable organizations, etc. Even though these other legal types satisfy to a larger of smaller degree the needs of contemporary NGOs, it is essential to put in place a regulatory framework, which would allow at the same time the troublesome establishment of all types of NGOs and consolidate their legal personality, would permit the State to supervise their creation and thereafter to control their activities (but without interfering in either case) and would devise a system for NGO accountability. The present article argues that the Greek legislator should be inspired by the important and pioneering work which has been carried out by the Council of Europe. While this intergovernmental organisation is far more known for the protection of fundamental freedom (and indeed the freedom to establish NGOs should be viewed as a right protected under the European Human Rights Convention), its work on the regulation of NGOs deserves to be studied in far more detail, principally its 2007 Recommendation on the Legal Status of NGOs in Europe. The latter does serve as a regulatory text addressing at the same time local NGOs but also foreign NGOs active in one or more of the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe.

Following the 2016 referendum, the UK notified its intention to withdraw from the European Union pursuant to Article 50 TEU. Given the political and legal consequences of a much-questioned referendum and the strong opinion of many parts of British society that the UK's membership should not be terminated, the question arose whether such a notification could be revoked unilaterally. In the absence of any mention in Article 50, expert opinion was divided. International law – that is, the law of treaties and the law of international organizations – does not appear to provide a definite answer, while state practice is rather scarce. The constituent instruments of international and regional organizations containing withdrawal clauses are also silent, except for African organizations and development/investment organizations, which invariably allow Member States to rescind withdrawal notices. As regards the EU Treaties, before the Lisbon Treaty they did not contain a withdrawal clause. In the preliminary ruling given in Wightman v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, which concerned whether an EU Member has the sovereign power under Article 50 to revoke unilaterally a withdrawal notice, the Court of Justice helped to clarify a critical question of EU Law but also of international law.

Parliaments in Africa have traditionally been sidelined with regard to security and peace issues. This article compares the Pan-African Parliament, the parliamentary organ of the African Union, with the Great Lakes Parliamentary Forum on Peace, better known as the Amani Forum, which started as an informal regional network and later developed more formal structures. The analysis focuses on the role of these two institutions in conflict prevention. While the Amani Forum provides an excellent example of the potential contribution of parliamentary forums to promoting and restoring peace, the Pan-African Parliament has been unable to operate as an effective parliamentary organ in conflict resolution and prevention. The article examines several factors that can explain the contrasting performances of the two institutions: their formal and informal structures; different membership and organizational structures; the density and quality of intra-institutional ties; as well as differences in geographical and thematic focus.

The recent inroads made by China in the African continent as a trading partner, investor and donor have been important both in terms of magnitude and pace. Even though for a number of African regimes it signifies increased bargaining power, the growing Chinese presence in Africa was greeted with skepticism or anxiety in the West. After an overview of the multifaceted Chinese presence in Africa and the stance taken by the USA, the article attempts to identify the reasons that could explain the rather belated, especially if its traditional ties with Africa are taken into account, EU response. It concludes by predicting a rapprochement between the EU and the USA over the ways to deal with various aspects of China's increasing presence in Africa.