Current issues in International Law

In the context of the war in Ukraine, different economic sanctions have been deployed. While they don't harm civilians directly, the case of the Irak sanctions has evidenced, that in the long run, they do cause harm to the civilian population. One of the objectives of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 is to limit indiscriminate harm to civilians. Additionally, they set an obligation for state parties to provide for individual criminal sanctions if violations of the laws of war occur. Nineteenth-century humanitarians like Gustave Moyner thought of individual criminal punishment as an alternative to the collective punishments of retaliation and reprisals. In this sense, economic sanctions defy some of the cornerstones of IHL, like avoiding the suffering of civilians during armed conflicts and the banning of collective punishment. As a result, to avoid collective harm done to civilians, IHL should provide clear limits on the conduction of economic sanctions.

This paper makes the case for in situ investigative training for future de facto international prosecutors in the context of immediate, large-scale political violence. It explores how private non-state actors have previously adopted the practices of the offices of the international prosecutor, in order to close the accountability gap for core international crimes, including torture, first left by the local judiciary and in the absence of an international criminal tribunal with jurisdiction over the alleged crimes (including in the case of Pinochet (Chile), Habre (Chad) and Anwar R. (Syria)). It shows how they informed evidence in criminal prosecution cases in foreign courts exercising universal jurisdiction, in each case broadly following a Nuremberg model. The paper draws on Hartian notions of law, combined with a conceptual framework underscoring community of practice and international practices.

This paper argues that there is an increasing role for The International Court of Justice (ICJ) to play in the prevention of international crimes. The ICJ, in its 2007 decision on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (Bosnia-Herzegovina v Serbia-Montenegro) and more recently this year in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (The Gambia v Myanmar) has demonstrated that the court can exercise a range of powers to prevent international crimes. Trust or conversely distrust in the power of this court, depends on the extent to which the ICJ itself can oversee compliance with its judgements and the extent to which states themselves feel confident, to use their rights of standing to initiate cases that impact on the prevention of international crimes. This paper examines the power of the ICJ to prevent international crimes and the confidence the global society can repose in this court.

An emergent regional community-building order needs to invest in trust-building, and establish common principles, and both processes should be undergirded by the rule of law. In that sense, a community is a creation of law and should be understood to characterize the binding force of law as a substratum for the foundation of an economic community. Having concluded the RCEP in 2021, East Asia is next expected to promote community-building, however, its integration systems have been recognized as having insufficient legal structure. The principle of the rule of law supports the rational exercise of public power early during integration and subsequently endorses protecting the qualified interests of its subjects. Since the WWII, East Asia‘s incomplete modern statehood and its distorted sovereignty games—arbitrarily interpreted non-intervention and reciprocity—between member states have restricted opportunities to rationalize the exercise of public power by community-based institutions.

Whilst some scholars argued that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights should revise their conventionality control approach and slide back to normative subsidiarity, others suggested the Court construct a more collaborative model for the continent‘s human rights development. Is it time to apply a kind of margin of appreciation doctrine based on Latin American comparative law? The principle of subsidiarity is fundamental to the international legal order. However, given the current autocratisation and its threats to the judicial power, robust legal responses to support national judges against political interferences remain indispensable. Recognizing a need of greater respect to national judges who are better positioned to observe national issues, I argue in this paper that the San José Court‘s should maintain its global comparative law method, by insisting on universal consensus or “ continuing international trend “ doctrines to empower a globally-connected judicial community.

This article aims to address the lack of protection of the right to access to justice for victims of the period of violence 1980-2000 in Peru, during which both terrorist groups and State agents perpetrated serious violations of human rights. After describing the patterns of victimization of forced disappearances and extrajudicial committed, this article will focus on the countless attempts to obtain impunity by those responsible for Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres, for which former president Alberto Fujimori was previously convicted, then pardoned and, finally, such pardon was revoked, through a conventionality control procedure. The latest ruling by Peru‘s Constitutional Court that has sought to reinstate the controversial pardon of Alberto Fujimori will be examined. In conclusion, how conventionality control procedure, promoted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, is favouring the consolidation of a ius constitutionale commune, setting standards for the protection of the rights of victims of violence, which interested Latin America, will be highlighted.