Antonios Tzanakopoulos

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DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199647071.003.0003

When the Security Council imposes binding obligations through decisions adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter it may impact on internationally protected human rights and the corresponding obligations of UN member states to respect these rights. Member states are then faced with potentially conflicting obligations. This contribution surveys the respective position of Security Council measures and human rights obligations in the (emergent) normative hierarchy of international law. It defines normative conflict and discusses state practice in order to establish whether Article 103 of the UN Charter is a conflict or a hierarchy rule and whether human rights obligations are subordinate to Security Council measures.

ISBN: 978-0-19-964707-1

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199600762.001.0001

This book examines how the United Nations Security Council, in exercising its power to impose binding non-forcible measures ('sanctions') under Article 41 of the UN Charter, may violate international law. The Council may overstep limits on its power imposed by the UN Charter itself and by general international law, including human rights guarentees. Such acts may engage the international responsibility of the United Nations, the organization of which the Security Council is an organ. Disobeying the Security Council discusses how and by whom the responsibility of the UN for unlawful Security Council sanctions can be determined; in other words, how the UN can be held to account for Security Council excesses.

ISBN: 978-0-19-960076-2

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199595297.003.0003

This paper attempts to trace, analyze, and justify, the reactions of domestic courts when these are faced with a challenge to domestic measures implementing Security Council sanctions regimes, in particular the regime under SCRs 1267 (1999) seq. It discusses the method in which domestic courts engage with the measures before them, as well as the standard of review they apply, and the usual outcomes of the challenge, ie abstention, low-intensity review, interpretation or annulment of the domestic measure. Interpretation and annulment of the domestic measure in particular may force the State in breach of its international obligations under the relevant SCRs and Article 25 of the UN Charter. The final section attempts to legal qualify and justify this potential breach.

ISBN: 978-0-19-959529-7

As the title suggests, this paper does not deal with 'international law in domestic courts' but rather with 'domestic courts in international law'. It seeks to ascertain whether domestic courts are assigned an international judicial function by international law, and whether and to what extent they are in fact assuming and exercising that function. The paper attempts to define the concept of an ‘international judicial function’ and argues that, because of the peculiar ‘directionality’ of a great many international obligations (which require implementation within the domestic jurisdiction), domestic courts are the first port of call and the last line of defense for the interpretation and application of international law. However, as organs of States, courts may engage the international responsibility of the State if their conduct results in the breach of an international obligation. This is why the exercise of the international judicial function of domestic courts is supervised by States, either through the submission of disputes to international courts, or, more usually, through decentralized reactions.

ISBN: 1533-5860

States increasingly 'contract out' their governmental authority in favour of international organizations. As a result, remedies available under domestic law to individuals and legal entities may no longer be available, leaving them without redress. (Domestic) courts have devised a method to react to such diminution of their jurisdiction, which at the same time comprises a message for various addressees and engages a dialogue on multiple levels. This method is shaped by the spirit and thrust of the argument the German Constitutional Court put forward in its Solange jurisprudence, and has the potential of fostering a harmonization of domestic and international law, as well as that of establishing a rudimentary normative hierarchy at the international level.

ISBN: 9781849462471

This paper discusses transparency in the working method of the United Nations Security Council. It describes the institutional design of the organ and the evolution of Security Council powers, and seeks to identify whether there is an obligation for the Council to act in a transparent manner in the exercise of its powers. The paper argues that transparency is an 'ancillary' obligation incumbent on the Council, to allow for decentralised control over the exercise of its powers by Member States of the UN. Transparency having no independent normative charge, we do not how much of it is good -- this is determined by a pattern of protest and reaction between the Security Council and the Member States called upon to implement its decisions.

ISBN: 978-1107021389