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The paper assesses the legal regime governing recourse to force from the perspective of 'contemporary positivism'. It provides a basic introduction to positivist international law and its critique and charts how positivism, faced with decades of anti-positivist critique, has adjusted itself. More specifically, it analyses how in response to criticism, positivism has embraced a more 'liberal' approach to the identification of sources. Applying these findings to the specific problem of military force, the paper outlines the main challenges facing a positivist understanding of the jus ad bellum. These are (i) the loss of predictability of the legal rules (''anything goes"), which is a consequence of the liberalisation of sources; and (ii) the attraction, even among positivist scholars, to invoke "quasi-legal" arguments based on legitimacy, morals or political necessity.

The introductory paper to a symposium issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law, edited by the authors, dealing with the function of domestic courts as agents for the development of international law. The paper 'sets the scene' for the contributions to the symposium, which seek to trace the impact of domestic courts in the development of canonical areas of international law, such as jurisdiction, immunity, state responsibility, the law of international organisations/human rights, and the law of armed conflict/conduct of hostilities. It discusses the formal quality and actual influence of domestic court decisions on the development of international law, and introduces the concept of 'agents' of international law development. This is the analytical perspective that the contributions to the symposium adopt.

ISBN: 0922-1565

A Report prepared for the KROC Institute's Sanctions and Security Research Program, assessing reforms to the 1267/1989 sanctions regime of the Security Council against the standards required by European Courts, including the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights.

This paper surveys and analyses the case law of United Kingdom courts on questions of personality and immunity of international organizations, as well as on the question of liability of members for the acts of the organization, focusing in particular on the various cases surrounding the collapse of the International Tin Council in the 1980s.

ISBN: 978-0-19-967940-9

The case study of investment treaty arbitration provides an opportunity to examine whether and how the invocation of responsibility by a non-state actor has affected secondary rules of state responsibility. This article takes the analytical perspective of investors, capable of being perceived as right-holders (by reference to human and consular rights), beneficiaries (by reference to the law of treaties rules on third states), or agents (by reference to diplomatic protection). The shift from the state to the investor as the entity invoking responsibility for the breach of investment treaties seems to have influenced the law of state responsibility in a number of distinct ways. The apparent disagreement about the law of state responsibility may sometimes properly relate to questions of treaty interpretation, while in other cases rules from an inter-state context are applied verbatim. In other cases, the different perspectives lead to importantly different conclusions regarding circumstances precluding wrongfulness, elements of remedies, waiver of rights, and, possibly, interpretative relevance of diplomatic protection rules. The overall thesis is that conceptual challenges faced by investment arbitration may be illuminated by the solutions provided by the regimes that formed the background for its creation.

This paper discusses (in French) whether countermeasures can be invoked as a justification for disobeying binding decisions of the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The first part establishes how the Security Council may engage the international responsibility of the UN and who should be allowed to determine that such engagement has in fact taken place. The second part argues that disobedience of illegal sanctions adopted by the Council may be justified under international law as a countermeasure in response to the Council's (the UN's) internationally wrongful act.

ISBN: 0035-0788

Abstract: Commentary of the Preamble of the League of Nations Covenant in French.

In recent years, the International Court of Justice has been increasingly asked to adjudicate upon claims of State responsibility that raise or at least touch upon the possibility of international responsibility of multiple entities. In different substantive contexts, these cases raise similar conceptual questions that might be articulated by reference to the concept of ‘shared responsibility’. The focus of this article is on procedural matters, and in particular on how shared responsibility may be implemented in the ICJ. The argument will be made in three steps, dealing in turn with the manner in which cases concerning shared responsibility could be brought before the Court, the way how such cases could be handled, and the challenges raised in such cases by absent parties. The article argues for a nuanced consideration of the rationale of the procedural challenges: some are unremarkable in conceptual terms and reflect the broader judicial architecture of the Court, while others are of particular importance for shared responsibility, even though the particular legal issue might be mutatis mutandis relevant to other multilateral disputes.

This blog entry is based on a talk delivered at the University of Amsterdam in the framework of the SHARES (shared responsibility) project. It discusses how responsibility is shared between the UN and member-States for the adoption and implementation of UN sanctions under Chapter VII of the Charter.

This short study in memory of Sir Ian Brownlie QC discusses the countermeasure of disobedience as a means of implementation of the responsibility of international organisations. Focusing on Security Council sanctions under Chapter VII of the Charter, it argues that actions of the Security Council may be illegal and thus engage the responsibility of the UN. It then argues that disobedience of such sanctions on the part of States may qualify as a countermeasure against the Organisation. This legal characterisation of disobedience has significant advantages over the 'invalidity theory' in that it subjects decentralised reaction to a specific legal framework.

ISBN: 9789004256071

This paper surveys and evaluates the contribution of the International Court of Justice to the development of the (public international) law of the sea. It does so by comparing the Court's contribution as against other 'competing' agents of development of international law, ie other adjudicators, codifiers, regulators, and lawmakers. It concludes that the impact of the Court on the law of the sea has not been great, and is now diminishing. However, it argues that the more important contribution of the Court lies less in its influence on the development of the law, and more in its authority in consolidating it.

ISBN: 978-0-19-965321-8

The purpose of this brief study is to gauge what the Permanent Court of Internation-al Justice might have had to say about the nebulous concept of the ‘international community’, as the Court administering the law of that community, but also developing it, thereby contributing to the stabilization and further integration of that community. This is done by ‘reverse-engineering’ the jurisprudence of the PCIJ, seeking to canvass how the Court understood the concept of the 'international community' and how it would have wanted it to evolve. The study surveys the Court’s case law for what are commonly accepted as the ‘hallmarks’ of an (international) community, or at least those commonly associated with the idea: the make-up of the community; the concept of obligations and action in the ‘general’ interest; and the existence of institutions providing protection of the community interest.

ISBN: 9789004244931

Article-by-article commentary of the 2004 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property.

ISBN: 978-0-19-960183-7

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

International humanitarian law governs the conduct of participants in an armed conflict. In order to determine whether it applies to situations of violence it is necessary to assess first of all whether the situation amounts to an ‘armed conflict’. However, international humanitarian law does not recognize a unitary concept of armed conflict but, rather, recognizes two types of armed conflicts: international and non-international. This chapter examines the history of the distinction between these two categories of armed conflict, the consequences of the distinction and whether it still has validity. The chapter then discusses legal concepts relevant to the two categories, including the differences between a non-international conflict and other violence, extraterritorial hostilities by one State against a non-state armed group and conflicts in which multinational forces are engaged. All these concepts are relevant to the understanding of the case studies which are the focus of the rest of the book.

ISBN: 978-0-19-965775-9

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