Some Reflections on Questions of Identity and Continuity of States and Governments

If you wish to participate in this (remote) seminar, RSVP is necessary. Please complete the Registration Form before noon on Wednesday 11 May (please note that if you register after noon, a link may not be sent to you). Prior to the Thursday seminar, you will be sent a Zoom link to join. 

Abstract: Of the original topics on the ILC’s agenda in 1947 was the question of Statehood. Yet the topic has stubbornly remained on the Commission’s long term programme of work without any formal commitment to its consideration. In this talk, I propose to interrogate why this topic has proved so elusive for the codification project and explore why after more than 70 years, a comprehensive consideration of the topic is both urgent and necessary. The urgency has in part been propelled by issues around climate change and the implications of sea level rise for those States who face an existential threat from it.  Yet these climate change related issues cannot be considered in isolation, divorced from wider questions of state identity and continuity.  Moreover, the practice on the recognition of governments has been hampered by doctrinal incoherence and indeterminacy, especially where there are competing claims to executive power. The difficulties in this area are best exemplified by the ICJ’s contradictory judgments on the identity and continuity of the statehood of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the Bosnia Genocide case and its surprisingly evasive approach to the question of which of the two claimants to governmental power in the Myanmar Genocide case, had the mandate to represent the state in the proceedings before it.

Speaker: Phoebe Okowa is Professor of Public International Law at Queen Mary, University of London and an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. Educated at the University of Nairobi and Wadham College, Oxford, she previously taught at the University of Bristol and has held visiting appointments at the University of Lille and Stockholm.  In 2011 and 2015, she was Global Visiting Professor at New York University, School of Law. A member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, she has appeared as Counsel before the International Court of Justice and lectured on practical questions of international law for the United Nations at its Regional Course on International Law for Africa.  She is on the Public International Law Advisory Panel of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the Committee of Legal Experts of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law.  She has written on a wide range of contemporary international law topics including the interface between state responsibility and individual accountability for international crimes; Africa and the International Criminal Court; Unilateral and collective responses to protection of natural resources in conflict zones and aspects of the protection of the environment. In November 2021, Professor Okowa was elected to the International Law Commission for the term 2023-2027.

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In Trinity Term 2022, the PIL Discussion Group series continues to be held online. RSVP is necessary for each event. A link to the Registration Form will be available on the relevant event page prior to each event. Please complete this form to register your attendance and, prior to the event, you will be sent a Zoom link to join the discussion. Please note that if you complete the form after the deadline of noon on the preceding Wednesday, you may not receive the link to join.

Please note that this event was previously briefly advertised as taking place in a hybrid format, but that will no longer be possible and the event will proceed online only.

The Public International Law Discussion Group at the University of Oxford is a key focal point for PIL@Oxford and hosts regular speaker events. Topics involve contemporary and challenging issues in international law. Speakers include distinguished international law practitioners, academics, and legal advisers from around the world.

PIL Discussion Group Convenor: Natasha Holcroft-Emmess

The Discussion Group's meetings are part of the programme of the British Branch of the International Law Association and are supported by the Law Faculty and Oxford University Press.

The speaker will commence at 12:45pm UK Time and speak for around forty minutes, allowing about twenty-five minutes for questions and discussion. The meeting should conclude by 2pm UK Time.

Practitioners, academics and students from within and outside the University of Oxford are all welcome.