Monthly archive May, 2014

Unilateral withdrawal from treaties with the intent to avoid supervisory mechanisms: is it in keeping with the principle of good faith?

Introduced by Beatrice I. Bonafé and Micaela Frulli After two decades of exponential growth of the judicial oversight of international commitments, recent practice shows several examples of States denouncing or withdrawing from treaties establishing international organizations or providing for institutional supervisory mechanisms with the (more or less clearly declared) intent to preclude the operation of...

Effective control over UN troops and dual attribution of their conduct

Introduced by Francesco Messineo and Paolo Palchetti In 2008, the District Court in The Hague held that the conduct of the Dutch contingent in UNPROFOR (Dutchbat) at the time of the Srebrenica genocide should be attributed to the United Nations only, and not to the Netherlands. In July 2011, the Dutch Court of Appeal reversed...

De la responsabilité internationale de l’ONU et/ou de l’État d’envoi lors d’actions de Forces de Maintien de la Paix: l’écheveau de l’attribution (double?) devant le juge néerlandais

1. Introduction ‘Lorsqu’un organe d’un État est mis à la disposition d’une organisation internationale, cet organe peut être entièrement détaché auprès de cette organisation. Dans ce cas, le comportement de l’organe serait à l’évidence attribuable à l’organisation d’accueil seulement. Il en irait de même lorsqu’un organe ou un agent d’une organisation internationale est entièrement détaché...

State organs placed at the disposal of the UN, effective control, wrongful abstention and dual attribution of conduct

1. Introduction Reading the Nuhanovic decisions of the Dutch courts, one cannot fail to be struck by the terrible human tragedy that resulted from the decision of Major Franken, deputy commander of Dutchbat, not to include Hasan Nuhanovic’s brother Muhamed (and their mother Nasiha) on the list of the Bosnian civilians allowed to stay in...

Good faith, withdrawal, and the judicialization of international politics

1. Introduction At the end of the twentieth century it appeared that we stood on the threshold of a new era in the legalization of international relations, one characterized by the exponentially increasing judicialization of dispute resolution.[1] States widely accepted the jurisdiction of international tribunals of various kinds to oversee their compliance with substantive legal...

Good faith and withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty

1. Good faith and nuclear arms control The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) provides that ‘[every] treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith’.[1] In other words, the principle of good faith ‘forms an integral part of the rule pacta sunt...

International law and the ‘Crimean conundrum’: legal issues arising from the 2014 Russia/Ukraine crisis

Introduced by Maurizio Arcari and Marco Roscini It is indisputable that the internal political turmoil that broke out in Ukraine’s capital city of Kiev in January 2014 and that very rapidly spread to other parts of Ukraine’s territory – firstly Crimea – opened a sort of Pandora’s box, where some of the most controversial questions...

The Russian annexation of the Crimea: questions relating to the use of force

1. Introduction According to the principle concerning the non-use of force in international relations, as elaborated in the United Nations General Assembly Res 2625 (XXV) (containing the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations), ‘The territory of a State shall...

The non-recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea: three different legal approaches and one unanswered question

1. Introduction Crimea’s referendum for self-determination and Russia’s ensuing annexation completed on 21 March with the signature by President Vladimir Putin of two ad-hoc federal laws (the Federal Constitutional Law On Admitting to the Russian Federation the Republic of Crimea and Establishing within the Russian Federation the New Constituent Entities of the Republic of Crimea...