bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Institution-Building and Human Rights Protection in Kosovo in the Light of UNMIK Legislation
Authors:   Brand
Published: November 2003

AbstractBy analyzing specific legislative and institutional aspects of UNMIK's administration of Kosovo, this article attempts to highlight the discrepancy between the nature of an international security presence and civilian administration (under Security Council peacekeeping mandate), and effective human rights remedies, as well as principles of democratic governance such as accountability, lawfulness and constitutionality. The `constitutional' aspects of the current system of governance in Kosovo are described and difficulties of creating an international administration, which seeks to gain a certain level of acceptance by the subjected population, are pointed out. The article explains how UNMIK went about establishing a Joint Interim Administrative Structure while dismantling parallel, illegitimate power structures. It further addresses the Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Governance and evaluates briefly its human rights-related aspects. Legislative issues and questions concerning the rule of law are discussed in another section, which deals with UNMIK's formal commitments to adhere to the highest level of internationally recognized human rights standards. Several important Regulations issued by the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) are analyzed. Consequently, the most significant structures and mechanisms for the protection, promotion and monitoring of human rights are shortly presented and put in context. The article raises several crucial questions concerning the access to effective remedy and the effectiveness of human rights institutions in an environment of legal uncertainty, the absence of the rule of law and the supremacy of international authority, which is beyond the reach of judicial control or review. It concludes that if effective human rights protection shall be the outcome of structures dedicated to human rights, these structures have to be constructed to offer real remedies, proper judicial procedures and legal clarity. The present nature of international peace missions (military and civilian) is not compatible with the requirements of a law-based administration according to the Rechtsstaat-model, which is arguably a prerequisite for effective human rights protection.
The Horizon of Becoming: Culture, Gender and History after September 11
Authors:   Wright
Published: November 2003

AbstractFeminist analyses of international law can be seen as part of the wider effort to broaden international law beyond its current foundations and assumptions. International lawyers can usefully work with feminist, post-colonial, indigenous, critical and postmodern perspectives in contextualizing the universalist claims of international law in order to make it both more inclusive and more sophisticated. International law might be positively transformed if it were to take the critical approaches of feminist and other scholars seriously. This article is an attempt to problematize the concepts of time and history as they relate to an understanding of international law from the perspective of the feminist, the post-colonial and the indigenous. How we analyze international law in an historical context strongly determines how relevant international law is to women and other marginalized voices. Attempting to understand the history of international law is essential to understanding how it works (or does not work) and how it is changing. But our understandings of history are themselves deeply flawed as analytical tools. The voices of the silenced are usually described as not being heard because of imbalances in economic and political power. On a deeper level they also may not be heard because the very nature of historical and legal discourse in the international arena makes their voices unintelligible within the `malestream' of time and history. We expect history to give us a sense of the truth of our shared past. But because historical records are dominated by the representation of the most powerful, the `truth' of those who are excluded from power may not seem genuine. More commonly, it is ignored. What we think of as a reality that we have shared may not in fact have been shared in the same way by `others' – even when `we' ourselves are part of that `other'. International law as we now know it was created as an offshoot of the development of the modern nation-state based on secular ideals of rationality and order. Women's history often tries to recapture the detail of all those `people without history' who have worked, fought, mothered and struggled `behind the scenes' of the Great Events depicted in wars and political battles that are so central to our usual shared vision. International law prioritizes precisely this dominant vision – the use of force, sovereignty, the state, the political, the military, the economic and the diplomatic. What does September 11 mean for women, for the poor, for indigenous peoples? This article does not discount the importance of recent world events – only that we might see them through different eyes from which we might gain new insights.
Women's Burden: Counter-Geographies of Globalization and the Feminization of Survival
Authors:   Sassen
Published: November 2003

AbstractThe global migration and trafficking of women is anchored in particular features of the current globalization of economies in both the north and the south. Making this legible requires that we look at globalization in ways that are different from the mainstream view, confined to emphasizing the hypermobility of capital and to the ascendance of information economies. The growing inmiseration of governments and whole economies in the global south has promoted and enabled the proliferation of survival and profit-making activities that involve the migration and trafficking of women. To some extent these are older processes, which used to be national or regional that can today operate at global scales. The same infrastructure that facilitates cross-border flows of capital, information and trade is also making possible a whole range of cross-border flows not intended by the framers and designers of the current globalization of economies. Growing numbers of traffickers and smugglers are making money off the backs of women and many governments are increasingly dependent on their remittances. A key aspect here is that through their work and remittances, women enhance the government revenue of deeply indebted countries and offer new profit making possibilities to `entrepreneurs' who have seen other opportunities vanish as a consequence of global firms and markets entering their countries or to long time criminals who can now operate their illegal trade globally. These survival circuits are often complex, involving multiple locations and sets of actors constituting increasingly global chains of traders and `workers'. A central point of the article is that it is through these supposedly rather value-less economic actors – low-wage and poor women – that key components of these new economies have been built. Globalization plays a specific role here in a double sense, contributing to the formation of links between sending and receiving countries, and, secondly, enabling local and regional practices to become global in scale.
The Role of Treaties in the Contemporary International Legal Order
Authors: Elias  , Lim  
Published: November 2003

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to examine the role played by treaties in a diverse and diversifying international society. Through the course of the century, it has been suggested that treaties are the best means of law-making in the present world. It is argued here that while there are some advantages to treaty law-making, it does not seem that treaties are able to meet the demands sought to be placed upon them by those who believe in increased codification.
The Formative Years of the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal
Authors: Lagergren  
Published: November 2003

AbstractAfter the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979 and the taking of 52 American citizens as hostages, and after President Carter in retaliation froze Iranian assets in the United States banks, at home and overseas, valued at some 12 billion dollars, the grave crisis was not finally settled until 19 January 1981, after 444 days. The hostages were released and arrangements were made for the free transfer of the frozen Iranian assets. The settlement also provided for the establishment of an Arbitral Tribunal at the Hague for the solution of a wide range of specified claims. An ``insider'' tries in this article to describe the complex and burdensome building up and organisation of the largest and most important international arbitration to date.
The International Court of Justice and Nuclear Weapons
Authors: Mahmoudi  
Published: November 2003

AbstractThe request of the UN General Assembly for an advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons put the International Court of Justice in a difficult situation. The difference of the views of judges on the issue and the knowledge that any outright pronouncement on the legality or illegality would disappoint an important section of the Court's clients led to a poorly drafted opinion. The purpose of this article is to briefly comment on the Court's findings. The author believes that the Court has adopted a positivist approach by putting all its efforts into searching for a specific customary or conventional rule prohibiting or permitting use of nuclear weapons. Had it instead focused on the applicability of general principles of law, it would probably have reached a conclusion more consonant with common sense and natural law, namely the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.
Conceptualising the Relationship between Jus Cogens and Erga Omnes Rules
Authors: Byers  
Published: November 2003

AbstractFew concepts in international law have attracted as much attention or created as much controversy as jus cogens and erga omnes rules. This article attempts to show that jus cogens rules are rules of customary international law, and then to elucidate the relationship between these customary rules and the concept of erga omnes. This article explains that: in contrast to jus cogens rules, erga omnes rules may arise either as customary rules or through treaties; a jus cogens or erga omnes rule could apply to only a limited number of States; although jus cogens rules are necessarily erga omnes rules, erga omnes rules could exist which were not of a jus cogens character.
By All Means, Intervene! (The Security Council and the Use of Force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in Iraq (to protect the Kurds), in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti)
Authors: Österdahl  
Published: November 2003

AbstractIn recent years the UN Security Council has on numerous occasions handled situations involving gross human rights violations. In order to be able to take the action considered necessary the Security Council has applied the notion of ``threat to the peace'' in Article 39 of the UN Charter to situations which do not necessarily constitute such threats. This article examines the cases of use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in Iraq (to protect the Kurds), Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti. Drawing upon these experiences, the author argues that a reconstruction of the notion of ``threat to the peace'' is needed. It is suggested that gross violations of human rights should be considered as threatening peace by definition and that in particularly serious situations the Security Council is justified in taking action under Chapter VII even if a threat to international peace cannot be determined.
Pandora's Box: Reviewing the Composition of the UN Security Council in the Light of British and French Experience 1945–1963
Authors: Sihvo  
Published: November 2003

AbstractThis article aims to throw a light on the problems relating to the proposed enlargement of the composition of the UN Security Council at present by studying the creation of four non-permanent seats in the Security Council in 1963 from the British and the French perspectives. The examination is based on the author's research of original documents in the archives of the British and French foreign ministries and upon information provided to the author by British, French and Finnish diplomats. The author concludes that, as between 1946 and 1963, British and French short term interests are still best served by maintaining the status quo in the Security Council. However, in a long term perspective it is not clear where the interests of these two States lie.
The Democratic Legitimacy of Refugee Law
Authors: Noll  
Published: November 2003

AbstractHaving left their home country, 18 million refugees and other protection seekers cannot exert their rights to democratic participation. As a consequence, they are deprived of all influence on a legal instrument of existential importance for them, namely the grant of asylum. Can the exclusion of refugees from the framing of aliens legislation be justified?The analysis carried out in this text proceeds in three steps: First, an empirical exploration of international law reveals a tendency towards the emergence of universal implementation of the ideal of democracy. However, this tendency is clearly limited by the concept of citizenship as the crucial link between actor and political structure. The following inquiry into the conceptual roots of democracy and sovereignty identifies the theoretical foundation for the tendency towards universal implementation. Simultaneously, it emerges that insistence on a particularistic sovereignty concept solely professing national interest is logically incompatible with the rationale behind democratic statehood: to realise individual autonomy. Shifting perspective in the last approach, the possibility of a nexus between exclusionary norm creation and disrespect for refugee and immigration law is established by means of contemporary legitimacy theory.
The Future of the Nordic Environment Protection Convention
Authors: Koivurova  
Published: November 2003

AbstractThe Nordic Environmental Protection Convention (NEPC) has been in force over 20 years. At present, however, its future depends very much on the coming into force of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention).It is the purpose of this article to analyze the consequences of the coming into force of the Espoo Convention to the applicability of the NEPC. Of importance is to understand how much overlap exists between these two conventions, and review which rules govern this overlap. Although some norms of the NEPC will be replaced by the Espoo Convention, the practical influence of the NEPC to the management of transboundary pollution problems may actually increase. Also, as some already concretized cases show, the Espoo Convention provides a much more efficient way of handling the potential environmental conflicts between states.
Duties to Implement Reproductive Rights
Authors: Fathalla  , Cook  
Published: November 2003

AbstractThis abstract explores the nature of states' duties to respect, protect and fulfill reproductive rights. It outlines the means to hold states accountable at the international level to implement reproductive rights. It analyzes how events-based and standard-based data can be used to show whether states are in compliance with or in violation of their obligations to implement reproductive rights and to determine the effectiveness of remedies. It concludes with a call for greater collaboration among reproductive health professionals and human rights activists to ensure greater protection and promotion of reproductive rights.
Completing the ``International Criminal Order''
Authors: Tallgren  
Published: November 2003

AbstractRecent efforts in the United Nations to establish a comprehensive system of international criminal repression by creating a permanent international criminal court are by no means free from doubts regarding the possibility ever to enforce such law. The preamble of the draft statute prepared by the International Law Commission states the basis on which the court is to assert jurisdiction in an ambitious manner: it is the ``International Community'', joining against ``the most serious crimes of international concern''. The project cannot, however, ignore decades of realist criticism against the assumption of the existence of an international community that is ready to accept an international criminal jurisdiction. In the negotiations, this contradiction is dealt with by a technique provided with an ambiguous name: ``complementarity'', i.e. the coordination of the tasks of the international and domestic jurisdiction. The writer discusses the various ideas and proposals presented under the heading of ``complementarity'' in order to examine the tension between communitarian and sovereignty-based strands in the international project to create an effective criminal jurisdiction.
Genocide in Rwanda: Lessons Learned and Future Challenges to the UN Human Rights System
Authors: Nygren Krug  
Published: November 2003

AbstractIn light of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the new challenges of our time, beginning with the end of the Cold War, the recent spread of democracy, and explosion of ethnic and religious turmoil around the world, we need to reexamine critically the complex web of UN human rights machinery. This paper does so by using the 1994 genocide in Rwanda as a case study. It contrasts the violent reality of the genocide with how the UN human rights system reacted. This analysis reveals that many early warning signals emanate from the UN human rights system but that they often go unheard due to the lack of any formal procedures and mechanisms for early warning and for rapid responses. This paper therefore argues for the need to develop and adopt a coherent system for early warning and, finally, seeks to identify some creative ways to strengthen the role of the various human rights bodies in reacting to massive scale human rights violations.
Generation of the Maritime Limit – A Potential Example of Transfer of Technology
Authors: Thamsborg  
Published: November 2003

AbstractAs provided in the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 1, the Area means the sea-bed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. In practical terms this implies that the bounds of the Area coincide with the 200 nautical mile line of the coastal States in toto by far the greater part of the oceans and seas. Therefore, the exact and consistent determination of the continuous boundary line is of major interest both in a national and an international perspective. By way of introduction the present paper discusses the characteristics and application of the maritime limit in general. Having regard to the merging of national and international interests in the determination of the 200 nautical mile line in particular, the reader's attention is subsequently drawn to the provisions of the Convention on ``Transfer of Technology'' (Article 144) which seem to apply perfectly to the present case. An account on the overall administrative aspects of such cooperation concludes the paper.
An Analysis of Some of the Principal Legal Questions Relating to U.N. Weapons Inspections in Iraq
Authors: Zedalis  
Published: November 2003

AbstractThe multi-year U.N. weapons inspection program in Iraq has encountered numerous difficulties. Its basic objectives have been to ascertain the extent of Iraq's atomic, biological, and chemical weapons, and ballistic missile systems, and then to undertake efforts designed to eliminate such and complicate that nation's ability to reconstruct that arsenal. A wide variety of legal issues surround the operation of the inspection program. Some of these arise from the seminal U.N. resolutions on the subject, and associated operational documents drafted by the Secretary-General, while others arise from the February 23, 1998, Memorandum of Understanding between Secretary Kofi Annan and the Iraqi government. In this article, six of the principal legal issues are subjected to analysis. It is suggested that ambiguity affects some, but not all of the issues. Nevertheless, the ambiguity that is extant, though presenting the potential for complex and unsettling difficulties, has permitted the development of an inspection regime unprecedented in international law.
Postglacial Land Uplift and the Autonomous Åland Islands as a Demilitarized Zone
Authors: Ekman  
Published: November 2003

AbstractThe impact of postglacial land uplift on the geographical extent of the demilitarized zone of the autonomous Åland Islands is discussed. Ambiguities and inconsistencies in the Åland Convention, on the order of nautical miles, are revealed; they are due not only to the land uplift itself, but also to unclear definitions of coordinates. Further complications are caused by disagreements between the autonomy boundary and the demilitarization boundary. Suggestions for solving the problems are given, including minor amendments and clarifications of the Åland Convention, and also a minor amendment of the Autonomy Constitution of Åland.
The Dolly-Dollar Dichotomy: Animal Cloning Restrictions and the Competitiveness of the European Biotech Industry
Authors: Rosén  
Published: November 2003

AbstractObjective: Review of animal cloning legislation (legal restrictions) and its potential impact on the competitiveness of the European biotech industry.Material and methods: Review and comparison of enacted and pending international legislation on animal cloning techniques (US and EU), analyzing materials obtained by database searches and direct contact with EU and US officials. Market prices on therapeutic hormones were provided by Apoteksbolaget, Sweden. The estimations for the production capacity of transgenic animals are based on information from Genzyme USA, and include results obtained from a review of international articles on animal cloning.Results: Recent scientific and technological progress in modern cloning techniques holds promise to be able to produce an increased amount of cheaper human therapeutics (growth hormone, factor IX, etc.) in the near future. Animal cloning restrictions, as recently introduced in Holland, could thus, if spread to other EU Member States, have a stigmatizing effect upon these developments. This, of course, would have serious implications for the competitiveness of the European biotech industry, reducing the expected employment potential in this field. The European situation can be usefully compared with the developments in the US, where no animal cloning restriction is foreseen in the currently debated US cloning legislation, which refers exclusively to human cloning restrictions. A relocation of the European biotech industry to the US has already been reported on, a process that would, if continued, subsequently diminish the European potential for influencing future developments in the area.