Public International Law Part III

Professor Pablo Kalmanovitz, International Studies Division at CIDE, Mexico City, gives a talk for the Oxford PIL discussion group. The Law of Armed Conflict is usually understood to be a regime of exception that applies only during armed conflict and regulates hostilities among enemies. It assigns privileges to states far beyond what they are allowed to do in peacetime, and it mandates certain pr...

Professor Seline Trevisanut, Utrecht University, gives a talk for the Public International Law discussion group series. On 27 January 2021, the UN Human Rights Committee ascertained the responsibility of Italy for failing to protect the right to life of more than 200 migrants who were on board a vessel that sank in the Mediterranean Sea in 2013. The HR Committee adopted a clear functional approach...

Professor Monica Hakimi, University of Michigan, gives a talk for the PIL discussion series. When we speak of the rule of law, we generally mean to describe the attributes that make law, as an enterprise, worthwhile--the qualities that lead us to aspire to live in a society governed by law. Though international lawyers commonly invoke the concept, we have devoted little attention to explaining wha...

Professor Martin Scheinin, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, gives a talk for the Public International Law series. On 13 November 2020, the European Court of Human Rights communicated to 33 governments an application by a group of young Portuguese persons who claim that conduct by the respondent States in respect of the phenomenon and human rights impact of climate change amounts to violations o...

Professor Nehal Bhuta, University of Edinburgh and Dr Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi, University of Amsterdam, give a talk for the Public International Law seminar series. Philip Alston’s deep worries about the institutionalization of the tactic of targeting killing, the ensuing extension of warfare and its corrosive consequences for any meaningful possibility of scrutinizing the legality of such strikes,...

Carola Lingaas, VID Specialised University, gives a talk for the Public International Law seminar series. Members of racial groups are protected under international law against genocide, persecution, and apartheid. But what is race – and why was this contentious term not discussed when drafting the Statute of the International Criminal Court? Although the law uses this term, is it legitimate to ta...

Luíza Leão Soares Pereira, Lecturer in International Law at the University of Sheffield, and Doctoral Candidate at the University of Cambridge, gives a talk for the Public International Law seminar series. This presentation narrates my experience using obituaries[1] of international lawyers to gain better insights into the international legal profession. My research looks at these unusual sources...

Professor Duncan Hollis, Temple University, gives a talk for the Public International Law seminar series on 21st January 2021. Abstract: On 7 August 2020, the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted its Guidelines on Binding and Non-Binding Agreements. The project found its impetus in the rising number of non-traditional international agreements, inc...

Humanitarian personnel from time to time find themselves transporting desperate civilian residents forced out of besieged areas into long-term or even permanent displacement Humanitarian personnel from time to time find themselves transporting desperate civilian residents forced out of besieged areas into long-term or even permanent displacement, although such removal is absolutely forbidden under...

Public international law’s turn to judicialisation in the last three decades has led to more attention paid to remedies including of monetary character, in inter-State dispute settlement as well as in tribunals open to non-State actors. In the last five years or so, a more discreet phenomenon of successful 1+ billion USD claims has emerged. I will address it under the rubric of ‘mega-awards’, in l...

International law ascribes to the conferral of a jus cogens status on a norm a particular legal significance. Bluntly put, jus cogens norms have legal consequences that norms of ordinary international law do not. International lawyers have a great many different ideas of what these legal consequences are more precisely. As of yet, the reason for this divide has not been fully clarified. This void...

Domestic and international judges speak separately from their courts' institutional voice in myriad ways. Instances of separate judicial speech range from written and oral dissents, to posing questions from the bench, to an array of extrajudicial activities, such as media appearances and penning memoirs. In domestic systems such as the United States, despite long-standing concerns that individual...

From the instant that a State receives an early warning that mass atrocities are likely to occur, what, precisely, is it required to do in response? There is wide agreement that a duty to prevent atrocity crimes exists as a matter of both treaty and customary international law, but little agreement as to the specific content of the obligation. This need has become particularly acute as States hesi...

The concept of maritime security and its interplay with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. This talk will focus on the meaning of maritime security in the literature and state practice and explore its relationship with LOSC. It will argue that maritime security is not simply a concept that needs defining but a blend of...

The United Nations is currently undertaking negotiations with a view to concluding an international legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (the BBNJ Treaty). The BBNJ Treaty will be an implementing agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although three of four planned negotiating...

Dire Tladi is a Professor of international law at the University of Pretoria and an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. He is a member of the UN International Law Commission and its Special Rapporteur on Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens). He is also a member of the Institut de Droit International. He is formerly Principal State Law Adviser for Intern...

What have been the key themes in the legal evolution of the UN climate regime? How were these themes addressed In the recently adopted Paris Rulebook? And what are the principal legal issues going forward? The talk will review the legal evolution of the international climate change regime, and preview the upcoming conference of the parties (COP25) in Santiago in December. Daniel Bodansky is Regent...

If a state withdraws from a treaty in a manner that violates its own domestic law, will this withdrawal take effect in international law? The decisions to join and withdraw from treaties are both aspects of the state’s treaty-making capacity. However, while international law provides a role for domestic legal requirements in the international validity of a state’s consent when joining a treaty, it...

Despite three decades of legal development, existing systems of law fail to provide effective foundations for limiting climate change. The inadequacy of existing systems of law is thrown into relief and compounded by ongoing debates centered around who we are, and how we should relate to one another as national and international citizens. Even as climate law emerges and evolves based on notions of...