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The voting for the new members of the ICJ took place on 10 November, at the UN headquarters in New York. Candidates need to obtain an absolute majority both at the General Assembly and at the Security Council (ICJ Statute, Article 10). Judges Hisashi Owada (Japan), Peter Tomka (Slovakia) and Xue Hanqin (China) were re-elected [...]
Filed under: ICJ, International Court of Justice, Public International Law, United Nations | 1 Comment »
On 2 November 2011, the ICC Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, reported to the UN Security Council on the situation in Libya. This is an important report because it shows the steps taken so far by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP or Office) to investigate the crimes committed in Libya, the interaction with Libyan authorities and [...]
Filed under: ICC, International and national law, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, Public International Law, United Nations | Leave a Comment »
In the build-up to the Rio+20 Summit next year, the UNEP has just published its ‘Keeping Track of our Changing Environment’ report. The report tracks global environmental trends and developments since the 1992 Rio Summit. The report highlights a number of disheartening (but hardly surprising) developments such as the increase in global CO2 emission from [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, United Nations | Leave a Comment »
Palestine became the 195th full member of UNESCO today, 31 October 2011. The vote of UNESCO’s full membership was 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions. More details on this milestone event for Palestine can be found on UNESCO’s website here and in a newspaper article here. For a video of the statement of the UNESCO [...]
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The UN marked today the global population reaching seven billion (see here). The global population is expected to grow to nine billion by 2050 and to 15 billion by 2100. This milestone event was accompanied with a call to action by top UN officials addressed to world leaders to meet the challenges that a growing [...]
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In their recent article in the New York Times, entitled “Ten Reasons for a European ‘Yes’”, Martti Ahtisaari (former president of Finland and U.N. mediator, and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate) and Javier Solana (distinguished senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, former secretary general of NATO and EU high representative for common foreign [...]
Filed under: Public International Law, United Nations | 3 Comments »
Background of the case and history of the legal proceedings In its application of 23 December 2008 Germany brought a complaint before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), claiming that in recent years, Italian judicial bodies repeatedly disregarded its jurisdictional immunity as a sovereign State. According to Germany, the critical stage of that development was [...]
Filed under: ICJ, Human Rights, Public International Law, United Nations, International Humanitarian Law, Responsibility to protect, Law of Treaties, International Court of Justice | 2 Comments »
On the 17 of June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. It is the first time the UN has adopted a resolution on LGBT issues. The Human Rights Council asked the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, United Nations | 1 Comment »
The Palestinian government plans to issue a declaration of independence in September 2011 as its latest strategy to bring about further recognition and UN membership. In an Op-Ed in the New York Times, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said “this September, at the United Nations General Assembly, we will request international recognition of the State of [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, ICC, International and national law, International Court of Justice, Middle East Crisis, Public International Law, States, United Nations | 1 Comment »
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the human rights body monitoring the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), has stated in a report of 20 May 2011 that Turkey violates several human rights enshrined in the ICESCR with the constructions of dams and hydroelectric power plants. The Committee made particular [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, Minority Rights, United Nations | 1 Comment »
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold public hearings on Monday 30 and Tuesday 31 May 2011 in the case concerning the Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 15 June 1962 in the Case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) (Cambodia v. Thailand). These hearings concern the request for the [...]
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On 28 April 2011 Cambodia requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) for an interpretation of its Judgment rendered on 15 June 1962 in the border dispute case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) after tensions with Thailand flared up again along that part of the border. Seemingly, we are [...]
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In its judgment delivered today the ICJ found that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the Application filed by Georgia on 12 August 2008. From the issuing by the Court on 15 October 2008 of its Order indicating provisional measures I had a feeling that the case would not go further than the preliminary objections [...]
Filed under: Caucasus Crises, Human Rights, ICJ, International Court of Justice, Public International Law, United Nations | 2 Comments »
That is an open-ended question which I got recently. Well, given the grave situation in Libya with its many facets, such a question calls for a somewhat long response; even if time as a variable remains relative. And speaking about time, before getting to the question itself, the response of the international community to the [...]
Filed under: Africa, African Union, International Humanitarian Law, Public International Law, Responsibility to protect, United Nations | 1 Comment »
Following the questions raised about the discharge of the responsibility to protect by Gentian Zyberi in his recent post on the situation in Libya, and the remarks I previously made on the situation in Egypt and the responsibility of the international community, I would like to draw our readers’ attention to a revealing and insightful [...]
Filed under: Africa, EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, international justice, Peacekeeping, Public International Law, Responsibility to protect, States, United Nations | 2 Comments »
On 28 February the EU imposed sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, implementing resolution 1970 (2011) adopted by the UN’s Security Council on 26 February and imposing additional EU measures. The sanctions include an embargo on arms, ammunition and equipment that could be used for the repression of protesters; an assets freeze; and a visa ban [...]
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Deploring what it called ‘the gross and systematic violation of human rights’ in strife-torn Libya, on 26 February the Security Council adopted Resolution 1970 (2011), where it demanded an end to the violence and decided to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court while imposing an arms embargo on the country and a travel [...]
Filed under: Africa, Human Rights, ICC, United Nations | 1 Comment »
After over 11 days of popular protests by an outstandingly united front amongst the Egyptian people and a climate of intensifying violence and insecurity, a recent article on Al-Jazeera news channel discusses the reasons for which the UN has yet to get involved in any meaningful way in the situation in Egypt, not even by [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, Middle East Crisis, Public International Law, Responsibility to protect, United Nations | 1 Comment »
A number of authors on this blog have followed the progress of the human rights and business agenda at the United Nations over the past few years (e.g. here and here). The work of the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights is coming to a culmination as his mandate expires in 2011. With this in [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, human rights and business, Public International Law, United Nations | Leave a Comment »
In mid July 20210, Israel underwent its third periodic review by the Human Rights Committee as a State party to the ICCPR. As in previous reviews, one of the main issues that came up in Israel’s reporting to the Human Rights Committee is the fact that Israel continues to refuse the application of the Covenant in [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, International and national law, international justice, Middle East Crisis, Public International Law, United Nations | Leave a Comment »
