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Draft Art. 15 CCAH attempts to strike a balance between State autonomy and robust judicial supervision. It largely follows Article 22 CERD conditioning the jurisdiction of the ICJ on prior negotiations. Hence, the substance of the clause is interpreted in light of the Court’s recent case law, especially Georgia v. Russia. Besides, several issues regarding the scope ratione temporis of the compromissory clause are discussed. The article advances several proposals to further improve the current draft, addressing the missing explicit reference to State responsibility, as well as the relationship between the Court and a possible treaty body, It also proposes to recalibrate the interplay of a requirement of prior negotiations respectively the seizing of a future treaty body on the one hand and provisional measures to be indicated by the Court on the other.
In its Burmych and Others v. Ukraine judgment of October 2017 the European Court of Human Rights has dismissed more than 12.000 applications due to the fact that given that they were not only repetitive in nature, but also mutatis mutandis identical to applications covered by a previous pilot judgment rendered against Ukraine. This raises fundamental issues as to the role of the Court within the human rights protection system established by the ECHR, as well as those concerning the interrelationship between the Court and the Committee of Ministers.
German international legal scholarship has been known for its practice-oriented, doctrinal approach to international law. On the basis of archival material, this article tracks how this methodological take on international law developed in Germany between the 1920s and the 1980s. In 1924, as a reaction to the establishment of judicial institutions in the Treaty of Versailles, the German Reich founded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. Director Viktor Bruns institutionalized the practice-oriented method to advance the idea of international law as a legal order as well as to safeguard the interests of the Weimar government before the various courts. Under National Socialism, members of the Institute provided legal justifications for Hitler’s increasingly radical foreign policy. At the same time, some of them did not engage with völkisch-racist theories, but systematized the existing ius in bello. After 1945, Hermann Mosler, as director of the renamed Max Planck Institute, took the view that the practice-oriented approach was not as discredited as the more theoretical approach of völkisch international law. Furthermore, he regarded the method as a promising vehicle to support the policy of Westintegration of Konrad Adenauer. Also, he tried to promote the idea of ‘international society as a legal community’ by analysing international practice.
This paper narrates the changes in the Indian policy towards foreign investment and analyses them in the backdrop of overall changes in the field of international law and particularly within the framework of the international rule of law. The policy changes that have taken place in India can be categorised into three periods. The first period commences after independence from colonial rule. This period is intriguing. At the international level, India insisted on national treatment for foreign investment and supported the New International Economic Order. Domestically, however, nationalisation was not pursued, and even when pursued, was not applied to foreign investors. This period continued until the 1990s when India faced serious economic problems and this coincided with the high point of the Washington consensus, often seen as the rise of the international rule of law. During this time, national treatment was abandoned and innumerable investment treaties granting liberal protection were entered into. This process ended abruptly after India lost the first investment case. This turn of events comments the third period, where efforts were made towards balancing between investor protection and conserving regulatory freedom. Although this period may appear to be a decline of the international rule of law, a nuanced approach shows that it is rather a rise. India has not withdrawn from the system of investor protection, as has been done by some other States. This period is characterised by extensive and detailed treaties to replace the prior sketchy treaty provisions. This is a move towards a more rule based investment protection.
Berlin – New York
(2018)
Beginning in January 2019, the new German government will face a particular new responsibility for world affairs: provided the elections in June 2018 lead to the desired result, Germany will be an elected member of the UN Security Council for two years from January 2019 until December 2020. However, Germany has been a respected and highly relevant member of the United Nations not only during its terms on the Security Council but also in “normal” times. The present article attempts to shed light on a few aspects of Germany’s role in the UN during Merkel’s chancellorship with an emphasis on her third term (2014-2017), such as the cooperative relationship between Germany and the UN Secretary-General in important policy fields, Germany’s financial contributions to the UN, the impact of Germany’s EU membership on its UN membership and the country’s efforts with regard to the reform of the Security Council. The paper further provides context for Germany’s abstention in the vote on Security Council Resolution 1973 on Libya in 2011. It concludes by ascertaining that Germany with its approach of active multilateralism has taken its place as one of the leading nations in Europe and is ready to take on responsibility with its partners to achieve a peaceful and stable world order.
Over the last few decades, the methodology for the identification of customary international law (CIL) has been changing. Both elements of CIL – practice and opinio juris – have assumed novel and broader forms, as noted in the Reports of the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). This paper discusses these Reports and the draft conclusions, and reaction by States in the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), highlighting the areas of consensus and contestation. This ties to the analysis of the main doctrinal positions, with special attention being given to the two elements of CIL, and the role of the UNGA resolutions. The underlying motivation is to assess the real or perceived crisis of CIL, and the author develops the broader argument maintaining that in order to retain unity within international law, the internal limits of CIL must be carefully asserted.
The paper looks at community interests in international law from the perspective of the International Law Commission. As the topics of the Commission are diverse, the outcome of its work is often seen as providing a sense of direction regarding general aspects of international law. After defining what he understands by “community interests”, the author looks at both secondary and primary rules of international law, as they have been articulated by the Commission, as well as their relevance for the recognition and implementation of community interests. The picture which emerges only partly fits the widespread narrative of “from self-interest to community interest”. Whereas the Commission has recognized, or developed, certain primary rules which more fully articulate community interests, it has been reluctant to reformulate secondary rules of international law, with the exception of jus cogens. The Commission has more recently rather insisted that the traditional State-consent-oriented secondary rules concerning the formation of customary international law and regarding the interpretation of treaties continue to be valid in the face of other actors and forms of action which push towards the recognition of more and thicker community interests.
The rule of law is the cornerstone of the international legal system. This paper shows, through analysis of intergovernmental instruments, statements made by representatives of States, and negotiation records, that the rule of law at the United Nations has become increasingly contested in the past years. More precisely, the argument builds on the process of integrating the notion of the rule of law into the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in September 2015 in the document Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The main sections set out the background of the rule of law debate at the UN, the elements of the rule of law at the goal- and target-levels in the 2030 Agenda – especially in the SDG 16 –, and evaluate whether the rule of law in this context may be viewed as a normative and universal foundation of international law. The paper concludes, with reflections drawn from the process leading up to the 2030 Agenda and the final outcome document that the rule of law – or at least strong and precise formulations of the concept – may be in decline in institutional and normative settings. This can be perceived as symptomatic of a broader crisis of the international legal order.
The right to privacy in the digital age generates new challenges for the international jurisdiction. The following article deals with such challenges. Therefore it firstly defines the term of privacy in general and presents an international legal framework. With whisteblower Snowden a huge political discourse was initiated and the article gives insights into its further development. In 2015 the Human Rights Council for the first time announced a special rapporteur on the right to privacy. However, the discourse is not only taking place on a political level, also civil society organizations advocate more stringent regulations and prosecutions against violations of the right to privacy. Moreover the importance of the technology sector becomes clear. Companies like Microsoft are increasingly taking responsibility to protect digital media against unjustified data misuse, surveillance, collection and storage. But whereas the IT sector is developing very quickly, legislative processes do so rather slowly. Lastly, the individual is also hold to account. To protect oneself against data misuse is to a great extent acting self-responsible. Still, therefore information on protection must be clear and accessible for everyone.
This paper will turn into a contribution to a book on community obligations. It focusses on third parties' rights and obligations in armed conflict.
It is often said that international law has developed from a legal order which is designed to protect sovereignty to a system which also promotes community interests. This shift is said to be reflected in structural changes of the legal system. The creation of rights and obligations for third parties is generally seen as a part of this perceived paradigmatic shift. Community interests can be furthered either by negative duties of abstention, by an entitlement for third states, or even by duties to take positive measures. Since the shift towards protecting community interests apparently requires some form of cooperation, positive rights and duties to protect and to promote appear to be indispensable. Authors relying on a community perspective often dismiss duties of abstention as an expression of indifference in the face of a violation of a fundamental norm. Solidarity seems to require that third states take a more proactive role in actively enforcing community interests.
The paper aims to test this understanding on the basis of an analysis of rights and obligations of third states in armed conflict. In order to argue that duties of abstention of third states are a central instrument for promoting community interests in relation to armed conflicts, the paper will first trace pertinent structural changes in international law. In particular, it will question the extent to which positive rights and obligations of third states have been firmly established in international law. In a second step, this contribution will evaluate the overall tendencies in the ongoing lawmaking process for promoting community interests in relation to armed conflict.
The paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of current developments of international law for the purpose of mapping the ground for a larger research project. The research project pursues the goal of determining whether public international law, as it has developed since the end of the Cold War, is continuing its progressive move towards a more human-rights- and multi-actor-oriented order, or whether we are seeing a renewed emphasis of more classical elements of international law. In this context the term “international rule of law” is chosen to designate the more recent and “thicker” understanding of international law. The paper discusses how it can be determined whether this form of international law continues to unfold, and whether we are witnessing challenges to this order which could give rise to more fundamental reassessments.
This article re-examines the relationship between Africa and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It traces the successive changes of the African attitude towards this Court, from states' euphoria, to hostility against its work, to regional counter-initiatives through the umbrella of the African Union (AU). The main argument goes beyond the idea of "the Court that Africa wants" in order to identify concrete reasons behind such a formal argument which may have fostered, if not enticed, the majority of African states to become ICC members and actively cooperate with it, when paradoxically some great powers have decided to stay outside its jurisdiction. It also seeks to understand, from a political and legal viewpoint, which parameters have changed since then to provoke that hostile attitude against the Court's work and the entrance of the AU into the debate through the African Common Position on the ICC. Lastly, this article explores African alternatives to the contested ICC justice system. It examines the need to reform the Rome Statute in order to give more independence, credibility and legitimacy to the ICC and its duplication to some extent by the new "Criminal Court of the African Union". Particular attention is paid to the resistance against this idea to reform the ICC justice system.
Caribbean States organised in CARICOM recently brought forward reparation claims against several European States to compensate slavery and (native) genocides in the Caribbean and even threatened to approach the International Court of Justice. The paper provides for an analysis of the facts behind the CARICOM claim and asks whether the law of state responsibility is able to provide for the demanded compensation. As the intertemporal principle generally prohibits retroactive application of today’s international rules, the paper argues that the complete claim must be based on the law of state responsibility governing in the time of the respective conduct. An inquiry into the history of primary (prohibition of slavery and genocide) as well as secondary rules of State responsibility reveals that both sets of rules were underdeveloped or non-existent at the times of slavery and alleged (native) genocides. Therefore, the author concludes that the CARICOM claim is legally flawed but nevertheless worth the attention as it once again exposes imperial and colonial injustices of the past and their legitimization by historical international law and international/natural lawyers.
This paper develops a spatial model to analyze the stability of a market sharing agreement between two firms. We find that the stability of the cartel depends on the relative market size of each firm. Collusion is not attractive for firms with a small home market, but the incentive for collusion increases when the firm’s home market is getting larger relative to the home market of the competitor. The highest stability of a cartel and additionally the highest social welfare is found when regions are symmetric. Further we can show that a monetary transfer can stabilize the market sharing agreement.
Irrwege der Klimapolitik
(2012)
Inhalt I. Einleitung II. Es gibt kein Normalklima III. Folgen des Klimawandel IV. Folgen der Klimapolitik V. Schlußfolgerungen
This paper develops the incentives to collude in a model with spatially separated markets and quantity setting firms. We find that increases in transportation costs stabilize the collusive agreement. We also show that, the higher the demand in both markets the less likely will collusion be sustained. Gross and Holahan (2003) use a similar model with price setting firms, we compare their results with ours to analyze the impact of the mode of competition on sustainability of collusion. Further we analyze the impact of collusion on social welfare and find that collusion may be welfare enhancing.
Looking at smoking-behavior it can be shown that there are differences concerning the time-preference-rate. Therefore this has an effect on the optimal schooling decision in the way that we appear a lower average human capital level for smokers. According to a higher time-preference-rate additionally we suppose a higher return to education for smokers who go further on education. With our empirical findings we can confirm the presumptions. We use interactions-terms to regress the average rate of return with IV. Therefore we obtain that smokers have a significantly higher average return to education than non-smokers.
In the first part of the report of the GTZ expert group an overview on the basics of integration and tax harmonisation within a common market is given. Chapter II. concentrates on the problems of national and international tax law regarding double taxation before the harmonisation process within the EU is described in detail. This process is not a best practice example but at least the experiences made in the course of the last five decades are interesting enough and might contribute important information for regions, which more or less recently have started a similar endeavour. The harmonisation needs are discussed for value added taxation (VAT), excise taxation, and income taxation. The problems of tax administrations, procedures laws, taxpayers’ rights and obligations as well as tax compliance are also taken into consideration. The second part of the study reviews the national tax systems within the EAC member countries. Before the single taxes are described in more detail, the macroeconomic situation is illuminated by some basic figures and the current stand of the inner-community integration analysed. Then the single tax bases and tax rates are confronted to shed some light on the necessities for the development of a common market within the near future. Again the value added tax laws, excise taxes and income taxes are discussed in detail, while regarding the latter the focus is on company taxation. For a better systematic analysis the national tax laws are confronted within an overview. The chapter is closed with a summary of the tax rates applied and a rough estimation of the tax burdens within the Partner States. The third part of this report contains the policy recommendations of the expert group following the same structures as the chapters before and presenting the results for the VAT, the excises and the corporate income tax (CIT). Additionally the requirements for tax procedures and administration as well as problems of transparency and information exchange are discussed in detail before the strategic recommendations are derived in close relation to the experiences made within the EU harmonisation process. The recommendations are based on the following normative arguments: (1) Tax harmonisation is a basic requirement for economic integration. (2) Equality of taxation is an imperative of tax justice and demands the avoidance of double taxation as well as the combat of tax evasion and corruption. (3) The avoidance of harmful tax competition between the Partner States. (4) The strengthening of taxpayers’ rights in tax procedures. Hence, all kinds of income, goods and services should be taxed once and only once.
In this paper we develop a spatial Cournot trade model with two unequally sized countries, using the geographical interpretation of the Hotelling line. We analyze the trade and welfare effects of international trade between these two countries. The welfare analysis indicates that in this framework the large country benefits from free trade and the small country may be hurt by opening to trade. This finding is contrary to the results of Shachmurove and Spiegel (1995) as well as Tharakan and Thisse (2002), who use related models to analyze size effects in international trade, where the small country usually gains from trade and the large country may lose.