Over the last two decades, the international community has increasingly turned its attention towards the phenomenon of human trafficking. While the majority of States have adopted legislation criminalising trafficking, and many also passed legislation aimed at protecting trafficked persons, compliance with international and domestic standards is often questioned. This chapter explores processes before, and decisions by, judicial, quasi-judicial and specialised non-judicial bodies as determinants of anti-trafficking efforts – understood as factors shaping governments’ anti-trafficking efforts and influencing compliance with and implementation of international standards. Deploying a comparative approach and building on the results of a large-scale project exploring the determinants of anti-trafficking efforts globally, this chapter evaluates four case studies (Argentina, Brazil, Cyprus and the United Kingdom). It outlines how judicial, quasi-judicial and specialised non-judicial bodies’ role is perceived by anti-trafficking stakeholders, and how these mechanisms interact with other determinants in influencing anti-trafficking efforts at the domestic level.

This chapter draws upon the normative resources of political community to construct an account of the 'antecedents' of statehood: the factual prerequisites that nascent entities characteristically must demonstrate in order to mount a plausible statehood claim. These antecedents, which will be familiar to doctrinal lawyers from sources such as the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, are: a permanent population, a relatively determinate territory, an 'effective' government, and some degree of governmental independence. In addition to grounding each antecedent within both historical and contemporary practice, this chapter demonstrates their coherence with the ethical value of politics, thereby reconstructing these elements of international law into a normatively coherent whole. Several aspects of this reconstruction will strike readers familiar with state creation as controversial. In particular, I advance a novel conception of governmental 'effectiveness' that turns upon the capacity of nascent states to facilitate ethically valuable political action.

This chapter argues that enforceable decisions by treaty bodies are central to ensuring that international human rights laws are respected domestically. Taking the UK as an example, this chapter compares the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The chapter demonstrates that the ECHR has been used increasingly by the UK’s courts to protect individuals’ rights, and that the courts have often engaged directly with European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decisions. By contrast, although the courts sometimes make limited use of the ICCPR, their approach and its outcome are inconsistent. A similar pattern is observed when the UK’s compliance with both instruments is assessed. Although this may stem from a range of factors, the importance of binding judgments of the ECtHR should not be underestimated: they allow domestic courts to engage directly with a treaty body, and also create a pressure to act. Looking beyond the UK, the chapter concludes that enforceable decisions by treaty bodies have a vital role in ensuring that international human rights laws are respected, and individuals’ rights are protected.

Western imperialism and interests have long shaped the contours of regional politics in Oceania. This study does not attempt to understate these influences, let alone provide an apology for them. But neither does it overstate them, for to do so would be to cast other actors into subsidiary roles. It seeks to illuminate perspectives on all the forces at play throughout the region, especially with respect to the multifaceted politics of identity. It shows not just how complex the issues are but also how difficult it is to reduce these to any one conceptual framework. Accordingly, this study does not attempt to apply any single interpretive model but rather draws insights from many different perspectives to build a more comprehensive overview of Oceania as a region in which cooperation and competition, tensions and contradictions, and challenges and opportunities are all at play at any given time.

Recent developments in international environmental law are increasingly characterized by the concern with ensuring the effectiveness of existing international environmental obligations, as well as by a growing awareness of the need to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach in the management of natural resources. Non-compliance mechanisms are generally assumed to be better than courts for achieving these aims. This chapter assesses this assumption through the analysis of the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros and Bystroe Canal cases. Despite a judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros and the triggering of non-compliance procedures in Bystroe Canal, both cases are still pending or have remained substantially unsettled. In particular, this chapter compares the approaches adopted by the ICJ and the competent monitoring bodies, evaluating their respective contributions to: balancing the parties’ conflicting interests; stimulating meaningful and fruitful co-operation of the parties towards an agreed solution; integrating the interests of the parties concerned with the interests of other States, individuals or group of individuals and the global environment.

Post-colonial struggles in instituting effective democratic governance are implicated in various aspects of identity politics in regional affairs. This raises questions of institutional design and the extent to which local context has been taken into account in each case. Here, the issue of culture looms large. The first two sections of this chapter examine issues concerning democracy, culture and the nature of constitutional development at the time of independence, looking especially at assumptions about the tensions between modern representative democracy and traditional socio-political practices. There follows an account of the Fiji coups between 1987 and 2006 – events that have presented considerable challenges for the Forum in the interface between regional security and domestic crises. The final section addresses issues raised by the intersection of principles of democratic equality and the continuing impact of conservative cultural traditions on women’s participation in politics – a topic that is also much debated at the regional level.

International courts are traditionally seen as ‘guardians’ of the international treaty regimes by which they were established and over which they have jurisdiction.1 However in recent years many international treaties have established ‘in-house’ non-compliance mechanisms (NCMs) or other treaty bodies to facilitate implementation and promote Parties’ compliance with their obligations.

This chapter examines the advisory procedure ascribed to some non-compliance mechanisms of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Given its entirely facilitative nature, this chapter argues that the advisory procedure is an efficient implementation/compliance technique while preventing environmental harm and disputes between States. To that aim, this chapter presents three sections. First, the chapter presents a brief comparative overview of the nature of non-compliance mechanisms across MEAs. Second, it examines the architecture of the UNECE Water Convention’s advisory procedure and studies its practice in the recent Cijevna/Cem River advisory procedure (Montenegro/Albania). Third, it identifies areas of opportunity for adopting a similar advisory procedure to help improve the implementation of other existing and future multilateral agreements, such as the BBNJ Agreement, the Global Treaty on Plastics Pollution or the Pandemic Treaty.

The Introduction establishes the topic of the book - the creation of states in international law - as well as the method adopted when investigating that topic. It argues that doctrinal debates over state creation have become deadlocked as a result of the prevailing method of 'legal positivism' and that this approach, which focuses exclusively upon the factual provenance of putative laws, should be abandoned. Advocating a form of 'rational reconstruction', whereby the normative appeal of putative laws must be assessed alongside their provenance within international legal practice, it connects this method of law identification to the earlier 'Grotian tradition' developed by scholars such as Hersch Lauterpacht. To aid readers who might be unfamiliar with the details of international legal reasoning, an extended summary of the legal framework endorsed by the text is then presented, followed by a brief overview of the structure of the argument to follow.

The Escazú Agreement has brought a myriad of environmental rights and duties to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), including the recognition of a right to a healthy environment and rights of environmental defenders. As a new agreement, the task of implementing the Escazú Agreement still lies ahead. Significantly, a non-judicial, non-punitive, consultative and transparent Committee to support Implementation and Compliance was established as a subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to promote implementation. Concomitantly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised an autonomous right to a healthy environment, establishing it as directly justiciable within the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR). This chapter draws on comparative law to understand the non-compliance and judicial mechanisms available under the IASHR and Escazú, with an especial focus on the right to a healthy environment. Given the broad reach of the regional recognition available in LAC, what are the best mechanisms to use the right to prevent environmental harm? And how does this broad endeavour relate to the need to ensure that parties comply with the Escazú Agreement?

The article shows the evolution of the environmentalization of international human rights law, and analyzes the functions of HRTB as international bodies for compliance with the obligations of States under the main human rights international treaties. The author pays special attention to the contribution of HRTB to ensuring compliance with the climate-related human rights obligations of states as a new trend of greening of HRTB. In this area, HRTB are now at the forefront of international compliance procedures. In this regard, we will analyze the relevant documents of HRTB (concluding observations, general comments, and statements) and cases of Human Rights Committee and Committee on the Rights of the Child. The author conducts a comparative legal analysis of HRTB with other means of dispute resolution and compliance procedures, primarily non-compliance procedures under MEAs. Based on this, the author shows the advantages and disadvantages of HRTB in the field of resolving environmental disputes and ensuring compliance with environmental legal obligations of States.

From the mid-1960s, Pacific Island leaders needed to start managing the regional agenda. But if the South Pacific Commission (SPC) was to survive and keep the French within its fold, it could not open up to political issues. This led to the formation of an additional organization: the South Pacific Forum. Its membership included Australia and New Zealand, both keen to see Island leaders create a new body. Ratu Mara of Fiji was a major figure at this time, but there was an apparent contradiction between his opposition to colonial control within the SPC and within Fiji, where he was initially equally opposed to independence. The UK, however, was determined to end its obligations in the Pacific – in stark contrast with French attitudes. It would therefore be a mistake to assume that the colonial powers were all aligned on one side of a divide, resisting moves by an equally united group of Island countries agitating for decolonization on the other.

The book’s overall conclusion summarizes the argument advanced in this book. Despite advancing a theory that utilizes security practice to achieve security as a state of being, it ends on a cautionary note. To wit, although we have established the existence of mandatory securitization, the same should not be considered a ready-made solution to the world ills but rather a necessary evil in an insecure world. The conclusion argues that decision-makers concerned with improving the world should ultimately concern themselves with eradicating the sources of insecurity and not with fighting fires.