In this paper, I assert that the prohibition on the death penalty brings with it an obligation on abolitionist States to refrain from assisting the use of the death penalty in retentionist States. By considering the law on complicity and State responsibility, the obligation to protect under international human rights law, and the practice of States, I argue that although there are jurisdictional issues and although the death penalty is not prohibited under general international law, an obligation to refrain from being complicit in the death penalty is developing in international law.

On 25 July 2011, the governments of Australia and Malaysia announced that they had entered into an ‘Arrangement’ for the transfer of asylum seekers.1 Its stated aim was to deter asylum seekers from travelling by boat to Australia by providing that the next 800 asylum seekers to arrive unlawfully would be transferred to Malaysia in exchange for the resettlement of 4,000 UNHCR-approved refugees living there.2 The joint media release by the Australian Prime Minister and Minister for Immigration lauded it as a ‘groundbreaking arrangement’ that demonstrated ‘the resolve of Australia and Malaysia to break the people smugglers’ business model, stop them profiting from human misery, and stop people risking their lives at sea’.3 The success of the Arrangement relied on Malaysia being perceived as an inhospitable host country for asylum seekers, with the Australian Government emphasising that it provided ‘the best course of action to make sure that we sent the maximum message of deterrence’.4 The Government also made clear that those transferred to Malaysia would ‘go to the back of the [asylum] queue’.5

There has been a spate of litigation before constitutional and human rights courts challenging restrictions on wearing religious dress in state schools as an infringement of religious freedom rights.1 These cases implicate deeper constitutional issues pertaining to State-Religion relations, religious pluralism and expressions of religious identity in the public domain of multicultural societies. Within Europe, this problem relates to the issue of integrating immigrants into national society and preserving secular political orders. The European Court of Human Rights in Leyla Sahin v Turkey2 [‘Sahin’] noted that within democratic societies, opinions ‘reasonably differ widely’ on State-Religion relations, reflected in the diversity of national approaches. For example, the 2004 French law banning ostentatious religious symbols from public schools,3 embodying a strict, doctrinaire secularism, contrasts sharply with the more accommodating liberal approach where British schools pragmatically offer students alternative uniforms to satisfy religious dress codes for public modesty. The English Court of Appeal in Shabina Begum v Governors of Denbigh High School4 [‘Begum’] held, in applying the Human Rights Act,5 that the school as a state institution was obliged to consider the claimant's religious rights under Article 9(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights [ECHR], and to justify its school policy under the Article 9(2) limitation clause. The United Kingdom is ‘not a secular state’6 as statute provides for religious education and worship in schools.

A fair trial is a basic element of the notion of the rule of law,1 and the principles of ‘due process’ and ‘the rule of law’ are fundamental to the protection of human rights.2 At the centre of any legal system, therefore, must be a means by which legal rights are asserted and breaches remedied through the process of a fair trial in court, as the law is useless without effective remedies.3 The fairness of the legal process has a particular significance in criminal cases, as it protects against human rights abuses. Hence, constitutional due process and elementary justice require that the judicial functions of trial and sentencing be conducted with fundamental fairness, especially where the irreversible sanction of the death penalty is involved.4

The question of reservations was one of the ‘controversial issues’ facing the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea in drawing up the final clauses of the Convention. On the one hand it was argued that the integrity of the Convention must be safeguarded and that the ‘package deal’ must be protected from possible disintegration by the making of reservations. On the other hand the view was held that ‘allowance for the possibility of reservations is aimed at accommodating the views of the delegations who have maintained that they cannot become parties to the Convention unless the Convention permits them to exercise a right to enter reservations, in accordance with customary international law and as envisaged under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.’ In short the need to preserve the integrity of the Convention was pitted against the need to secure universal participation in the Convention.

Does international law govern how States and armed groups treat their own forces? Do serious violations of the laws of war and human rights law that would otherwise constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity fall squarely outside the scope of international criminal law when committed against fellow members of the same armed forces? Orthodoxy considered that such forces were protected only under relevant domestic criminal law and/or human rights law. However, landmark decisions issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) suggest that crimes committed against members of the same armed forces are not automatically excluded from the scope of international criminal law. This article argues that, while there are some anomalies and gaps in the reasoning of both courts, there is a common overarching approach under which crimes by a member of an armed group against a person from the same forces can be prosecuted under international law. Starting from an assessment of the specific situation of the victim, this article conducts an in-depth analysis of the concepts of ‘hors de combat’ and ‘allegiance’ for war crimes and that of the ‘lawful target’ for crimes against humanity, providing an interpretative framework for the future prosecution of such crimes.

This note addresses the possible correlation between “democracy” and “development”, and the implications, if any, of such a correlation for the World Bank. This calls, first, for providing a definition of the two concepts as they are used here. To clarify the matter further, a distinction is made from the beginning between “development” in the broad sense and the concept of “economic growth” in the strict sense.

Fortunately it is still startling, in this country, to find a person held indefinitely in executive custody without accusation of crime or judicial trial. Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land, (per Jackson J, Shaughnessy v United States ex rel Mezei 345 US 206 (1953))

In its eagerly awaited judgment in Gazprom, the CJEU declined to follow the Opinion of Advocate General Wathelet that West Tankers is no longer good law. The West Tankers case decided that the courts of one Member State are precluded from granting antisuit injunctions directed at proceedings in the courts of another Member State, even if the proceedings in which the injunction is granted fall outside the scope of the Brussels Regulation by reason of the fact that they are concerned with arbitration. The Gazprom case confirms that West Tankers is still good law.

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has been the leading force of trade liberalization in services. This article attempts to decipher the implications of GATS in financial services. It explains the schedules of commitments made by Member States, and the way countries engage in commitments in financial services. These are critical in understanding how the GATS rules are applied by each Member, and whether GATS has been effective.

The so-called ‘prudential carve out’ is analysed in detail with consideration to the general prudential regime of the financial system since it has implications for the stability and integrity of the financial system. The article concludes with some policy analysis on how prudential carve out might be better implemented.