As a standard of review, ‘objective reasonableness’ has been in the academic spotlight after the Whaling in the Antarctic judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ or the Court). The Court's approach was conceptually innovative and seemed to have operated a partial reversal of the burden of proof in favour of the applicant. In response to certain criticisms addressed to that decision, this article makes two claims. First, ‘reasonableness’, while being inherently vague, gives a justifiable degree of discretion to judges, thereby enabling them to make difficult adjudicatory choices without departing from the applicable legal framework. Second, the term finds sufficient support in the Court's case law dealing with state discretion in the implementation of treaties. Both claims relate to the very same core idea: that even if one remains sceptical as to the capacity of the term to enhance certainty, ‘reasonableness’ is a basic conceptual tool that facilitates judicial review in complex cases, including those of a scientific nature.

The ICC's Regulation 55, which allows the Trial Chamber to modify the legal characterization of facts in the final judgment, has been used too often and too carelessly. Recharacterization must not exceed the facts and circumstances described in the charges, but material facts and their legal qualification are like communicating vessels; changing the latter affects the former (and vice versa). In their application of Regulation 55 to date, chambers have underappreciated this, treating cases as if they have blurry factual boundaries where material facts can be swapped, neglected, or created at will. This article is not a plea for abolition of Regulation 55, though, but explores which modifications are permissible, and finds that when comparing a change regarding the contextual elements or (sub)categories of crimes to a change regarding the mode of participation the latter is most problematic and often detrimental to the rights of the accused.

This article presents a timely and relevant critical examination of the customary international law principles of distinction and proportionality, and the doctrine of military necessity and the extent to which they can be better interpreted to protect the environment during the conduct of hostilities in non-international armed conflict. In so doing, this article contributes new perspectives to the ongoing debate on how environmental protection ought to be enhanced during non-international armed conflict. The article also suggests ways in which the International Law Commission (ILC) might approach the development of draft principles based on these customary principles as part of their current programme of work.

This article examines COVAX, a public private partnership, from a public law perspective. It asks whether COVAX is a legitimate and appropriate instrument with regard to the goal of distributing COVID-19 vaccines in a globally equitable manner and enabling equal access to vaccination worldwide. By developing public-legal legitimacy standards for this purpose, the article critically distances itself from the outset from considering the use of private actors and forms of action in public functions (‘privatization’) essentially as a release of market economy rationality, which enables efficiency and effectiveness gains and relieves the public sector. With the public law perspective, the article questions precisely whether private-law, market-based action is appropriate with respect to the global distribution of vaccines in the pandemic.

This article provides a reappraisal of the International Court of Justice's approach to jurisdiction and applicable law in Nicaragua, 25 years later. In the first phase of the proceedings arising from the US support of the activities of the Contras against the Sandinista government, the Court robustly asserted its jurisdiction despite the US reliance on its multilateral treaty reservation and the subsequent attempted modification of its Optional Clause declaration. At the same time, the Court approached the related question of applicable law with a wide, if not effusive, reliance on multilateral customary international law operating conjunctively with treaty law. The Court's dismissal of negotiations as a procedural precondition for invoking its jurisdiction in Nicaragua is contrasted with its recent findings in Georgia v. Russia.

This article questions the legality of the extent of the Iraqi sanctions regime, due to its severe impact on human rights such as the right to life and the right to health. After examining whether the Security Council is bound by human rights, the article examines if and to what extent the Security Council may limit human rights norms when imposing economic sanctions. In the process it distinguishes between non-derogable and derogable human rights. With respect to the latter, it supports limitation in accordance with a proportionality principle that protects the core of the rights involved, while at the same time allows the Security Council the flexibility required by its unique role in the maintenance of international peace and security.

The article examines the theoretical concept of interregionalism in the context of the evolving framework between the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). As the EU’s first free trade agreement (FTA) with an ASEAN country, the EU-Singapore FTA is a pathfinder agreement that signifies a new phase of interregionalism and the EU’s new Asia strategy after the Treaty of Lisbon. The article argues that the innovative designs of the EU-Singapore FTA will shape the normative development of EU-ASEAN relations in the post-pandemic era. It also cautions that a comparative analysis of EU and US agreements reveals deficiencies in the FTA that require remedies. To buttress the contention, key provisions on ASEAN cumulative rules of origin, banking and legal services and non-tariff barriers are analysed in light of contemporary Asian agreements. The research further provides insight into the effectiveness of new-generation rules on geographical indications, competition, and investor-state arbitration and mediation. Hence, the findings contribute to the understanding of interregionalism and the EU’s Asia-Pacific trade and investment agreements from global and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Straddling both the centres of (European) power and the shifting dynamics of the post-Ottoman world in a quest to guarantee private rights through public international legal redress, the PCIJ Mavrommatis case provides a rich resource for interrogating the extent to which international law during the League period could speak for voices on the edge of empire. In this article, historical consideration of the regimes of empire and Mandate form the backdrop to an exploration into how international legal discourse (re)configured the relationship between the core and the periphery, especially for those peoples awaiting the promise of self-determination and sovereignty. The figure of a lone Greek investor and his dashed hopes in the newly created Palestine Mandate is the backdrop to this tail of ever-shifting interpretations of public and private rights, of speech as well as silence before and beyond the Peace Palace.

At the outset of the conflict over Kosovo, the use of armed force by NATO member states has been justified to force the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to accept and sign the Rambouillet agreement. Later on, the use of force was justified in order to prevent a major humanitarian catastrophe. But examination of the relevant Security Council resolutions and of the circumstances surrounding the Rambouillet negotiations shed a totally different light on the legal arguments advanced by proponents of NATO's intervention. Modern international law on the use of force by states, as enshrined in the UN Charter, is still at the core of inter-state relations.

Looking at the migration management policies at Europe’s external Aegean border, this article examines how and why infrastructures of protection come to function as technologies of border violence. The repurposing of rescue rafts for extreme border violence in the Aegean Sea reveals a little-examined dark side of European ‘migration management’ as a process purportedly aimed to ‘civilize’ Greek coastguard operations. In transforming life-saving materials into life-threatening ones, patterns of border violence tell an alarming story about the relationship between law, politics, and the materiality of physical objects: absent concrete political and moral commitments to international protection, rescue’s physical infrastructure has been weaponized. The weaponized life raft further challenges the assumptions underpinning European ‘migration management’: the idea that technocratic solutions can fix structural injustices, or that ‘neutral assistance can ensure human rights compliance. The case study thus demonstrates the incompatibility of managerialism with human rights protection in the context of contemporary migration.

Since Oscar Schachter’s articulation of the concept, scholars have attempted to better understand the ‘invisible college of international lawyers’ making up our profession. They have done this through piecemeal surveys of public professional rosters (arbitrators, International Court of Justice counsel), piecing together anecdotes of connections between members, or constructing stories about individuals’ role in discrete legal developments. Departing from these approaches, we use the obituaries published in the British Yearbook of International Law (1920–2017) to draw an interactive map of the ‘invisible college’. Obituaries are a unique window into international law’s otherwise private inner life, unveiling professional and personal connections between international lawyers and their shared career paths beyond single institutions or individual stories. Employing network analysis, a method commonly used in social sciences to describe complex social phenomena such as this, we are able to demonstrate the ubiquity of informal networks whereby ideas move, and provide evidence of the community’s homogeneity. Exploring connections between international lawyers and their shared characteristics in this novel way, we shed light on the features of this group and the potential impact individual personalities have on the law. These characteristics of the profession and its members are evident to insiders but externally invisible. Graphic representation is a powerful tool in bolstering critiques for diversity and contestation of mainstream law-making narratives. Rather than exhaustively mapping, however, we propose to take the ‘dead white men’ trope to an extreme, provoking the reader to question the self-image of the profession as an impersonal expert science.

On May 14, 1954 the Inter-governmental Conference on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict which convened in The Hague, managed to adopt the text of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention). Apart from the Convention as such, the Regulations for the Execution of the Convention, a Protocol directed towards the prevention of the exportation of cultural property from occupied territories during armed conflicts, and three Resolutions were adopted.

In the Preliminary Objections phase of this case the Court followed its previous jurisprudence based on the Right of Passage Over Indian Territory case (1957) concerning the operation of Article 36(2) of its Statute. It is argued here that there were compelling reasons why the Court should have reassessed this jurisprudence. The implications of the Right of Passage doctrine for the operation of Article 36(2) and the role of the Court in international affairs are also discussed.

The UN Security Council, as ‘parent body’ of the two ad hoc Tribunals, never introduced explicit rules on how to compensate accused persons for violations of their rights imputable to the Tribunals' organs. Notwithstanding the absence of such rules, a series of decisions by ICTYand ICTR chambers show the willingness of these institutions to address such violations when they occur. In doing so, the Tribunals appear to have followed some of the same principles on responsibility of international organizations as are being elaborated by the International Law Commission (ILC). By analysing these parallel processes, the author suggests that the elaboration of rules by the ad hoc Tribunals in the field of human rights violations and the codification by the ILC of rules on international responsibility, although distinct in aim and scope, might mutually benefit each other andshed some light on the difficulties of applying such principles in practice.

It is tempting to introduce this special section in an apologetic tone. Has not enough been written, in recent years, on constitutionalization, that new phenomenon and term which has recently entered the world of politics and law, closely related to global constitutionalism, to constitutionalism in international law? And is there really a need to publish another three articles on Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt, instead of highlighting new faces and frames of thought in international law and its theory?

For several years, there has been a tension between differing philosophies of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dispute settlement. Commentators have taken different views on whether the system was fundamentally based on an arbitration or a judicial model. The Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU), Annex II to the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO Agreement), represents the first extensive, negotiated agreement revitalizing the dispute settlement system in the history of the General Agreement. It represents nothing less than a complete reform of the GATT dispute settlement system. What is remarkable is that it is the product of extensive multilateral negotiations. In the past, modifications were made to the system on an incremental, case-by-case basis. Since the GATT came into existence in 1948, Articles XXII and XXIII have formed the basis of the dispute settlement mecha-nism. They are very sparse provisions, and most of the procedures that have come to characterize the pre-WTO GATT system have evolved over time as a result of experience in specific cases. Some of these procedural improvements were codified in Decisions and Understandings negotiated at various points in GATT history, but none were as comprehensive as the DSU.

Written from an outsider's perspective, this paper tries to capture the ethos, or, if you prefer, the Sittlichkeit, of international criminal law. It argues that international criminal law can profitably be seen as an ethos, rather than a body of law. In this telling, international criminal law, despite its name, emerges as an ethical–administrative enterprise rather than a legal one. If placed alongside global administrative law, for instance, international criminal law appears as alegal rather than illegal, so that to criticize international criminal law for violating, say, the ‘principle of legality’ would be like faulting apples for not producing orange juice, and oranges for not making apple pie.

In Martić, the ICTY held that the term ‘civilian’ in the chapeau of crimes against humanity excludes persons hors de combat, but that such persons may still be victims of crimes against humanity. This paper analyses that holding and its applicability before the ICC. It observes that the holding may result in additional protection to prisoners of war, leave the group of victims of crimes against humanity undefined, and render the term ‘civilian’ in the chapeau nugatory. Some recommendations are offered in these regards.

Biodiversity loss raises some of the most difficult issues of equity in international environmental law. Differential obligations have been developed as a means of enabling developed and developing countries to participate in the Biodiversity Convention. This article contends that the actual practices of these obligations have been cast narrowly, reinforce the existing politics and economics of biodiversity conservation, and are difficult to see and practise. They have been predominantly understood as obliging the transfer of funds and technology between states and as implicitly encouraging technology-based development pathways. The article calls for differential obligations to be reworked in environmental justice terms to encompass plural, alternative development pathways, such as creating local economies. It proposes that emerging market-based, community initiatives and the ecological footprint concept could help to provide ways to make differential obligations more workable.

William Rasch, Sovereignty and Its Discontents: On the Primacy of Conflict and the Structure of the Political, London, Birkbeck University Press (Cavendish Publishing), 2004, ISBN 1859419844, 208 pp., £23.95 (pb).

‘War is for men, for honour and glory.’

‘And death,’ she pointed out.

‘Of course death. That is why women must be protected. Many babies must be born to replace the dead warriors.’

‘It might be better just to stop the wars.’

‘Pah! It is always useless to talk to women. They have no understanding.’