Coercion and justification: a global public reason perspective on Security Council reform

The Security Council is the only international body capable of authorizing the use of force in cases other than self-defence. Its main mission is to protect international peace and security, and this has been reinterpreted in recent decades to include the protection of human rights in situations of grave humanitarian emergencies as well as to allow it to exercise legislative powers. Given this extraordinary range of functions, it is worth asking whether the Security Council is justified in their exercise. Should the international community entrust such power to an institution with the authority, structure, and decision-making process of the Security Council? This article explores the implications of a distinctive tradition in political philosophy – namely, the public reason tradition – for judging the adequacy of some of the proposals for reform of the Security Council. I show that the scope of authority of the Security Council, as well as some of the proposals for reform, can be challenged on the basis of an emerging global public culture.     

冲突与协调:安理会与国际法院的关系新论

《联合国宪章》对安理会与国际法院的职责作出了明确规定,由于两个机构在组成与性质方面的差异,在处理共同管辖的国际争端时,两个机构的解决方式有时存在分歧,而且安理会决议与国际法院裁判对《联合国宪章》条文的解释也存在矛盾。因此,在《联合国宪章》的框架内重新构建安理会与国际法院的关系,有迫切的需要。在产生共同管辖时,国际法院应当适当照顾安理会决议的意见,同时,为制约安理会日益扩大的权力,应当肯定国际法院对安理会决议的司法审查权。     

国际民用航空组织争端解决机制司法化改革论析

1944年《芝加哥公约》第18章赋予国际民用航空组织理事会裁判与公约的解释与适用有关的国际争端的权能。但过往裁判实践表明,国际民用航空组织争端解决机制的结构性缺陷导致理事会司法功能未有效发挥。一方面,《芝加哥公约》第54条与第84条存在适用冲突,使得理事会在实践中更愿意以政治角色介入争端解决,导致《解决分歧规则》的司法效能被弱化。另一方面,理事会成员国代表司法能力不足且缺乏司法中立性,使得理事会对争端的解决难以提供高效的法律产出。国际民用航空组织应在2018年所启动《解决分歧规则》修订进程中对争端解决机制进行司法化改革,避免国际民用航空业沦为国际政治对抗的工具。     

联合国安理会改革的国际法思考

在国际和平与安全方面,确立二战后国际秩序的规则和制度,已不能完全适应全球化时代的需求,建立在以安理会为核心、以联合国为基础之上的国际集体安全体制,面临新问题时显得危机重重。国际情势的变迁,严重震荡着安理会原有的权力结构以及由此确立的权力秩序,与此相关,国际法律秩序也遭遇严重挑战。安理会改革的主张各有利弊,其中涉及诸多的国际法律问题,解决好这些问题,有助于安理会改革的顺利进行,并期望由此推动和平稳定的国际新秩序的形成。     

中国古代司法的观念和制度略论

本文从观念与制度两方面对中国古代司法进行了探讨。中国古代司法的观念包括严格执法、经义决狱、屈法伸情、良吏司法等方面;中国古代的司法制度涉及审判机构、审判官吏、审判管辖、证据制度、普通审判程序、复审与死刑复核制度、判决的执行等。中国古代司法的观念和制度具有伦理指导、皇帝专权、实体优先、多元依据、"无讼"以求的特点,表现出在法与情、常与权、名与实等方面统一、协调的努力。中国古代社会的司法、审判的观念和制度的许多内容值得我们借鉴和吸纳。     

The Consequences of Kadi: Where the Divergence of Opinion between EU and International Lawyers Lies?

The divergence of opinion between EU and international lawyers as to the consequences of the Kadi/Al Barakaat judgment is likely to remain for the foreseeable future. While international lawyers focus their analysis on the constitutional role of the UN Charter in international law, EU lawyers seek to assert the autonomy and primacy of the EU treaties. The aim of this article is to analyse where the divergence between the two perspectives can be found. The judgment of the European Court of Justice cannot be interpreted as questioning the authority of the Security Council in discharging its duties for the maintenance of international peace and security. The consequences of the General Court's case‐law as regards the EU autonomous list of terrorists should be borne in mind when faced with the implications of Kadi/Al Barakaat. It is not justified that the level of protection to the individuals or entities affected by targeted sanctions should depend on the legal framework in which the restrictive measures have been adopted (UN or EU), or on the margin of discretion left to the EU Member States by the Security Council.     

Judicial review,litigation effects and the ombudsman

Abstract

Judicial review is widely understood to be a remedy of last resort, but there remains little research on the extent to which the process can achieve meaningful redress. This article applies the results of a study into ombudsman judicial review to chart the outputs of the various stages of the process at which an outcome can be secured. The claim is made that ombudsman judicial review does secure a small level of success for claimants both in and out of court but that the rate of such success is lower for citizen claimants than the norm in all judicial review cases. The explanation provided for this pattern is that organisationally ombudsman schemes have learnt lessons from being repeat players in judicial review and are better equipped to integrate rule of law values than many other public bodies. Citizen claimants, by contrast, include a high proportion of inexperienced litigants-in-person for which the judicial review process is ill-designed to facilitate.     

International Community and Abuses of Sovereign Powers

International law was traditionally a horizontal and state-centric system of rules. Although state-centrism is in decline, it is still reflected in some of the core concepts and procedures governing contemporary international law. This article identifies the community-oriented values in the international community that stretch beyond the interest of sovereign states. It further explores how these values can be protected by the international community when states abuse their sovereign powers. Attention is paid to the concepts of Chapter VII powers and limitations on the authority of the Security Council, as well as the concepts of obligations erga omnes and norms jus cogens. While the latter two concepts reflect fundamental values of the international community, they cannot be used as an enforcement mechanism to address the abuses of sovereign powers. The enforcement can come from Security Council resolutions adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Notably, the concept of the international peace and security nowadays covers even seemingly purely domestic gross and systematic violations of human rights. Despite this stretch of the Security Council’s powers, the community-oriented rules also demand that its measures need to be interpreted with the framework of international human rights law in mind. The article concludes that the post-Second World War era has seen a turn away from state-centrism and toward a community-oriented international legal system. The international community has acknowledged the existence of a rights-based minimum threshold of a shared value system. However, the enforcement of this value system remains subject to state-centric procedures. There is no automatic and readily available remedy against abuses of sovereign powers.     

European Standards for the Rule of Law and Independent Courts

Independent adjudication as a cornerstone of the rule of law has attracted increasing attention at the European level over the past decades. Despite its general recognition in various international legal instruments there is, however, an ongoing search for its concrete meaning. Recent documents adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe (CoE) have tried to specify standards for the organization of judicial administration. Unfortunately, however, some of these documents exhibit flaws and misconceptions in the conceptualization of judicial independence. This article identifies these imperfections and argues that future standardsetting on judicial independence in Europe should direct more attention to comparative constitutional analysis and to experience gained in the course of judicial reforms in the Council of Europe's member states. It advocates a less rigid approach to structural issues and concludes with recommendations for future Council of Europe initiatives.     

WTO与中国国际私法司法解释

法律全球化的趋势及我国入世时的承诺要求我国国内的法律制度必须与WTO规则相衔接。由于我国国际私法的立法是计划经济体制的产物,严重滞后于国际民商事法律关系的需要和时代的发展,再加上目前还不能从根本上解决国际私法的立法问题,因此在涉外民商事审判实践中,有关司法解释处于独特的地位。本文在对我国国际私法司法解释的价值及其存在的问题进行分析的基础上,提出了完善我国国际私法司法解释体制的建议。     

The Constitutional Limits of Judicial Activism: Judicial Conduct of International Relations and Child Abduction

Judges are increasingly visible in their participation in activities off the bench. This may create difficulties in drawing the line between their duties in court and their other activities. However, if judges are not acutely aware of the importance of this line their extra-curial activities may interfere with their judicial duties. This article considers the failure to observe the importance of this differentiation in the context of international child abduction. It is argued that some judges, on and off the bench, have wrongly taken over the role of the executive in international relations and that such activity jeopardises the independence of the judiciary. This raises broader issues, in particular it suggests that some judges are being seduced into exceeding their proper judicial role, by working with government in policy-making and by their increasing contacts with judges from other countries.     

International Arbitration and Judicial Politics in Authoritarian States

This article uses the case of Sudan to show how authoritarian regimes benefit from embracing international arbitration, allowing them to maintain domestic control and attract foreign investment. International arbitration ensures that foreign‐investment disputes are resolved outside of domestic purview, obviating the need for nondemocratic states to create independent courts. Research on judicial politics in authoritarian regimes has largely overlooked those private and extra‐judicial pathways—international arbitration tribunals—that illiberal regimes have been taking. Similarly, research in international commercial law has neglected domestic politics, overlooking arbitration's consequences for domestic stakeholders. Promoting international arbitration without paying heed to its side effects can unwittingly help illiberal regimes, particularly in weak states, to continue to repress their judiciaries and curtail the development of domestic legal institutions and the rule of law.     

国家与国际刑事法院的国际合作与司法协助义务述评

国际刑事法院是否成功的关键取决于《罗马规约》的缔约国和国际社会与之真诚的国际合作与司法协助。反之 ,国家也应根据国际法的基本原则善意履行其自愿承担的义务 ,向国际刑事法院提供国际合作与司法协助。本文通过阐述《罗马规约》有关国家与国际刑事法院的国际合作与司法协助方面的实体性和程序性规定 ,说明国家在国际刑事法院调查、起诉和惩治国际社会关注的最严重的国际犯罪中的作用和义务     

International criminal justice: reflections on the past and the future

While Nuremberg constitutes a watershed in the evolution of international law with its establishment of the fundamental principle of individual criminal responsibility under international law it has not left much else by way of precedent for the subsequent international criminal tribunals. The adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 827 establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and Resolution 955 (1994) establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, set the groundwork for a new model of hybrid tribunals, with the establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2002, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in 2006, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in 2007. Perhaps one of the greatest legacies of these ad hoc and hybrid courts and tribunals has been paving the way for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. However, they have also brought about the development of international criminal law through judicial interpretation, elaborating, inter alia, the elements of the crime of genocide as detailed in the 1948 Genocide Convention, the judicial recognition of the concept of joint criminal enterprise and the principle that national arrangements for amnesties in respect of international crimes are no bar to prosecution for such crimes at an international tribunal. In view of the completion strategies of the ad hoc Tribunals, as well as of the SCSL, this article delves into some of their legacies and outlines some of the difficulties and challenges they have faced, while identifying areas of best practice in order for the newly‐operational International Criminal Court to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past or even reinventing new wheels.     

Judicial Activism in the Name of the Nation: Reneging on the Integration of Immigrants in Greece

Why do courts sometimes decide to liberalize migrants’ rights, while at others restricting such rights, even contrary to the policies of elected governments? This article addresses this question in the context of Greece. It explores the causes and consequences of judicial decision making in a major decision of the Council of State that suspended the most important government reform of 2010, promoting the integration of third‐country nationals. Drawing on judicial politics scholarship, it argues that the ideological and political preferences of key judges were an important influence on the first Council of State decision considered here. However, in the final decision, intra‐court dynamics and the judges’ consideration of external political constraints influenced the court's reasoning, leading to a more moderate outcome, with important consequences for the relaunching of policy reform.     

国际刑事法院管辖权与联合国安理会职权关系论——《罗马规约》的妥协性规定评析

关于国际刑事法院管辖权与联合国安理会职权的关系,《罗马规约》作出了妥协性的规定,二者的关系既表现为平等与协作,又反映出相互间的适度制约。这种妥协性的规定反映了国际社会现实,体现了国际刑事法院司法职能与安理会政治职能的相对分离和互动,具有现实合理性。     

《核不扩散条约》缔约国和平利用核能的权利探究——以伊朗为例

近来,伊朗所声称的和平利用核能的活动引起了国际社会的强烈反应。在国际原子能机构框架内解决该问题的努力失败后,该问题被移交到联合国安理会。安理会已三次通过决议要求伊朗停止铀浓缩,并逐步加强了对伊朗的制裁。由于伊朗享有核主权,并且这种核主权受到《核不扩散条约》的确认,所以伊朗和平利用核能的权利具有充分的法律依据。但是伊朗和平利用核能的权利应受到三点限制:第一,权利不得滥用原则的限制;第二,《保障协定》及其《附加议定书》的限制;第三,安理会决议的限制。     

论司法人性化与司法公正的冲突与协调

司法人性化是现代司法改革的题中应有之义,它的正确实施有利于人权保护和司法公正价值目标的实现,但是司法人性化的泛化必然对司法的公正性提出挑战。司法人性化与司法公正的对立是相对的,二者存在统一的基础。加强人性化的立法、坚守法律的底线、培养司法者的人格素质以及建立科学的评价体系是协调司法人性化与司法公正冲突的有效途径。     

我国区际司法协助问题探析

为实现祖国统一而提出的“一国两制”的构想衍生出了我国现实而紧迫的区际司法协助问题。区际司法协助介乎于国际司法协助和域内司法协助之间 ,但有别于二者。建构我国的区际司法协助制度须着眼我国的具体国情 ,采取务实的做法 ,以促进两岸四地间的民商事流转和国家的统一。     

Judicial authority through the experiences of crisis

This article is concerned with law’s experiences and making sense of crisis. When we talk about law’s response to crisis, we refer to law not as an abstract set of rules but as an embodied and animated assemblage of relations and practices. This way, law needs to make sense of any crisis to respond to it. The article draws on cultural legal studies to explore the constitution of judicial authority in the context of a democracy in flux. The article relies on fieldwork data collected in the interviews conducted by the author with Lithuanian judges in 2019. Highest in more than two decades, public trust in the judiciary in 2018 indicated a remarkable achievement for Lithuania, a country whose judicial system had been in a state of flux since the end of the Soviet era. However, after an unprecedented and highly mediated judicial corruption scandal in 2019, the rates of public trust plummeted, uncovering complex dynamics between the image of courts, mass media, and the public. Against this backdrop, the article explores how judges make sense of crisis that develops on the intersections of provocative reality judging and formal judicial institutions. It shows how judicial authority is constituted in the conditions of crisis on the tension between law and culture. Emerging from a crisis of authority is the changing face of judging. A post-colonial vantage point and theatrical jurisprudence are used to respond to a development of a desire of power under a mask of rationality, objectivity, and universality. The article concludes by contemplating how this authority shapes our lifeworlds.