The Common Core between Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law: A Structural Account

Legal scholars and theorists have recently drawn a more sustained attention to the link between international human rights law (hereafter IHRL) and international criminal law (hereafter ICL). This concerns both positive and more normative accounts of the link. Whether positive or normative, the predominant approach to constructing the link is substantive. This overlap is normatively justified in similar terms by reference to a subset of moral human rights. In this paper, I offer an alternative to the substantive approach. After identifying two flaws in the substantive approach (the problem of threshold and the problem of ethical neutrality), I defend what I call a structural account by focusing on duty‐holders. I start by reconstructing two structural characteristics common to IHRL and ICL qua international legal regimes: who has the authority to address violations of IHRL and ICL, and who can be liable for those violations. I then infer that public authority (functionally construed) constitutes the common structural core of IHRL and ICL. I rely on the extraterritorial application of IHRL and on the collective dimension of ICL violations to further support the argument. I finally offer an argument explaining the normative point of those structural features. I hold that IHRL and ICL (their adjudicative and liability regimes) are both necessary (but clearly not sufficient) to render this exercise of public authority legitimate to its subjects.     

The Merowe Dam Project – When Does the Coin Flip from Legal Business Activity to Criminal Behavior? Reflections on the Concept of Guarantor’s Liablity in the Context of Transnational Business Activities

The individual liability of corporate officers for crimes that are often framed as transnational human rights abuses is much debated. While it seems that some standards of liability are developing in the field of international criminal law, standards of criminal liability in cases where the alleged crimes do not amount to international crimes remain to some extent unclear. This article will examine a concrete case that was investigated by the Frankfurt/Main prosecutor’s office. Additionally, it will be considered whether international soft law standards on corporate human rights due diligence have an influence on how the existing standards of guarantor’s liability, and especially that of principals (Geschäftsherrenhaftung), are to be interpreted in these cases.     

Mass Atrocity,Mass Testimony,and the Quantitative Turn in International Law

The article identifies and analyses the development it labels the “quantitative turn” in international criminal law. Addressing the cumulative effect of the large numbers of witnesses in international processes, the article considers quantity as an integral, and substantively beneficial, component of the law's response to atrocity crimes. The article develops a theorized understanding of the relationship between mass atrocity and mass testimony and provides a taxonomy of the functions that the quantity of testimonies fulfills in international trials: the evidentiary, didactic, epistemic, and restorative functions. Focusing on a recent case before the International Criminal Court in the matter of The Prosecutor v. Bemba, the article demonstrates how the different players in the international justice system—Prosecution, Defense, Victims, and the Court—employ the functions of quantity, while negotiating concerns over manageability and scale. The goal of this article is to prompt a debate and a more careful consideration of the potential benefits of a meaningful participation of witnesses and victims in post‐atrocity proceedings. This is particularly important given the dominance of the efficiency paradigm in international criminal law (ICL) discourse, which directly impacts the quantitative turn. The article forges new ways for ICL institutions to maintain a plurality of voices and their commitment to victims while safeguarding the rights of the accused.     

Law and Institutional Legitimacy in the Practice of Human Rights

The Heart of Human Rights develops an account of human rights as legal entities that serve important moral purposes in a legitimate international human rights practice. This paper examines Allen Buchanan’s general concept of institutional legitimacy and aims to expand that concept by emphasizing its connection with several ideas developed in the book about the nature and function of a system of international human rights. When it incorporates those ideas, Buchanan’s ‘Metacoordination View’ can be seen to set a standard of legitimacy not only for assessments of an international scheme of human rights institutions, but also for the basic institutional structures of domestic states. Furthermore, we can see how the nature and function of human rights in the international practice of human rights bears on legitimacy assessments of particular domestic institutions.     

Comments on Illegal War and Illegal Conduct: Are the Two Related?

This article examines whether there is a link between the legality or otherwise of an armed conflict under jus ad bellum and the subsequent conduct of the campaign under jus in bello. This is done by comparing two conflicts where the legality was not in serious dispute, the Falklands/Malvinas conflict and the Iraq War 1990–1991, and three where the legality has been questioned, Kosovo 1999, the ‘global war on terror’ and the Iraq War 2003. In looking for a common link, the author is drawn away from concerns over the jus ad bellum to doubts over the content of the relevant law governing the conduct of hostilities. Uncertainties in the law have occurred both from the extension to non-international armed conflict of ‘Hague law’, traditionally applicable only in international armed conflicts, and the overlap between human rights law and the law of armed conflict. The author concludes that there is a danger that the balance between military necessity and humanity may be disturbed so that the law will become impracticable in the cauldron of conflict to the detriment of all, soldier and civilian alike.

     

The impact of international human rights norms—a “law undergoing evolution”

Abstract

In this paper, the author outlines the history of, and reasons for, the growing impact of international human rights jurisprudence upon the work of judges in New Zealand, Australia, England and elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Nations. Formerly, international and domestic law were virtually entirely separate. But now, there is increasing legal authority to support the use of international human rights jurisprudence in domestic judicial decision‐making. It can be done in the application of constitutional or statutory provisions reflecting universal principles stated in international treaties. But, according to the Bangalore Principles, it can also be done where there is a gap in the common law or where a local statute is ambiguous. The judge may then fill the gap or resolve the ambiguity by reference to international human rights jurisprudence which will ensure that domestic law conforms, as far as possible, to such principles.

In its decision in Tavita, the New Zealand Court of Appeal declared this to be “a law … undergoing evolution”. The author outlines some of the impediments and problems for the evolution. But he also collects the reasons why it is a natural and inevitable phase of the common law in the current age. He suggests that judges should be aware of the developments. In appropriate cases, they should inform their decisions with relevant international human rights jurisprudence. That will at least ensure that they develop domestic human rights law in a principled way, consistently with international law, and not in an idiosyncratic fashion “discovering” new fundamental rights which may otherwise be criticised as mere judicial invention.     

The Application of Human Rights Law to Everyday Civilian Life Under Rebel Control

This article draws upon social science literature to offer a new assessment of the normative value of human rights law vis-à-vis international humanitarian law in territory under armed groups’ control. In particular, the article considers how the two bodies of law can be applied in a complementary manner to regulate the everyday life of civilians who are not involved in hostilities. The article demonstrates that while it might be tempting to imagine that concerns relating to rights such as the freedom of movement, the right to work or protection from common crime are completely displaced by considerations of physical security and survival in times of armed conflict, in reality this is often not the case.

     

Right,Crime, and Court: Toward a Unifying Political Conception of International Law

It is widely acknowledged that human rights law (hereafter, HRL) and international criminal law (hereafter, ICL) share core normative features. Yet, the literature has not yet reconstructed this underlying basis in a systematic way. In this contribution, I lay down the basis of such an account. I first identify a similar tension between a “moral” and a “political” approach to the normative foundations of those norms and to the legitimate role of international courts (hereafter, ICs) and tribunals adjudicating those norms. With a view to bring the debate forward, I then turn to the practices of HRL and international criminal law (hereafter, ICL) to examine which of those approaches best illuminates some salient aspects of the adjudication of ICs. Finally, I argue that the political approach best explains the practice. While each preserves a distinct role, HRL and ICL both establish the basic conditions for the primary subject of international law (HRL and ICL, for the purpose of this article), namely the state, to legitimately govern its own subjects constructed as free and equal moral agents.     

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.     

Interpreting the Political Theory in the Practice of Human Rights

In this discussion of The Heart of Human Rights, I support Allen Buchanan’s pursuit of a theory-in-practice methodology for interpreting the foundations and meaning of international legal human rights from within the practice. Following my use of that methodology, I recharacterize the theory of rights revealed by this methodology as political not moral. I clarify the import of this interpretation of international legal human rights for two problems that trouble Buchanan: (1) whether the scope of ‘basic equal status’ is a global or an ‘intrasocial’ standard and (2) whether there is a ‘proliferation’ of rights that risks undermining the legitimacy of international legal human rights. I argue that the scope of basic equal status is global and that the practice of making what he calls ‘new’ rights claims is part of the practice of human rights.     

Loss of Innocence in Common Law Presumptions

This review article of Stumer (The presumption of innocence: evidential and human rights perspectives. Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2010) explores the concept, normative foundations and institutional implications of the presumption of innocence in English law. Through critical engagement with Stumer’s methodological assumptions and normative arguments, it highlights the narrowness of common lawyers’ traditional conceptions of the presumption of innocence. Picking up the threads of previous work, it also contributes to on-going debates about the legitimacy of reverse onus clauses and their compatibility with European human rights law and general principles of criminal jurisprudence.     

Morality, Law and the Fair Distribution of Freedom

Hart’s criticism of Devlin’s stance on the legal enforcement of morality has been highly influential in shaping a new liberal sensibility and in paving the way to many important legal reforms in the UK. After 50 years it is perhaps time to go back to Law, Liberty and Morality to see it in the perspective of the general evolution of Hart’s thought since the early 50s. This is a period of extraordinary creativity for the Oxford philosopher, in which he writes many important contributions to legal, moral and political philosophy. Prominent among these is ‘Are There Any Natural Rights?’, an article that sets the agenda for Hart’s subsequent work on liberty, fairness and rights, and provides the philosophical background for the liberal understanding of the relations between law and morality defended in Law, Liberty and Morality.     

The Role of International Legal Norms in Ensuring the "Right to a Legal Defense"

On 22 November 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted the "Declaration of the Rights and Freedoms of the Individual and Citizen."¹ Article 1 of the declaration states that universally recognized international norms on human rights have priority over the laws of the RSFSR where they directly give rise to rights and duties of citizens. But, in the words of A.M. Vasil'ev, this is "really only a defended, not a proclaimed right."² The systems of international and Soviet law set down the procedure and the order of realization of rights and freedoms and the ways and means for their legal defense. An important guarantee for the realization of rights and freedoms is ensuring the individual's right to a legal defense.     

Post-secular Messianism Against the Law: Judith Butler on Walter Benjamin and ‘Sacred Life’

This essay focuses on Judith Butler’s configuration in Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012a) of sacred life from the mystical motifs that traverse Walter Benjamin’s writings as the pivot of an anti-identitarian ethics committed to non-violent resistance. To gain critical leverage on Butler’s post-secular stance, my analysis turns to Talal Asad’s ‘Redeeming the “Human” Through Human Rights’ chapter from Formations of the Secular (2003), where he enunciates a disparity between a ‘pre-civil state of nature’ and the notion of ‘inalienable rights’ that informs the subject’s rights under secular law. In underscoring the secular state’s inability or refusal to ascribe sacredness to ‘real living persons’ over and against ‘“the human” conceptualized abstractly, or imagined in a state of nature’ as presumed by natural law, Asad indirectly articulates what is at stake in Butler’s explication in Parting Ways of Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence’. In this context, Butler unpacks Benjamin’s remarks about the sixth commandment’s non-coercive disposition and the inner struggle its provisional applicability prompts. A conception of ‘sacred life’ crystallizes through Butler’s emphasis on the open-endedness of this struggle, which encourages us to abandon a solipsistic investment in our own suffering in the process of acknowledging its eternally transient rhythm. I argue that Butler supplements this motif by drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s grounding of the political in cohabitation. My contention is that while ‘sacred life’ forms the backbone of Butler’s affirmation of civil disobedience, Arendt empowers Butler’s ethics to transcend Benjamin’s Jewish-messianic melancholy by radicalizing the passivity that refracts it.     

Reductio Ad Absurdum: The Kapo Trial Judgements’ Contribution To International Criminal Law Jurisprudence And Customary International Law

Several Jewish persons designated as concentration camp guards (Kapos) during the Holocaust were subsequently tried in Israel in the 1950s and 1960s for allegedly committing grave crimes. This article examines these trial judgements and considers their significance to international criminal law jurisprudence and customary international law. First, this article will delineate the trial judgements’ purpose, relevance and previous contribution to customary international law. Secondly, a comparative narrative of the judgements with recent case law from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court will illuminate their potential contribution, specifically to the principles of modes of liability, criminal intent, and the defence of duress. The Kapo trial judgements may therefore continue to offer an extreme case example and a worthy source of common law for international criminal law jurisprudence and customary international law.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">It’s Right,It Fits,We Debated,We Decided,I Agree,It’s Ours,and It Works</Emphasis>: The Gathering Confluence of Human Rights Legitimacy

How should we understand human rights and why might we respect them? The current literature – both philosophical and historical – presents a barrage of conflicting accounts, including moral, functional, deliberative, legal, consensual, communitarian and pragmatic approaches. I argue that each approach captures a unique, common-sense – and, in principle, compatible – insight into why human rights warrant respect. Acknowledging this compatibility illuminates the myriad different avenues for legitimacy human rights enjoy, and provides a historical window into explaining how human rights rose to become the international community’s ethical lingua franca. The depth and spread of convergence on human rights proved possible precisely because myriad people the world over found a wealth of disparate reasons for rallying under its banner. But even as human rights enjoy seven distinct sources of legitimacy, I argue that they are thereby opened for normative challenge on seven distinct fronts.     

Access to justice and human rights in Afghanistan

In anthropological and legal literature, the phenomenon termed ‘legal pluralism’ has been interpreted as a co-presence of legal orders which act in relation to their own ‘levels’ of referring ‘fields’. The Afghan normative network is generally described in terms of pluralism, where different normative systems such as customs, shari’a (Islamic law), state laws and principles deriving from international standard of law (e.g., human rights) coexist. In order to address the crucial question of access to justice, in this article, I stress the category of legal pluralism by introducing the hypothesis of an inaccessible normative pluralism as a key concept to capture the structural injustices of which Afghans are victims. Access to justice can be considered a foundational element of every legal project. Globally, the debates concerning the diffusion and application of human rights develop at the same time ideologically, politically, and pragmatically. Today in Afghanistan, these levels are expressed in all their complexity and ambivalence. It is therefore particularly significant to closely observe the work done by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and to discuss the issue of human rights by starting from a reflection on what might be defined a socio-normative condition of inaccessibility.     

论格老秀斯法权思想的人本化因素

格老秀斯法权思想是人类思想的精华代表。作为国际法的奠基人,格老秀斯法权思想包含自然法、国际法和万民法内容,为17世纪之后世界秩序的构建制定了法律框架。格老秀斯代表作《战争与和平法》和《海洋自由论》即已凸显了法律的人本化因素。本文通过探讨格老秀斯法权思想中的自然法和国际法理论,分析格老秀斯法权思想中所表现的人道主义、正义、自由、道德和普世主义等人本化因素的内容,为当前中国社会的转型提供参考。     

Equity before ‘Equity’

The notion of ‘equity’ is undergoing conceptual repositioning in international law today, embracing individuals as well as states and gaining an association with human rights and the politics of protest. In the context of these developments, the present paper enquires into the premodern roots of this ancient and rich term through three historical vignettes: first, the emergence of aequitas in Roman law – as a source of law anchored in analogy and empathy – and in particular its relevance to the ambiguous status of slaves; second, the importance of ‘natural equity’ to the consolidation of ‘natural rights’ during the Franciscan poverty debate in 14th century Europe, and finally, ‘common equity’ in the rights-based constitutional order proposed by the Levellers in 1640s England. In its root sense, I conclude, what we might call ‘radical equity’ has historically lent itself to trenchant critique of the law, centred on the individual as subject of right.     

All Bark and No Bite: Notes on the Federal Constitutional Court's 'Banana Decision'

The Federal Constitutional Court's banana decision of 7 June 2000 continues the complex theme of national fundamental‐rights control over Community law. Whereas in the ‘Solange II’ decision (BVerfGE 73, 339) the Federal Constitutional Court had lowered its standard of review to the general guarantee of the constitutionally mandatorily required minimum, the Maastricht judgment (BVerfGE 89, 155) had raised doubts as to the continued validity of this case law. In the banana decision, which was based on the submission of the EC banana market regulation by the Frankfurt‐am‐Main administrative court for constitutional review, the Federal Constitutional Court has now confirmed the ‘Solange II’decision and restrictively specified the admissibility conditions for constitutional review of Community law as follows. Constitutional complaints and judicial applications for review of European legislation alleging fundamental‐rights infringements are inadmissible unless they show that the development of European law including Court of Justice case law has since the ‘Solange II’ decision generally fallen below the mandatorily required fundamental‐rights standard of the Basic Law in a given field. This would require a comprehensive comparison of European and national fundamental‐rights protection. This paper criticises this formula as being logically problematic and scarcely compatible with the Basic Law. Starting from the position that national constitutional courts active even in European matters should be among the essential vertical ‘checks and balances’ in the European multi‐level system, a practical alternative to the Federal Constitutional Court's retreat is developed. This involves at the first stage a submission by the Federal Constitutional Court to the Court of Justice, something that in the banana case might have taken up questions on the method of fundamental‐rights review and the internal Community effect of WTO dispute settlement decisions. Should national constitutional identity not be upheld even by this, then at a second stage, as ultima ratio taking recourse to general international law, the call is made for the decision of constitutional conflicts by an independent mediating body.