Resisting United Nations Security Council Resolutions

Liverpool Law Review -     

Implementing Security Council Resolutions in Hong Kong: An Examination of the United Nations Sanctions Ordinance

The United Nations Sanctions Ordinance is the primary legalbasis of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)for implementing the United Nations Security Council's resolutions.However, there are concerns that the Ordinance is potentiallyviolating the separation of powers in its delegation of regulation-makingauthority to the executive. There are also criticisms againstthe expediency of the Ordinance as a mechanism for enforcingSecurity Council sanctions. Against this background, this paperattempts to examine the separation of powers doctrine, its placein HKSAR's constitutional system and its relevance to the Ordinance.On the issue of expediency, this paper focuses on the scopeand speed of implementing the sanctions, and the human rightsand criminal justice problems it involves. For comparative purposes,references are to be made to the law of the USA, Canada andSingapore.     

When Worlds Collide: Enforcing United Nations Security Council Asset Freezes in the EU Legal Order

Asset freezes are since 2000 being applied by the United Nations (UN) Security Council (SC) to non-state actors. This came about as a 'mutation' of the sanctions program initiated by Resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000) and 1390 (2002): currently the targets are only supected terrorists or terrorism financiers.
This 'mutation' has created perplexities and problems, namely for the EU, which enforces UN SC Resolutions by a combination of first and second pillar methods. The main problem concerns issues of fundamental rights, currently being litigated.
The debate on the compatibility of the current practice of UN SC asset freezing within EU law takes place amidst a fundamental lack of clarity as to the exact purposes and operational objectives of such freezes. It is argued that this practice amounts to an ad hoc (para-)criminal procedure measure, enacted by political bodies rather than courts, and without judicial oversight.
The current UN SC practice of asset freezing against non-state actors breaches the right to judicial review, as well as the presumption of innocence. If this practice it is to continue at all, methods that make it fully compatible with the rule of law must be adopted. Especially, their renewal ad aeternum should not be possible.     

Food Security and the Right to Food in the Discourse of the United Nations

Abstract: The definition of food security now most commonly used, that of the 1996 World Food Summit, bears considerable resemblance to the definition of the right to food. Yet a right-to-food based approach to food security is distinct from other approaches to reducing hunger and malnutrition and complements food security considerations with dignity, rights acknowledgment, transparency, accountability, and empowerment concerns. It is based on an a priori commitment to the value of human dignity and makes the individual an agent of change in a way that enables him or her to hold governments accountable and to seek redress for violations of his or her rights. A right-to-food approach is not based on vague and replaceable policy goals subject to periodic redefinition, but on existing, comparatively specific and continuously becoming more precise obligations undertaken by governments. Therefore, the right to food cannot only be regarded as a means to achieve food security, but must be seen as a wider, more encompassing, and distinct objective in itself. Realizing the right to food should, furthermore, be part and parcel of rights-based approaches to development that aim to implement all human rights obligations which States have committed themselves to under human rights law.     

The United Nations,the United States,and the War on Terrorism

Since the moment the United Nations was created, the Americans have had certain expectations of it, which logically follow from their past.     

The Security Council in the Face of Genocide

The genocide in Rwanda will define for our generation the failureto intervene in the face of mass human rights abuses. The UNSecurity Council (the Council) was intimately involved in thisterrible event, with the decisions it took from October 1993,when a peacekeeping mission was created for Rwanda, having adecisive effect on what happened. This article details the crucialmeetings held by the Council in secret and informal sessionsand describes how a serious assessment of the situation in Rwandawas simply missing. It shows how the peacekeepers of the Council'smission to Rwanda were abandoned during the genocide and howthe efforts of these UN personnel to ease the suffering of theRwandan people were ignored by the Great Powers.     

Of Shaming and Bargaining: African States and the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United Nations HumanRights Council promises to be a useful tool for examining humanrights situations in states in an objective, non-selective,universal and transparent manner. It is an undertaking imbuedwith a shift from the former Commission's policies and practiceof shaming to a new consensual and cooperative model of humanrights evaluation. The experience of African countries, bothduring the negotiation over its normative and institutionalframework and in the two sessions of the Working Group on UPR,lays bare the challenges to the new human rights body and itsunique peer review mechanism. The article critically examinesthe participation of African countries in the UPR and highlightssome of the issues that deserve, at this early stage, the attentionof all those who mind to see the objectives of the UPR fullyrealised.     

The United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which came into force on 3 May 2008, marks the culmination of over five years of negotiations between States Parties and non-governmental organisations as to what constitute the human rights of and governmental obligations to individuals with disabilities. It differs from other Conventions in that, while it still sets out general rights, it also details the steps that should be taken to ensure equality of treatment. This column provides a general overview of the Convention, focusing in particular on Art 25 which sets out the right to health and Australia's obligations under the Convention.     

论联合国豁免的放弃

联合国组织在一定条件下放弃豁免,是《联合国特权与豁免公约》及有关国际法律文件明确规定的一项国际法律制度,这项制度美系到相美国际组织能否享有豁免以便履行职能和实现目的。同时也关系到与国际组织有关的其他各方,尤其是与国际组织交往的私人在国际组织一旦侵犯其权利的情况下能否得到救济。因此,国际组织放弃豁免是一项非常重要的国际法律制度。联合国豁免的放弃必须由其有权机关作出相应的意思表示。不论是民事行为,还是刑事行为,其豁免都是可以放弃的。联合国等国际组织放弃豁免的权利。同时也构成其必须履行的一项义务。