Christian Tomuschat

Evelyne Lagrange

Stefan Oeter

The right to life is the cornerstone of human rights protection. This book explores the mechanisms and procedures through which at international level the attempt is made to safeguard human life against all structural threats, even in armed conflict.

The Right to Life

Christian J. Tams

Andreas Zimmermann

Karin Oellers-Frahm

The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and plays a central role in both the peaceful settlement of international disputes and the development of international law. This comprehensive Commentary on the Statute of the International Court of Justice, now in its second edition, analyses in detail not only the Statute of the Court itself but also the related provisions of the United Nations Charter as well as the relevant provisions of the Court's Rules of Procedure. Five years after the first edition was published, the second edition of the Commentary embraces current events before the International Court of Justice as well as before other courts and tribunals relevant for the interpretation and application of its Statute. The Commentary provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of all legal questions and issues the Court has had to address in the past and will have to address in the future. It illuminates the central issues of procedure and substance that the Court and counsel appearing before it face in their day-to-day work. In addition to commentary covering all of the articles of the Statute of the ICJ, plus the relevant articles of the Charter of the United Nations, the book includes three scene-setting chapters: Historical Introduction, General Principles of Procedural Law, and Discontinuation and Withdrawal. The second edition of the Commentary adds two important and instructive chapters on Counter-Claims and Evidentiary Issues. The combination of expert editors and commentators, and their assessment of new developments in the important work of the ICJ, make this a landmark publication in the field of international law.

A Commentary

The Statute of the International Court of Justice

"Modern Law of Self-Determination" examines the significance of the right to self-determination in the new world order. For decades, self-determination was seen as a right of colonial peoples. Now the decolonization process has come to an end, its scope and meaning need to be re-examined. Increasingly, the ethnic groups within established nation States claim some separate political status. In extreme cases of persecution of an ethnic group by a ruling majority, secession may provide the only viable remedy to resolve the conflict. However, international law cannot promote a general Balkanization' of the globe. The legitimate interests of all ethnic groups should be accommodated within the framework of existing States. Self-determination, which today is predominantly understood as implying a right to independent statehood, may have to be re-interpreted as conferring no more than a right to autonomy or federal statehood. Such a conception is in line with a modern tendency that highlights the necessary internal dimension of self-determination. "Modern Law of Self-Determination" is based on papers delivered at a conference in Bonn in August 1992 which have been updated and reviewed by the authors in light of the discussions following their presentation.

Modern law and self-determination

By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, this text provides an overview of human rights. After briefly examining the history of human rights, the author analyses the intellectual framework that forms the basis of their legitimacy.

Between Idealism and Realism

Human Rights

Albrecht Randelzhofer

The book reviews the modern tendency to recognize individuals aggrieved by a (grave) violation of their rights as holders of claims to reparation directly under international law. Indeed, the European as well as the American Convention on Human Rights empower the relevant Courts to grant appropriate compensation to any person whose complaint is successful. Under general international law, however, this tendency still lacks solid foundations, although a draft declaration currently pending before the UN Human Rights Commission ('van Boven Principles') would confirm the individual's entitlement to reparation as a matter of international law. Likewise, some US Courts have already tried to entertain suits against foreign States in instances of egregious human rights violations. At first glance, to accept persons victims of grave violations as actors at the level of international law seems to be a big step forward, strengthening significantly the regime of human rights. Yet care must be taken not to lose sight of the advantages of the traditional configuration according to which the State alone is entitled to assert reparation claims in cases where its nationals have suffered injury at the hands of another State. In particular, the consequences of developments of catastrophic dimensions like wars cannot be sensibly settled in the same way as any other tort claim. At the inter-State level, in particular, globalization of reparation is indispensable. To apply the simple maxim that all the consequences of an internationally wrongful act must be wiped out would in many instances be tantamount to negating the possibility ever to make a fresh start after a devastating international conflict.

Reparation in Instances of Grave Violations of Human Rights

State Responsibility and the Individual

A Legal Assessment

Kosovo and the International Community

Christian Walter

Textsammlung

Völkerrecht

This third edition of Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism presents human rights in action, focusing on their effectiveness as legal tools designed to benefit human beings. By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, this volume provides a multidimensional overview of human rights. After examining briefly the history of human rights, the author analyses the intellectual framework that forms the basis of their legitimacy. In particular, he covers the concept of universality and the widely used model that classifies human rights into clusters of different 'generations'. In this edition, the author brings together the fundamental aspects of human rights law, addressing human dignity as the ethical foundation of human rights, the principle of equality and non-discrimination as the essence of any culture of human rights, the protections against racial discrimination and discrimination against women, and assesses the individual as a subject of international law. The volume then moves on to assess the activities of the political institutions of the United Nations, the expert bodies established by the relevant treaties, and the international tribunals specifically entrusted at the regional level with protecting human rights. This edition also includes specific analysis of the actions mandated by the UN Security Council against Libya in 2011. It also includes greater coverage of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. The author explains how and why the classical array of politically inspired informal devices has been enriched by the addition of international criminal procedures and by endeavors to introduce civil suits against alleged individual violators of human rights. Finally, the volume is rounded off by a consideration of the importance of humanitarian law as an instrument for the protection of human life and dignity and an exploration of the future of human rights.

Marcelo Kohen

Conciliation has recently seen a successful revival. It provides States with a flexible remedy to peacefully settle their disputes with neighbouring States. The most prominent mechanism for that purpose is the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, unused until today.

Conciliation Revisited

Flexibility in International Dispute Settlement

Riccardo Pisillo Mazzeschi

Daniel Thürer

This volume collects the materials underlying the International Colloquium “Conciliation in the Globalized World of Today“, held on 11 and 12 June 2015 in Vienna under the auspices of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE. The aim of the Colloquium was to examine the merits and possible shortcomings of this method of conflict resolution, and it concluded that the pros heavily outweigh the cons.

The OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration

Conciliation in International Law

Jean Marc Thouvenin

This work, the outgrowth of a joint reflection by French and German international lawyers, attempts to reconceptualize the doctrine of hierarchy in international law by emphasizing that a clear distinction should be drawn between primary rules, which encapsulate precepts for the protection of the basic values of the international community, and secondary rules, which determine the regime of legal consequences flowing from a breach of such rules of conduct.

Christian Tomuschat

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