DERECHO GLOBAL

Cambio de dirección

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:20:00 +0000

El blog "Derecho Global" cambia de dirección: a partir de hoy, publicaremos las actualizaciones en la nueva página www.derechoglobalizado.wordpress.com.

CIDH anuncia Primer Foro sobre el Fortalecimiento del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:14:00 +0000

Washington, D.C. - La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) anuncia la realización del Primer Foro sobre el Fortalecimiento del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, el 22 de agosto de 2012 en la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia. Este foro es co-organizado por la CIDH con la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana y la Agencia Nacional de Defensa Jurídica del Estado de Colombia.
El Foro de Bogotá será instalado por el presidente de Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, y contará con la participación del Presidente de la CIDH, José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez.

Entre los panelistas estarán el Comisionado de la CIDH y ex Presidente de la Corte Constitucional de Colombia, Rodrigo Escobar Gil, el Vicepresidente de la CorteIDH, Manuel Ventura-Robles, y el ex Presidente de la CorteIDH Pedro Nikken. Participarán también el director de la Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, Gustavo Gallón, el magistrado del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos Luis López Guerra, y el director de posgrados de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas de la Universidad Javeriana, Luis Fernando Alvarez Londoño. Los panelistas debatirán el tema “El futuro del sistema interamericano de derechos humanos”, en dos módulos separados, los cuales serán coordinados por el Director de la Agencia Nacional de Defensa Jurídica del Estado, Fernando Carrillo Flórez, y por el magistrado de la Corte Constitucional de Colombia y juez electo de la CorteIDH, Humberto Sierra Porto. El evento será clausurado por la Ministra de Relaciones Exteriores de Colombia, María Ángela Holguín, y por la Ministra de Justicia y del Derecho, Ruth Stella Correa.
El foro de Bogotá será el primero de una serie de eventos subregionales sobre el fortalecimiento de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, los cuales tendrán lugar entre agosto y septiembre de este año. Estos eventos forman parte de un estudio profundo que la CIDH conduce de manera diligente a fin de revisar y perfeccionar sus normas, políticas y prácticas para una mejor protección de los derechos humanos de todas las personas en la región.

La CIDH es un órgano principal y autónomo de la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA), cuyo mandato surge de la Carta de la OEA y de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos. La Comisión Interamericana tiene el mandato de promover la observancia de los derechos humanos en la región y actúa como órgano consultivo de la OEA en la materia. La CIDH está integrada por siete miembros independientes que son elegidos por la Asamblea General de la OEA a título personal, y no representan sus países de origen o residencia.

Fuente: Organización de los Estados Americanos.

Enlace para el proceso de reforma de la Corte.

El actual proceso de reforma de la CIDH: nuevas formas para viejos intentos

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:09:00 +0000

Autor(a): David Lovatón Palacios

Una vez más la reforma de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (en adelante CIDH), ha sido y sigue siendo objeto de debate en el seno de la Organización de Estados Americanos (en adelante OEA) por parte de los Estados miembros. En el año 2011 ello se concretó en la conformación del “Grupo de Trabajo especial de reflexión sobre el funcionamiento de la Comisión interamericana de derechos humanos para el fortalecimiento del sistema interamericano de derechos humanos”, creado por el Consejo permanente de la OEA en su sesión ordinaria del 29 de junio del 2011, a partir, por un lado, de una sugerencia formulada por el Ministro de relaciones exteriores de El Salvador y Presidente del Cuadragésimo Primer Periodo Ordinario de Sesiones de la Asamblea General de la OEA llevada a cabo en San Salvador en junio del 2011.

Por otro lado, la otra razón –o la razón de fondo– que gatilló la conformación de este Grupo de Trabajo especial (en adelante GT), fue la presentación en marzo del 2011, por parte de la CIDH, de una propuesta de reforma del artículo 11° de su Reglamento, referido al procedimiento de selección y designación del Secretario Ejecutivo de la CIDH y que, inicialmente, no fue bien recibida por la Secretaría General de la OEA ni por algunos Estados miembros. El 13 de Diciembre del 2011, el GT aprobó un Informe final que puso a consideración del Consejo permanente de la OEA, el cual lo debatió y aprobó en su sesión del 25 de Enero del 2012.

Por otro lado, la Asamblea General de la OEA también solicitó al Comité Jurídico Interamericano (CJI) –órgano consultivo de la OEA en asuntos jurídicos y con sede en Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) –, una opinión en este proceso de reflexión sobre la reforma del SIDH, en especial, en torno a la CIDH. Así, el CJI emitió el Informe “Fortalecimiento del sistema interamericano de protección y promoción de los derechos humanos” de fecha 9 de marzo del 2012.

Finalmente, la Asamblea General de la OEA, llevada a cabo en Cochabamba (Bolivia) a principios de junio del 2012, aprobó una Resolución que, entre otros aspectos, dispone “… acoger el informe del GT aprobado por el Consejo Permanente el 25 de enero de 2012... encargar al Consejo Permanente que, sobre la base del informe, formule propuestas para su aplicación en diálogo con todas las partes involucradas...y en el plazo de 6 meses, o a más tardar en el primer trimestre de 2013, dichas propuestas se pondrán a la consideración de una AG extraordinaria".

1.       El contexto: un viejo debate que no se da en el vacío
Como adelantamos en la Introducción, la reforma de la CIDH no es un debate ni una reflexión recientes; desde hace muchos años y con algunos hitos o “picos” de polémica, los Estados miembros y los órganos políticos de la OEA vienen formulando diversos cuestionamientos y planteamientos en torno al SIDH, siempre con el declarado propósito formal de fortalecerlo o consolidarlo. Muestra de ello es el “Proceso de Reflexión sobre el Sistema Interamericano de Promoción y Protección de los Derechos Humanos” a cargo de la Comisión de Asuntos Jurídicos y Políticos (CAJP) de la OEA y sucesivas resoluciones de la Asamblea General. El Perú, como Estado miembro, ha participado activamente en estos debates desde que Antero Flores Araoz fue embajador del Perú ante la OEA y hasta la actualidad, en que Walter Albán Peralta ocupa ese cargo.

Si bien el propósito formalmente declarado de todos los Estados miembros y de los órganos políticos de la OEA durante este largo proceso de reflexión en torno a la reforma del SIDH, siempre ha sido su fortalecimiento o perfeccionamiento, el contexto político en el que se han dado algunas de estas propuestas o cuestionamientos al funcionamiento del SIDH parecen ir en sentido contrario, esto es, a debilitar o neutralizar a la CIDH. En el caso concreto de este último episodio reformador que tuvo lugar el 2011 en el seno del GT creado por el Consejo permanente, las declaraciones o intervenciones públicas de algunos Jefes de Estado del continente, representantes diplomáticos y de hasta el propio Secretario General de la OEA, reflejaron más bien un balance negativo y crítico del funcionamiento de la CIDH y la necesidad de limitar –y no necesariamente fortalecer– su actuación. Esta constatación no quiere decir que hay otros Estados miembros con una genuina preocupación y voluntad por fortalecer y perfeccionar el funcionamiento del SIDH.

En el caso del Perú, reaccionó duramente cuando la CIDH lo demandó ante la Corte interamericana de derechos humanos en el caso “Chavín de Huántar” por la supuesta ejecución extrajudicial de tres emerretistas rendidos, luego del operativo militar de rescate de los rehenes que el MRTA mantenía secuestrados en la casa del Embajador del Japón en Lima. Al respecto, el Ministro de Justicia, Juan Jiménez Mayor, consideró absurda dicha demanda y anunció que el Perú planteará ante la OEA la restructuración de las competencias de esta Comisión, con el apoyo de otros países que también han formulado cuestionamientos a la CIDH: “No es objetivo del Gobierno el retiro del Perú del Sistema Interamericano, lo que se está planteando aquí es el pedido de reestructuración de competencia de la Comisión Interamericana. Ese es el punto, queremos debatir como Estado ante foros internacionales y ante la propia Asamblea General de la OEA…”.

En ese sentido, independientemente de la auténtica voluntad de algunos Estados, representaciones diplomáticas ante la OEA, funcionarios y organizaciones de sociedad civil, para fortalecer y perfeccionar la CIDH, la interpretación del Informe Final del GT que fue aprobado por el Consejo Permanente de la OEA en su sesión del 25 de Enero del 2012, no puede desligarse de este contexto político. Así por ejemplo, algunas de las recomendaciones contenidas en dicho Informe Final del GT, en apariencia generales y abstractas, deben merecer una especial atención para determinar si, finalmente, pueden ser interpretadas o estar dirigidas a socavar –en vez de fortalecer- la labor de la CIDH.

2.       Algunas consideraciones sobre el Informe Final del GT
Un primer gran aspecto a resaltar en este último proceso de reflexión en torno a la reforma del SIDH, es que muchos de los contenidos y propuestas de los Estados miembros no son nuevos sino que ya han sido planteadas con anterioridad en similares procesos de reflexión. Sobre el particular, cabe recordar que “… el proceso de reflexión sobre el funcionamiento de la CIDH, se abre a tan solo dos años de la adopción por parte de los órganos del SIDH de las reformas a sus Reglamentos (en diciembre del 2009). Las posiciones entonces mantenidas por algunos Estados respecto al Reglamento de la CIDH no estaban siempre orientadas a su fortalecimiento, sino en muchas ocasiones a disminuir el alcance de protección ofrecido por dicho órgano… Ahora bien, numerosas de las propuestas que los Estados realizaron entonces, y que fueron ampliamente consideradas por los órganos del SIDH en aquella ocasión, vuelven a estar incluidas como recomendaciones en el Informe del Grupo de Trabajo.”.

Un segundo aspecto a resaltar en relación al Informe Final del GT, son los grandes temas que están ausentes en su contenido y que, sin embargo, son cruciales para el fortalecimiento y perfeccionamiento del SIDH. Nos referimos, por ejemplo, a elevar sustancialmente los niveles de cumplimiento de las decisiones del SIDH por parte de los propios Estados miembros; a reglamentar mejor y transparentar la elección de los comisionados de la CIDH y los jueces de la Corte por parte de la Asamblea General de la OEA; a perfeccionar los espacios de participación de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil; entre otros.

Al respecto, si bien siempre se ha comentado en el ámbito interamericano el extendido incumplimiento de las decisiones del SIDH por parte de los Estados, una investigación publicada en la Revista SUR de Brasil en el año 2010, demuestra empíricamente el alto índice de incumplimiento, total o parcial, de las decisiones del SIDH en el periodo que fue materia objeto de investigación (2001-2006). Así, sólo el 36% de las decisiones del SIDH fueron cumplidas totalmente por los Estados, en tanto que el 50% de las mismas fueron incumplidas en su totalidad por los Estados y un 14% fueron acatadas tan sólo en forma parcial por los mismos.

Por su parte, la CIDH, en su Informe anual 2010, en cuanto al nivel de cumplimiento de sus recomendaciones por parte de los Estados miembros, reportó que tan sólo 22 de las mismas habían sido objeto de “cumplimiento total”, otras 93 recomendaciones habían merecido tan sólo “cumplimiento parcial” y, finalmente, 28 recomendaciones estaban “pendientes de cumplimiento”, es decir, aún no habían sido acatadas por los Estados ni total ni parcialmente.

En su Informe anual 2011, la CIDH reportó que tan sólo 26 de sus recomendaciones habían sido objeto de “cumplimiento total” por parte de los Estados miembros, en tanto que 98 recomendaciones habían sido objeto de “cumplimiento parcial” y otras 31 recomendaciones estaban “pendientes de cumplimiento” por parte de los Estados miembros.

Por ende, estamos frente a un sistema supranacional de protección de los derechos humanos   con un serio problema de incumplimiento de sus decisiones por parte de los mismos Estados que lo crearon y se sometieron voluntariamente a él. Sin embargo, el Informe Final del GT no aborda esta grave situación ni recomienda medidas concretas a los Estados miembros para revertirla, a pesar que el Informe Final del GT identifica –contradictoriamente- que entre los principales desafíos del SIDH está “asegurar el pleno cumplimiento de las recomendaciones y decisiones de los órganos del mismo”.

Un tercer aspecto del Informe Final del GT que llama poderosamente la atención y que guarda relación con el anterior, es la desproporción entre las numerosas medidas que sugiere a la CIDH, en comparación con las escasas medidas que sugiere a los Estados miembros. En efecto, mientras que el GT formula un total de 53 recomendaciones a la CIDH, sólo formula 13 recomendaciones a los Estados miembros y sólo una al Secretario General de la OEA. Es más, en los temas i) aspectos procedimentales del trámite de peticiones individuales, ii) soluciones amistosas y iii) Capítulo IV del Informe Anual de la CIDH, el GT no formula recomendación alguna a los Estados miembros.

Esta desproporción resulta absolutamente contradictoria con lo declarado en forma expresa por el propio Informe Final del GT, en el sentido que reafirma el rol subsidiario del SIDH respecto a los sistema nacionales de justicia y, por ende, el papel protagónico que también deberían desempeñar los Estados miembros en el fortalecimiento del SIDH a través de diversas políticas o medidas como, por ejemplo, mejorar el cumplimiento de las decisiones de la CIDH y de la Corte interamericana en el ámbito interno. Así es, “El Grupo de Trabajo reconoció que la promoción y protección de los derechos humanos en el continente es una responsabilidad primaria de los Estados Miembros, resaltando la función complementaria o subsidiaria del SIDH, según sea el caso, con los esfuerzos nacionales. Se consideró que sólo mediante la asociación y colaboración entre todos los actores del SIDH puede avanzarse hacia una verdadera cultura de respeto de los derechos fundamentales en la región.”.

3.       Algunas reflexiones finales

3.1.¿El SIDH favorece demasiado a los peticionarios?
Una de las críticas que algunos Estados miembros suelen formular en contra de la Comisión y de la Corte, es que el sistema interamericano favorecería demasiado a los peticionarios, en la excesiva admisibilidad de las peticiones, en el extendido otorgamiento de medidas cautelares, en el excesivo envío de casos a la Corte, en las disposiciones reglamentarias o criterios jurisprudenciales a favor de los peticionarios, en la mayoría de sentencias en las que la Corte encuentra responsable a los Estados por violación de la Convención Americana, entre otras.

Sin embargo, ninguna de esas críticas tiene sustento en la realidad y, por el contrario, hay data que demuestra que del total de peticiones un reducido número de las mismas es finalmente merecedor de un informe de admisibilidad por parte de la CIDH; igualmente, que un reducido número de medidas cautelares solicitadas son, finalmente, concedidas por la Comisión; que, por el contrario, podría ser mayor el número de casos que la CIDH remita a la Corte y que, si bien es verdad que gran parte de las disposiciones reglamentarias y criterios jurisprudenciales son favorables a los peticionarios (como por ejemplo, la inversión de la carga de la prueba a favor del peticionario), no hay que olvidar que como todo sistema de protección de derechos humanos, está diseñado precisamente para proteger a las posibles víctimas respecto a las posibles violaciones que puedan cometer los Estados y no al revés. Esa es su esencia, su naturaleza.

En el caso del Perú, por ejemplo, tal como lo muestra el cuadro anterior, en el 2011 la CIDH aceptó a trámite sólo 33 peticiones (16%), frente a 173 peticiones (84%) que no aceptó a trámite.

3.2.A mayor precariedad de los sistemas de justicia nacionales, mayor recurrencia al SIDH
Otra de las críticas que suele escucharse por parte de los Estados miembros en contra del SIDH, es su excesivo protagonismo en la defensa de los derechos humanos y la democracia frente a ciertos países. En el caso del Perú, diversos medios de comunicación, parlamentarios y funcionarios gubernamentales, critican duramente al sistema interamericano por inmiscuirse –supuestamente en exceso- en los asuntos internos de nuestro país, condenando al Perú en casos muy controversiales como “Castro Castro” o “Chavín de Huántar” y tratando a una democracia como si aún fuera una dictadura.

Al respecto, sin duda son casos muy difíciles porque tocan cuerdas muy sensibles de la opinión pública nacional en relación a la barbarie terrorista de Sendero Luminoso y el MRTA. Sin embargo, es importante incorporar a este debate un elemento que suele pasar desapercibido en el continente: la debilidad y precariedad de nuestros sistemas de justicia nacionales, los que en ocasiones no logran investigar, juzgar y condenar graves violaciones de derechos humanos dentro de un plazo razonable y que es lo que, finalmente, genera que un sistema de justicia supranacional y subsidiario como el interamericano, se vea en la necesidad de intervenir para proteger los derechos humanos consagrados en la Convención Americana y los demás instrumentos interamericanos y que son obligaciones internacionales que libre y soberanamente los Estados miembros se comprometieron a respetar.

Por ello, consideramos que existe la siguiente relación proporcional entre los sistemas de justicia nacionales y el sistema interamericano: a mayor debilidad y precariedad de los primeros, mayor intervención y protagonismo por parte del SIDH. A la inversa, conforme los sistemas de justicia nacionales se vayan consolidando y legitimando en sus respectivas sociedades, la intervención del sistema interamericano creemos que tenderá a reducirse, dado el carácter subsidiario del SIDH. Un aspecto importante de dicha consolidación de los sistemas de justicia nacionales, no sólo será su eficacia y legitimidad en casos de graves violaciones de derechos humanos, sino también que vayan incorporando en las decisiones de las altas Cortes y en las decisiones de los otros Poderes del Estado y de los órganos constitucionales autónomos, los estándares y decisiones de la Comisión y la Corte interamericanas. Esto último es, además, un viejo reclamo no sólo de los órganos del SIDH sino también de las organizaciones de sociedad civil del continente, en el sentido que la vigencia y cumplimiento del SIDH no debe esperar el pronunciamiento de sus órganos sino que debe comenzar en la jurisprudencia y legislación nacionales.

Fuente: Justicia Viva

José Ovalle Favela: La influencia de la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: En el derecho interno de los estados latinoamericanos

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:02:00 +0000

Boletín Mexicano de Derecho Comparado, nueva serie, año XLV, núm. 134, mayo agosto de 2012, pp. 595-623.
Resumen: En este trabajo el autor analiza la influencia de la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en la evolución reciente del derecho interno de los Estados latinoamericanos. Para este fin se ocupa de la creación y funciones de la Comisión Interamericana y la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. De esta última, estudia su integración y su competencia, tanto consultiva como contenciosa, así como las características de su jurisprudencia. También aborda el tema del control de la convencionalidad tanto en sede internacional, que ejerce la Corte Interamericana, cuanto a la que en sede nacional o interna compete a los poderes internos de cada Estado, particularmente a los jueces. Por último, el autor analiza cinco casos específicos.

Fuente: Biblioteca Jurídica Virtual

Gaines, Olsen, & Sørensen: Liberalising Trade in the EU and the WTO: A Legal Comparison

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Sanford E. Gaines (Aarhus Universitet), Birgitte Egelund Olsen (Aarhus Universitet), & Karsten Engsig Sørensen (Aarhus Universitet) have published Liberalising Trade in the EU and the WTO: A Legal Comparison (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This comparison of EU and WTO approaches to common trade-liberalisation challenges brings together eighteen authors from Europe and America. Together they explore fundamental legal issues, such as the role of general principles of law, the role of the judiciary in the development of law, the effect of the principle of non-discrimination and the elimination of non-discriminatory barriers to trade. The contributions also examine the most recent developments in trade law across a full range of trade issues, including TBT and SPS, services, intellectual property, customs rules, safeguards, anti-dumping and government procurement. Adopting a comparative perspective throughout, this volume sheds light on today's trade law and suggests paths forward for each system through the perennial tensions between open, non-discriminatory trade and strongly held national values and objectives.

Source: International Law Reporter

Cohen: Globalization and Sovereignty: Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy, and Constitutionalism

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:50:00 +0000

Jean L. Cohen (Columbia Univ. - Political Science) has published Globalization and Sovereignty: Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy, and Constitutionalism (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012). Here's the abstract:

Sovereignty and the sovereign state are often seen as anachronisms; Globalization and Sovereignty challenges this view. Jean L. Cohen analyzes the new sovereignty regime emergent since the 1990s evidenced by the discourses and practice of human rights, humanitarian intervention, transformative occupation, and the UN targeted sanctions regime that blacklists alleged terrorists. Presenting a systematic theory of sovereignty and its transformation in international law and politics, Cohen argues for the continued importance of sovereign equality. She offers a theory of a dualistic world order comprised of an international society of states, and a global political community in which human rights and global governance institutions affect the law, policies, and political culture of sovereign states. She advocates the constitutionalization of these institutions, within the framework of constitutional pluralism. This book will appeal to students of international political theory and law, political scientists, sociologists, legal historians, and theorists of constitutionalism.

Source: International Law Reporter

Evans: The Right to Reparation in International Law for Victims of Armed Conflict

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:46:00 +0000

Christine Evans (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) has published The Right to Reparation in International Law for Victims of Armed Conflict (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012).

Here's the abstract:
In this evaluation of the international legal standing of the right to reparation and its practical implementation at the national level, Christine Evans outlines State responsibility and examines the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, the Articles on State Responsibility of the International Law Commission and the convergence of norms in different branches of international law, notably human rights law, humanitarian law and international criminal law. Case studies of countries in which the United Nations has played a significant role in peace negotiations and post-conflict processes allow her to analyse to what extent transitional justice measures have promoted State responsibility for reparations, interacted with human rights mechanisms and prompted subsequent elaboration of domestic legislation and reparations policies. In conclusion, she argues for an emerging customary right for individuals to receive reparations for serious violations of human rights and a corresponding responsibility of States.

Source: International Law Reporter

Benvenisti & Downs: Prospects for the Increased Independence of International Tribunals

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:40:00 +0000

Eyal Benvenisti (Tel Aviv Univ. - Law) & George W. Downs (New York Univ. - Politics) have posted Prospects for the Increased Independence of International Tribunals (German Law Journal, Vol. 12, No. 5, 2011). Here's the abstract:

In this essay we draw upon the theoretical and empirical literatures on the evolution of court independence within modern democratic states to identify aspects of their political environments that have fostered judicial independence at the domestic level. We then extend that analysis to examine the role that these or similar factors are likely to play in facilitating the independence and legitimacy of international tribunals at the global level. We focus on two such broad aspects of the global environment not normally associated with the independence of international tribunals: the extent of political division between states that are parties to an international tribunal (interstate competition), and the extent of political division within states between state executives and national courts (inter-branch competition). We suggest further that the conditions that facilitate independence have increased in recent years and are likely to continue to do so.

Source: International Law Reporter

Raustiala: Institutional Proliferation and the International Legal Order

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:33:00 +0000

Kal Raustiala (Univ. of California, Los Angeles - Law) has posted Institutional Proliferation and the International Legal Order (in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations:
The State of the Art, Jeffrey L. Dunoff & Mark A. Pollack eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Since the cataclysm of World War II, the international order has grown increasingly institutionalized. Hundreds of international organizations and tens of thousands of treaties now exist, many with widespread – and in some cases nearly universal – membership. Compared to earlier eras, the international system today is far more densely populated by rules and institutions.
This forthcoming chapter explores institutional density, the conflict and competition such density inevitably creates in an anarchical system of states, and the different ways international lawyers and political scientists address these issues. Is a dense international order a significant problem, a welcome development, or a largely superficial phenomenon? Is density an inadvertent outgrowth of intensifying interdependence, or a deliberate strategy? How does density vary – by issue area, over time, and across regions? These questions represent important lines of thinking that are either under way or incipient in the growing literature on institutional density.

Part I (“The Rise of Institutional Density”) looks at the empirics of institutional density. Part II (“Density: Two Optics”) surveys the emerging scholarship in law and political science. Part III (“The Debate Over Density”) explores some fundamental questions at the heart of this emerging research field. Part IV concludes.

Source: International Law Reporter

Link to download the article

Call for Papers: Interfaces between International and National Legal Orders: An International Rule of Law Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:28:00 +0000

Amsterdam Center for International Law

CALL FOR PAPERS

Interfaces between International and National Legal Orders:
An International Rule of Law Perspective

The Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL) is organising a seminar on 14-15 March 2013 and invites paper proposals from scholars and practitioners of law and related disciplines.

The Seminar Theme
The seminar explores the evolving interfaces between international and national legal orders from the perspective of the international rule of law.

In this seminar, the international rule of law concerns international law regulating states, as well as international institutions and other subjects of international law. The international rule of law could be narrowly defined to encompass procedural requirements, or more broadly to include inter alia human rights, democracy, the separation of powers, and/or accountability.

Background
The interfaces between international and national legal orders are the points where the actors, norms and procedures which form and maintain the two legal orders interact with one another. These interfaces have significantly evolved due to the extension of the subject matter of international law and its impact on domestic regulatory policies. International actors, norms and procedures play significant roles in shaping the rule of law, human rights and democracy in the domestic legal order. Because of this substantive influence, the formal dualistic perspective on international and national legal orders has become increasingly mismatched with the reality of inter-order interfaces.

International scholarship has produced extensive studies to capture the inter-order interfaces primarily from the perspective of national rule of law. Much less recognised is the international perspective, namely, the impact of national law on the rule of law within the international legal order. Given that United Nations General Assembly resolutions also support the rule of law at the international level, the question of whether and how the international rule of law develops through interactions with national law and the national rule of law is worthy of examination.

The relationships between these two branches of the rule of law appear multi-faceted. On the one hand, national implementation and compliance with international law may strengthen the international rule of law, as identified by the UN Secretary-General in his March 2012 report (A/66/749) prepared for the high-level meeting of the General Assembly to be held on 24 September 2012. On the other hand, the domestic avoidance and contestation of international law and the decisions of international institutions could also enhance the international rule of law by signalling deficiencies of international law and international institutions in terms of human rights, democracy, accountability, and overall, the rule of law.

Angles
Against this background, the seminar will address the query as to how the national rule of law and the national reception of international law influence and develop the international rule of law, particularly from the following three angles:

1. The concept of the international rule of law
The broad endorsement states give to the rule of law at the international level is often offset by the conceptual elusiveness of the international rule of law. One fundamental question concerns the extent to which the international rule of law can be conceptually comparable to the national rule of law. Does the international rule of law only signify compliance and procedural requirements or can it include more substantive norms such as human rights, democracy, and the separation of powers? The conceptual comparison between two branches of the rule of law gives rise to the question about the similarities and differences between the authority regulated by the national rule of law on the one hand, and the authority regulated by the international rule of law on the other. For instance, to what extent could the authority exercised by international institutions be compared with that of national governments? What parameters can we use to assess the comparability?

2. The development of the international rule of law through national practices
The domestic application of international law has traditionally contributed to the development of international law in general. It has formed part of new customary international law and treaty interpretation in the form of state practice. It has also served as a basis for general principles of law. Further, the decisions of national courts have been invoked as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of international law.

These classic roles attributed to domestic legal practices, however, may not fully capture their presence in the normative development of the international rule of law. Do national practices, especially those that contest international rules or decisions, have any swing-back effect on the development of the international rule of law? Does national contestation, which appears to undermine the international rule of law, actually facilitate its reform? Also, what impact do national laws and national court decisions have on accountability processes in regard to international institutions, such as the United Nations?

3. Universality, certainty and diversity in the international rule of law
The role of national contestation in the development of the international rule of law gives rise to the further question as to a possible tension between the universality and certainty of the international rule of law on the one hand, and the diversity of national law on the other. The rule of law is traditionally associated with certainty and predictability. But is this a workable standard in light of diversity across legal systems? How does international human rights law, for instance, preserve national diversity while ensuring the universal standards of human rights and their legal certainty? How should the value of relative uniformity and certainty that may be seen as intrinsic in the rule of law be balanced with the value of diversity?

The tension between universality and diversity is related to the question about the legitimacy of international legal principles and rules. Despite the fact that international law has an impact on the domestic rule of law, the international law-making and application processes invite only restricted input from domestic constituencies.
If international law and international dispute settlement procedures suffer from legitimacy problems, should they keep a distance by leaving a ‘margin of discretion’ to the national sphere? Could the expansion of the international rule of law undermine the rule of law at the domestic level, as opposed to strengthening it?
Papers are invited to explore these angles from normative and empirical standpoints in a variety of international law disciplines. These three angles are interrelated, and multiple angles can be addressed within one paper.

Submission of Proposals and the Timeline

Paper proposals should include a description of maximum 500 words and the applicant’s curriculum vitae. Submissions should cover work that has not been previously published.

At the time of the seminar, the invited authors should present a paper of 7,000-8,000 words, excluding references. It is the intention of the organisers to publish the papers in an edited volume.

• Paper proposals should be sent by email to Ms. Martine van Trigt at acil-fdr@uva.nl.
• The deadline is 1 November 2012.
• Selected participants will be informed by 1 December 2012.
• Each participant must submit a paper by 22 February 2013 for distribution to the other participants.
• The seminar takes place on 14-15 March 2013 at the University of Amsterdam.

The sponsoring organisations will cover the speakers’ travelling and accommodation expenses. The seminar is co-sponsored by the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law.

For substantive questions, please contact Dr. Machiko Kanetake at M.Kanetake@uva.nl.

Source: International Law Reporter

Concluye sin acuerdo Conferencia para Tratado sobre Comercio de Armas

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:17:00 +0000

28 de julio, 2012 - La Conferencia para el Tratado sobre Comercio de Armas concluyó anoche sin un acuerdo tras cuatro semanas de negociaciones en las que participaron más de 170 países con el objetivo de regular esa actividad comercial.

Las conversaciones sobre el Tratado —que precisa adoptarse por consenso— continuarán en los próximos meses y el borrador podría ser presentado antes de fin de año a la Asamblea General de la ONU para someterlo a voto, en cuyo caso tendría que obtener la aprobación de dos tercios de los 193 Estados miembros.

Muchos delegados se mostraron decepcionados por no haber alcanzado un acuerdo pero reconocieron que hubo grandes avances y expresaron confianza en que el Tratado se materializará pronto.

Algunos países, entre ellos Estados Unidos y Rusia solicitaron más tiempo para resolver algunas diferencias en la redacción del documento.

El presidente de la Conferencia, Roberto García Moritán, comentó que las delegaciones sabían que iba a ser muy difícil conseguir un Tratado, pero destacó que si bien al inicio de la negociaciones había diferentes puntos de vista por parte de los países, al final de las conversaciones la gran mayoría estaba de acuerdo.

Fuente: UN News Center

Artículo sobre el mismo tema: A Dreafty Treaty?: The Holes in the Draft Arms Trade Treaty, de Global Policy Journal

Kulick: Global Public Interest in International Investment Law

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:11:00 +0000

Andreas Kulick has published Global Public Interest in International Investment Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012). Here's the abstract:

The strengths of international investment law – above all, a strong focus on investor interests and an effective adjudication and enforcement system – also entail its weaknesses: it runs the danger of impeding or even sanctioning the host states' legitimate regulatory interests and ignoring other fields of public international law. How does it cope with public interest concerns such as human rights, the environment or the fight against corruption? At the heart of this book lies a fresh approach towards a general theory of such global public interest considerations in the investment realm. Delineating how and why those considerations matter, and why the current system does not accommodate them properly, Andreas Kulick fleshes out general principles and customary international law as defences the host state may raise against alleged investor rights infringements and promotes proportionality as the appropriate balancing mechanism.

Source: International Law Reporter

Dinniss: Cyber Warfare and the Laws of War

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:03:00 +0000

Heather Harrison Dinniss (Swedish National Defence College) has published Cyber Warfare and the Laws of War (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012). Here's the abstract:

The information revolution has transformed both modern societies and the way in which they conduct warfare. Cyber Warfare and the Laws of War analyses the status of computer network attacks in international law and examines their treatment under the laws of armed conflict. The first part of the book deals with the resort to force by states and discusses the threshold issues of force and armed attack by examining the permitted responses against such attacks. The second part offers a comprehensive analysis of the applicability of international humanitarian law to computer network attacks. By examining the legal framework regulating these attacks, Heather Harrison Dinniss addresses the issues associated with this method of attack in terms of the current law and explores the underlying debates which are shaping the modern laws applicable in armed conflict.

Source: International Law Reporter

Globalización del Derecho. Aspectos jurídicos y derechos humanos, de William Guillermo Jiménez

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:45:00 +0000

En el presente trabajo se explora la relación entre derecho y globalización, con el propósito de establecer futuros campos de investigación. Se inicia con una introducción acerca de los efectos de la globalización sobre el Estado nacional, para pasar luego a una breve mirada sobre el significado de la globalización. En tercer lugar, se presentan los principales temas, problemas y focos de interés encontrados sobre la relación entre derecho y globalización, especialmente el tema de los derechos humanos. Finalmente, se realizan algunas conclusiones, en las que se destaca la importancia de abrir nuevos campos de estudio sobre globalización debido a la necesidad de regulación que requieren los fenómenos globalizados.

Enlace para la publicación: ESAP, Revista Nova et Vetera

El Día de la Justicia Internacional, Más que la Justicia Penal

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:42:00 +0000

Durante la primera Conferencia de Revisión del Estatuto de Roma, llevada a cabo en Kampala, Uganda, en Junio de 2011, los Estados partes decidieron unánimemente reconocer la fecha del 17 de julio como el Día de la Justicia Internacional. Esta fecha conmemora la adopción del Estatuto de Roma, tratado por medio del cual se creó la Corte Penal Internacional, y pretende impulsar el compromiso de los Estados en la lucha contra la impunidad de los crímenes internacionales.

La investigación y sanción de los responsables de graves violaciones de los derechos humanos y del derecho internacional humanitario es importante por razones éticas, jurídicas, políticas e institucionales. La sanción penal contribuye asimismo al restablecimiento del derecho a la justicia y de la dignidad de las víctimas.

Además, son numerosos los argumentos que sostienen que cuando la comisión de graves crímenes permanece impune, se genera desconfianza en la ciudadanía y se debilita el Estado de derecho. Sin embargo, los análisis sobre la impunidad y su impacto no se ocupan de los efectos nocivos que produce la impunidad de hecho, en un marco de promesas de investigación, juzgamiento y sanción de la totalidad de los crímenes cometidos en contextos de violaciones masivas y generalizadas de derechos humanos. El incumplimiento de dichas promesas conlleva la negación del sufrimiento de las víctimas y su revictimización.
En situaciones como la que vive Colombia, que hoy cuenta con más de 4 millones de víctimas (entre ellas 376 mil registradas en la Fiscalía General de la Nación esperando justicia), maximizar los mecanismos de rendición de cuentas debe ser una prioridad para dar respuestas pertinentes y oportunas y reivindicar su dignidad. Esto supone entender que el derecho a la justicia no se agota en la justicia penal, y que en un contexto de masividad de violaciones de derechos humanos como el que caracteriza a Colombia después de casi 50 años de conflicto armado interno, no es posible lograr la investigación y sanción penal de cada uno de los hechos y de cada uno de los perpetradores.

En este sentido, se debe adoptar un enfoque holístico e integral en el que además de la justicia penal, los estados y las sociedades implementen mecanismos no judiciales de rendición de cuentas, de esclarecimiento de la verdad y construcción de la memoria histórica, de reformas institucionales y procesos de depuración cuyo objetivo es separar de su cargo a agentes estatales responsables de violaciones de derechos humanos, y tribunales éticos, entre otros. Todos estos mecanismos se refuerzan unos a otros, garantizando así un enfoque realmente integral de la justicia que permite hacer frente al legado de violaciones de derechos humanos, reconocer la verdad de lo ocurrido y sentar bases sólidas para la no repetición.

En este marco cobra especial importancia la reparación integral. En la Ley de Víctimas (Ley 1448 de 2011), Colombia establece un marco amplio que busca dar coherencia a los diferentes esfuerzos institucionales para la atención y reparación integral a las víctimas. Para que este marco se traduzca en acciones concretas que reconozcan los daños y secuelas de la victimización, den voz a los millones de víctimas silenciados por la guerra y garanticen mejores condiciones de vida para ellas en el presente y en el futuro, es necesario garantizar el goce efectivo de los derechos a la reparación (entendida como indemnización, restitución, rehabilitación, satisfacción y garantías de no repetición), a la verdad y a la no repetición.

Todos estos componentes hacen parte del derecho a la justicia, entendido este de manera integral y con el potencial de producir verdaderas transformaciones.

Fuente: ICTJ

Espósito: Jus Cogens and Jurisdictional Immunities of States at the International Court of Justice: A Conflict Does Exist

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:37:00 +0000

Carlos Espósito (University Autónoma of Madrid - Law) has posted Jus Cogens and Jurisdictional Immunities of States at the International Court of Justice: A Conflict Does Exist (Italian Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 21, 2012). Here's the abstract:

In its judgment of 3 February 2012 in Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy: Greece intervening), the International Court of Justice has considered the relationship between jus cogens and the rule of State immunity. The Court has denied the existence of a jus cogens exception to the rule of State jurisdictional immunities based primarily on the distinction between peremptory norms as rules of substance and jurisdictional immunities as rules of procedure. For the Court, a conflict between rules on jurisdictional immunities, 'essentially procedural in nature,' and substantive rules of jus cogens is conceptually impossible.

This comment presents a critique of the approach and reasoning of the Court regarding the absolute separation between procedural and substantive rules, and supports that a legal conflict may exist between jus cogens and jurisdictional immunities. Moreover, it sustains that the decision of the Court is neither an ideal kind of stability for international law nor an encouraging legal message to national judges dealing with public interest claims arising from serious violations of international law.

Source: International Law Reporter

Mavroidis: Trade in Goods (Second Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Petros Mavroidis (Columbia Univ. - Law) has published the second edition of Trade in Goods (Oxford Univ. Press 2012). Here's the abstract:

This new edition of Trade in Goods is an authoritative work on international trade by one of the most influential scholars in the field. It provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of every WTO agreement dealing with trade in goods. The focus of the book is on the reasoning behind the various WTO agreements and their provisions, and the manner in which they have been understood in practice. It introduces both the historic as well as the economic rationale for the emergence of the multilateral trading system, before dealing with WTO practice in all areas involving trade in goods. It contests the claim that the international trade agreements themselves represent 'incomplete contracts', realized through interpretation by the WTO and other judicial bodies. The book comprehensively analyses the WTO's case law, and it argues that a more rigorous theoretical approach is needed to ensure a greater coherence in the interpretation of the core provisions regulating trade in goods.
This second edition readdresses and moves beyond the discussion of the GATT presented in the first edition to assess in significant detail every trade in goods agreement at the WTO, both multilateral as well as plurilateral. The book is written to be accessible to those new to the field, with an authoritiative level of detail and analysis that makes it essential reading for lawyers and economists alike.

Source: International Law Reporter

Alter: The Multiple Roles of International Courts and Tribunals: Enforcement, Dispute Settlement, Constitutional and Administrative Review

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Karen J. Alter (Northwestern Univ. - Political Science) has posted The Multiple Roles of International Courts and Tribunals: Enforcement, Dispute Settlement, Constitutional and Administrative Review (in International Law and International Relations: Synthesizing Insights from Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Jeffrey L. Dunoff & Mark A. Pollack eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter is part of an upcoming interdisciplinary volume on international law and politics. The chapter defines four judicial roles states have delegated to international courts (ICs) and documents the delegation of dispute settlement, administrative review, enforcement and constitutional review jurisdiction to ICs based on a coding of legal instruments defining the jurisdiction of 25 ICs. I show how the design of ICs varies by judicial role and argue that the delegation of multiple roles to ICs helps explain the shift in IC design to include compulsory jurisdiction and access for nonstate actors to initiate litigation. I am interested in the multiple roles ICs play because they allow us to appreciate the many different contributions ICs make to international politics. ICs do oversee state compliance with international agreements, but this is not all they do. Finally, I explain the relevance of this analysis for two prevalent debates regarding ICs; 1) whether we should conceive of ICs as Agents or Trustees and 2) whether compulsory jurisdiction and private litigant access for ICs inherently features undermine national sovereignty.

Source: International Law Reporter

The Structure of Global Law: Fracture, Fluidity, Permeability, and Polycentricity

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:26:00 +0000

Larry Catá Backer
The Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law
July 1, 2012
CPE Working Paper No. 2012-7

Abstract:

Global law can be understood as the systematization of anarchy, as the management of a loosely intertwined universe of autonomous governance frameworks operating dynamically across borders and grounded in functional differentiation among governance communities. Global law is a way of pointing to an emerging universe of systems that share characteristics and whose interactions lend them to organization; it is the as the law of non-state governance systems. The structure of global law can be understood as an amalgamation of four fundamental characteristics that together define a new order in form that is, in some respects, the antithesis of the orderliness and unity of the law-state system it will displace (though not erase). The essay considers the structure of global law in this context, understood as an amalgamation of four fundamental characteristics that together define a new order in form that is, in some respects, the antithesis of the orderliness and unity of the law-state system it will displace (though not erase). These four fundamental characteristics — fracture, fluidity, permeability, and polycentricity — comprise the fundamental structure of global law. Fracture, fluidity, permeability and polycentricity are the basic characteristics of global law, the systematization of which marks its field boundaries. These also serve as the structural foundations of its constitutional element, its substantive element, and its process element. From that systematization one can derive a method of theorizing the emerging framework of the unity of disunity in governance, in which law and governance systems multiply within a discernible internal logic, while the objects of regulation remain constant. This essay continues work on the evolution of a "law" beyond that of the domestic legal orders of states and the international law frameworks that serve as an expression of state based collective governance. To that extent, it seeks to liberate theory both from the ideological constraints of the state system and as well from the limitations of earlier work in transnational law. To consider the possibility of global law, of law/governance beyond the state, it is necessary to avoid attaching its framework either to the state or to law (as traditionally and narrowly understood as a product of the state).

Source with link for the publication: Social Science Research Nework

Legg: The Margin of Appreciation in International Human Rights Law: Deference and Proportionality

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Andrew Legg (Essex Court Chambers) has published The Margin of Appreciation in International Human Rights Law: Deference and Proportionality (Oxford Univ. Press 2012). Here's the abstract:

The margin of appreciation is a judicial doctrine whereby international courts allow states to have a measure of diversity in their interpretation of human rights treaty obligations. The doctrine is at the heart of some of the most important international human rights decisions. Does it undermine the universality of human rights? How should judges decide whether to give this margin of appreciation to states? How can lawyers make best use of arguments for or against the margin of appreciation?

This book answers these questions, and broadens the discussion on the margin of appreciation by including material beyond the ECHR system. It provides a comprehensive justification of the doctrine, and catalogues the key cases affecting the doctrine in practice.

Source: International Law Reporter

CALL FOR PANELS: 2013 Commission on Legal Pluralism (CLP) conference

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:21:00 +0000

The call for panels for the 2013 Commission on Legal Pluralism (CLP) conference is closing on August 3, 2012.

This conference is organized in conjunction with the IUAES Congress entitled ‘Evolving Humanity, Emerging Worlds’ in Manchester (UK), and will take place on August 5-10, 2013 (see http ://www . iuaes2013 . org/).
Please directly upload your title, a short abstract of less than 300 characters, and a long abstract of less than 250 words, via the IUAES online proposal form. The URL for that form is:
http ://www . nomadit . co . uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panelproposal . php5. The IUAES will not be able to accept panel proposals after that date. Please also note that the title should be appended (IUAES Commission on Legal Pluralism).

Can you also please send an email with the same information to Janine Ubink at j.ubink@law.leidenuniv.nl.
That will allow us to include your panel proposal also on our own website.

We are also currently calling for papers. You can find the panels that have so far been accepted on the following website http ://www . nomadit . co . uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panels . php5?View=General. For uploading a paper proposal, please go to the website and click on the panel you are interested in. Our panels are marked with (IUAES Commission on Legal Pluralism) behind the title.

If you feel your paper does not fit with any of the proposed panels, please send your paper proposal to Janine Ubink (j.m.ubink@law.leidenuniv.nl). Paper proposals should include your title, a short abstract of less than 300 characters, and a long abstract of less than 250 words. The deadline for paper proposals is August 3, 2012.

Source: Juris Diversitas

Time for Democracy 2.0? The Launch of the Manifesto For A Global Democracy

noreply@blogger.com (Lucie) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:30:00 +0000

After decades of democratization across Eastern Europe and Latin America and now the democratic elections taking place in countries like Egypt and Libya in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions – one could be forgiven for thinking that the world is fast becoming a remarkably democratic place.

Sadly, however, this is not the case. Democracy may have grown in form, yet it is retracting in substance. Citizens of many countries have fought so hard for democracy in its traditional sense of free and fair elections and representative politicians, only to discover that, meanwhile, the world has changed so much that this type of democracy - Democracy 1.0 - no longer makes much sense in the globalized, interconnected, borderless world in which we now live.

As Argentinean writer and former politician Fernando Iglesias recently declared – "everything has gone global except democracy." We have a global marketplace, global communications, global institutions, global risks like climate change, and a global financial crisis.

Yet somehow democracy has been left behind. It flails at the nation state level, struggling to keep its head above water in a world in which party politics has become increasingly redundant and nation states appear increasingly powerless to direct the global forces and decisions that shape the financial systems, employment conditions, food prices, diseases, and environments that determine our livelihoods.

If democracy is understood as enjoying equal rights to partake in decision making about the rules and policies that bind and affect us, the fact global institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United Nations, and powerful multinational corporations are unelected, unrepresentative, and unaccountable to people affected by their decisions is hugely problematic.

And so, an impressive array of leading democracy and globalization intellectuals, including Richard Falk, Saskia Sassen, Noam Chomsky, David Held, Daniele Archibugi, Mary Kaldor, and Vandana Shiva, have signed a Manifesto for A Global Democracy. The official launch of the Manifesto took place at the London School of Economics and Political Science on Wednesday 27 June 2012.

Working from the premise that: “Politics lags behind the facts. We live in an era of deep technological and economic change that has not been matched by a similar development of public institutions responsible for its regulation”, the objective of the global democracy movement is to explore new, more extensive, and deeper forms of democracy, in order to enhance democracy in a global world.

It is not necessarily about replacing national governments with a world parliament, but about creating a more democratic global order; an international system in which there are viable solutions to the challenges posed by globalization, and within which affected people can have a voice and some measure of power in global politics. In a sense, it calls upon us, as citizens with a right to political participation, to re-conceptualise democracy and find ways to bring it up to speed with the globalized times we live in.

Thus, whilst the Manifesto calls for the “urgent creation of new global agencies specialized in sustainable, fair and stable development, disarmament and environmental protection, and the rapid implementation of forms of democratic global governance on all the issues that current intergovernmental summits are evidently incapable of solving,” different members of the global democracy movement focus on different strategies.

For his part, Richard Sennett argues that progress towards global democracy will be made by focusing on cities rather than states. He suggests that in an urbanised world, megacities like Mumbai, Moscow, Mexico City and Sao Paulo are more fractured than the country as a whole, hence the city is a better space to develop a dialogue with global democracy.

On the other hand, Fernando Iglesias calls for increased citizen participation in social movements, particularly on issues like the campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. Similarly, Daniele Archibugi’s work focuses on a project of ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ in which a new world order is built by promoting democracy on three different but mutually supporting levels – inside states, between states, and globally.

But, if there is one consistent theme of the global democracy movement, it is that citizens are the nominated agents of global change. At the Manifesto’s launch event, Saskia Sassen pointed out that the systems and structures of power we have today didn’t fall from the sky. We created them ourselves. Similarly, old systems of power like the Soviet Union regime and the Latin American dictatorships only fell because masses of people power were involved.

Thus, global political change requires us, the global demos, to flex our muscle and take action to restructure governance systems at local, regional and global levels to create a world order that is more participative and accountable to the world’s 7 billion inhabitants.

Naturally, bringing together different strands of work, and consolidating the competing arguments made by various academics and practitioners that form the global democracy movement is a large and difficult task.

Similarly, whilst a stated aim of the Manifesto for A Global Democracy is to provide a lens to see issues and problems facing democracy that we might not otherwise see, psychology suggests that we all suffer from a confirmatory bias –the tendency to only ‘see’ information that confirms our existing beliefs. The success of the movement thus depends on educating a wide range of global citizens about the pitfalls of the deficits of democracy, legitimacy and accountability that plague global decision making, to attract supporters beyond academic circles.

But it is really important to not give up on this challenge. Globalisation is here to stay, so it’s time to accept that democracy as we know it has reached the end of its innocent childhood. It is now going through its difficult teenager years; conflicted, rebellious, unsure of who it is.

It’s now up to us to nurture it, educate it, instil wisdom upon it, to help it grow and mature into an adult, fully equipped to thrive in a globalised world. It’s time to start thinking about Democracy 2.0.

Source: Global Policy

Link to the Manifesto for a Global Democracy

Humanity’s Law, Ruti G. Teilel

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:19:00 +0000

Reviewed by Gerd Hankel, Research Fellow, Hamburg Institute for Social Research

In Ruti Teitel’s view there is absolutely no doubt that we live in a world in which legal relationships are undergoing ever more significant change, a fact of which she informs the reader right at the beginning of her book. States alone are no longer the main actors; instead persons and peoples are assuming greater prominence. Their interests and needs for protection increasingly dictate the content of international law which is becoming humanity’s law as a result.

It is very possible that those who pride themselves on adopting a perspective informed by realpolitik would refute this view with a dismissive gesture and refer with a benign smile to China’s and Russia’s latest veto against a resolution of the UN Security Council that was intended finally to bring an end to the killing in Syria. Two large and powerful states stressed the traditional understanding of sovereignty with the associated ban on intervention in the internal affairs of another state, leaving no room for the vital needs of the people who become the abused object of this sovereignty. However, even these international law realists must acknowledge that the veto by China and Russia triggered a global storm of indignation and, moreover, not solely on the part of international civil society but also among the majority of states, including the members of the Arab League. For all of them, the protection of the Syrian population against murderous state despotism is and was more important than respect for Syrian sovereignty which, in this case, is truly blind to the reality of the situation. This alone supports the emergence of a humanity law as perceived by Ruti Teitel. If we consider the many other examples she describes and analyses in her book, we can only agree with her wholeheartedly. A humanity law is currently emerging, in which a paradigm change is evident that is a shift away from law primarily as a model for the resolution of conflict between states and towards law as an instrument that recognizes the respect for fundamental human and group rights as the main condition of its validity. Needless to say, Ruti Teitel is fully aware that this development is difficult and frequently threatened by setbacks. However, she also knows – and conveys this information to the reader convincingly in nine extensively annotated chapters – that a large number of stages in this direction have been achieved, which are irreversible, despite the resistance of numerous states.

The book begins with a brief outline of the material to be discussed on the following 300 or so pages (Chapter 1). We encounter key terms like international humanitarian law, international criminal law, the law of human rights, the responsibility to protect, civil society actors (NGOs), whose existence or actions are paradigmatic for a change, in which the ‘arguments, doctrines, and interpretations shift with great speed from one side to another, and from one level of political or social ordering to another’ (at 14). In the subsequent chapters, we read how everything is now in flux and how this can be understood through the application of an interpretative framework offered by humanity law, and cemented in argumentative terms through its further development. In Chapter 2 we learn about the different phases in the establishment of humanitarian protection, and how its universalization has unfolded since 1945. The author then turns her attention to the scope of this process (Chapter 3). She shows how humanity became a legally significant term and how, as a logical consequence, the individual increasingly became the focus of international law. In Teitel’s view, this is demonstrated particularly clearly by the norms of international criminal law and the eventual achievement of establishing an International Criminal Court. Individuals have now become the subject of international law, and, moreover, are protected against actions by the state which, previously, had merely mediatized them and relegated them to the role of object. According to Teitel, another expression of this altered perception of humanity can be found in the reactivation of the concept of the ‘just war’ (Chapter 4). The protection of human life against mass violence has become an international issue, for which wars are also fought (humanitarian wars). A characteristic of these wars is the close connection that exists between the aim of a specific war and its military strategy. A war may not be fought in a way that delegitimizes its aims. So-called collateral damage, which probably presents the most extreme contrast to the originally humanitarian aims of a war, if it claims the lives of uninvolved parties, would inevitably lead to ‘”good wars” gone bad; “bad wars” gone worse’ (at 101), and hence cause permanent damage to the idea of law and justice. This outcome would also arise on a more general level if measures intended to protect individuals and humanity – the War on Terror is uppermost in the author’s mind here – lose sight of the object of protection (Chapter 5). In these cases, it is the task of the law to intervene correctively and take the side of humanity.

Citing many examples in which courts have become active in protecting people against an all-powerful and aggressive state, Ruti Teitel clearly demonstrates that achieving such protection is far from easy. Moreover, as she also stresses, if the rights of individuals are to be safeguarded against the state, this will have an impact on normative guidelines for the design of international policy. According to Teitel, the aim of such guidelines is supposed to be the establishment of global justice, a form of justice that places humanity at its centre (Chapter 6). But how can such a process be implemented and what exactly does justice mean here? In this context, Teitel refers to discourses under way in different disciplines about the role played by liberal thinking and how human security can be achieved in the face of current challenges. In addition, we discover the impact that changing normative principles have on international law and will have to have on it in the future if the tension between sovereignty and cosmopolitanism is to be resolved (Chapter 7). It appears as a necessity that in order to achieve cosmopolitanism, national legal spaces must become more permeable and open up to the normative provisions of other legal orders, insofar as they improve the position and protection of humanity. However, anyone who is familiar with the case law of the US Supreme Court – and Ruti Teitel appears to be extremely familiar with it – knows how difficult such responsiveness is made by an international-law monism which tends to give exclusive priority to its own constitution. However, progress can also be reported here and can be described using the term ‘comparativism’ or ‘comparative constitutionalism’ and which, as the author illustrates using examples, has led to the following outcome: ‘[t]he relevant trends reflect the use of humanity law as a dynamic basis for evolving interpretation, across state lines; and as a source of normative values and concerns, for a global system in flux’ (at 192). This dynamic interaction with the aim of global solidarity is increasingly fostered by the insight, already gained by Hugo Grotius but then repeatedly neglected, that the core right for persons and peoples is the right to have rights (Chapter 8). To be aware of this and to understand the protection of humanity as a Grundnorm (the author uses the German term here) should, therefore, constitute the formative basis of all state policy. Accordingly, Ruti Teitel concludes her book (Chapter 9) by listing, once again, the main results of her considerations and linking them in a kind of handbook for a foreign policy that considers itself committed to the ideal of a global society.

What remains to be said about this book, the contents of which can merely be outlined here? I already mentioned at the outset that, apart from a few repetitions, the argument is presented in a convincing and comprehensible way. I should add that large parts of Teitel’s argument are reminiscent of Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics (to whom the author also refers), and can hence be read as an attempt to demonstrate, in terms of international law and the theory of law, a process that constitutes the formation of universalist ethics in the sense in which Habermas used the term. Another name (which is not referred to by Ruti Teitel) should also be noted here, that of Immanuel Kant: intellectually, his cosmopolitan right is a constant companion when we read Teitel’s book. With Kant we recognize, moreover, that reason is what makes it ultimately possible for legal progress to be made and to endure. The service rendered by humanity law is that it illustrates this progress and also demonstrates the legal areas in which the current state of affairs does not meet the requirements that arise from the otherwise recognized place of the human being and his dignity in international law. When Teitel focuses particularly on international humanitarian law in this context, she is absolutely right. The unequal protection of humans, depending on whether a non-international or international armed conflict is involved, urgently requires correction. The protection of innocent civilians in war should also be improved. To make this protection subject to considerations of proportionality, even on the basis of large numbers of persons concerned, and to accept deaths in the form of collateral damage by giving too much weight to military advantage, flies in the face of any understanding of human dignity. This is all the more true if the aim of a war is to assert humanitarian objectives, as under a Responsibility to Protect.

Pressing for changes in the law is, of course, one thing, and achieving them is something entirely different. As we see from the many examples provided in the book, reason is often slow to prevail. But it is prevailing and, moreover, in the direction of the humaniztion of law and politics. This process is supported by a phenomenon that is incorporated to a certain extent in the concept of globalization. I am referring here to the concept of the ‘community of perception’. In today’s era of information technology news spreads rapidly throughout the world. Criminal events and the accompanying potential for scandal are made instantly accessible to anyone who wants to know about them. Ruti Teitel quotes Hannah Arendt, who wrote over 50 years ago in The Origins of Totalitarianism: ‘we became aware of the existence of the right to have rights … and a right to belong to some kind of organized community, only when millions of people emerged who had lost and could not regain these rights’ (at 209). This process of becoming aware unfolds much faster today. Besides, due to the standard of human rights already achieved, it is no longer related solely to the victims or survivors, let alone prompted exclusively by comparatively high numbers of victims. In other words, concern and the resulting pressure to act now arise with far greater ease and far more quickly on a global scale, and are not limited regionally or to particular groups.

However, because news spreads more rapidly in the international sphere, intense disappointment can also result when the feeling arises that a double standard is being applied. To demand of smaller or weak states respect for fundamental human rights and to try their politicians or military personnel in international courts while simultaneously ignoring the possible crimes of bigger or more powerful states, or dismissing them as politics, inevitably leads to the abandonment of the law, which is perceived as biased, and to the renunciation of humanity law, which is then perceived as a mere mockery.

This stage has not yet been reached. Belief in the narrative of progress told in Ruti Teitel’s book still prevails. The following sentences uttered by a man who was recently in Syria as an Arab League observer show just how right and justified this belief remains. In response to a journalist’s question about his impression of the Syrian leadership in the besieged city of Homs, he replied, ‘The Syrian Minister of the Interior and President Assad’s brother-in-law and chief of military intelligence Assef Shawkat were staying at the same hotel as us observers. During a conversation they told us that the demonstrators were terrorists. They said they could have solved the problem with the army in just 15 minutes but they feared the outcry of the international media.’

Source: Global Law Books

Call for Submissions: Climate Justice in International Law

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:15:00 +0000

The Irish Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for a symposium issue on "Climate Justice in International Law." Here's the call:

The Editors of the Irish Yearbook of International Law invite submissions for a special symposium issue on Climate Justice in International Law. Symposium articles should not exceed 12,000 words in length and should not be published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. In addition to symposium articles, papers on general issues of international law are welcome for the Articles sections and reviewed on an ongoing basis. Authors are asked to conform to the Hart Publishing house style. Submissions, comprising a brief 100 word abstract, article and confirmation of exclusive submission, can be sent to both Siobhán Mullally (s.mullally@ucc.ie) and Fiona de Londras (fiona.delondras@ucd.ie) by 31 August 2012. Initial enquiries can be directed to either or both Editors. Further information on the Yearbook is available here.

Source: International Law Reporter

Winkler: The Human Right to Water: Significance, Legal Status and Implications for Water Allocation

noreply@blogger.com (Derecho Global) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:11:00 +0000

Inga T. Winkler (Legal Adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation) has published The Human Right to Water: Significance, Legal Status and Implications for Water Allocation (Hart Publishing 2012). Here's the abstract:

The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council recognised the human right to water in 2010. This formal recognition has put the issue high on the international agenda, but by itself leaves many questions unanswered. This book addresses this gap and clarifies the legal status and meaning of the right to water through a detailed analysis of its legal foundations, legal nature, normative content and corresponding State obligations.

The human right to water has wide-ranging implications for the distribution of water. Examining these implications requires putting the right to water into the broader context of different water uses and analysing the linkages and competition with other human rights that depend on water for their realisation. Water allocation is a highly political issue reflecting societal power relations, with current priorities often benefitting the well-off and powerful. Human rights, in contrast, require prioritising the most basic needs of all people. The human right to water has the potential to address these underlying structural causes of the lack of access to water rooted in inequalities and poverty by empowering people to hold the State accountable to live up to its human rights obligations and to demand that their basic needs are met with priority.

Source: International Law Reporter