{"title":"Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and Specialized Agencies","authors":"D. Aziz, A. See","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0033","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers the United Nations’ contribution to the law on privileges and immunities of international organizations through its earliest forays into multilateral treaty-making. The chapter focuses on the origins of the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and the 1947 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies; their conceptual innovations, including the key shift from diplomatic to functional immunity; and the driving considerations underlying their treaty design. The chapter also explores the key features of the treaty-making process of both Conventions, the key substantive and structural aspects of both Conventions, and how the Conventions have been applied in practice, including through implementing decisions, and national and institutional positions, as well as headquarters and other bilateral agreements. The chapter concludes by assessing the Conventions’ legacy for multilateral treaty-making, and for the broader law of international organizations.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133778589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Committees on Human Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights","authors":"H. Keller, Corina Heri","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0025","url":null,"abstract":"The Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are treaty-implementing—and not treaty-making—bodies. However, they have an essential role to play in monitoring states’ compliance with their respective treaties and developing the standards under these instruments. In fact, it can be argued that innovative approaches taken by these two bodies have aided significant leaps in the protection of human rights internationally and have led the two committees to play a leading role in terms of treaty development. This chapter explores the ways in which the two bodies, through their various methods of work, have contributed to the further development of the conceptual framework of human rights as a “special” treaty regime.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123121230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Health","authors":"Allyn L. Taylor","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0020","url":null,"abstract":"The evolution of United Nations treaties in the domain of public health over the last two decades is one of the most significant developments in public international law. Although public health is one of the earliest fields of international legal cooperation and one of the first domains in which an intergovernmental organization was created, the scope of international legal cooperation in public health was, until recently, highly limited. This chapter provides an overview of the contribution of United Nations treaties in the evolving field of international health law. It examines the historical origins and the factors contributing to its contemporary evolution. In addition, the chapter briefly reviews the contribution of UN organizations, especially the World Health Organization, to the codification efforts in this realm.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130866778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Health","authors":"G. Burci","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0021","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides an overview of the conception, negotiation, and normative development of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) based on the professional experience of the author, a former Legal Counsel of WHO. The FCTC must be appreciated against the background of the normative role of WHO and its reluctance to use international lawmaking as a tool for global health governance. The FCTC is a groundbreaking instrument for the protection and promotion of public health; it was conceived as a framework convention in order to accommodate diverse regulatory measures at national and international levels and to create a normative space to facilitate progressive agreement on evidence-based interventions. The negotiation of the convention as well as of its Protocol on Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products was influenced by the relative lack of treaty-making experience on the part of public health officials in national delegations and by the uncompromising hostility of the tobacco control community against the tobacco industry. The resulting tension with strong commercial interests linked to tobacco trade led to a number of difficult and sometimes awkward compromises. At the same time, it led to the establishment of a strong institutional framework that has been instrumental in developing the FCTC through the adoption of far-reaching guidelines and the monitoring of compliance. Notwithstanding its success, there has been no serious discussion in WHO on the negotiation of new conventions, and the FCTC may remain an isolated achievement enabled by a unique set of circumstances.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116787281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Terrorism","authors":"A. R. Perera","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"A consensus still eludes the negotiation process of the Draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. Given this backdrop, this article traces the history and evolution of the UN treaty-making practice on terrorism, and examines the attempts to define and address the phenomenon of terrorism through international Conventions, which provide for the establishment of the core legal regime of “extradite or prosecute.” It explores the challenges encountered in the negotiation processes, including “definitional issues,” which consider issues such as the “political offences exception”; whether carve-outs should be made for military forces of States/national liberation movements; and the notions of “individual criminal responsibility” and “state responsibility,” the latter particularly in the context of acts of nuclear terrorism. The article follows the evolution of negotiations on these considerations, which later moves to discuss the issue not in the context of a generic definition of the term “terrorism,” but in the delineation of the precise scope of application of the Convention, by “carving out” the other applicable legal regimes. The article concludes that the Draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism is a carefully nuanced and delicately balanced package fraught with both legal and political complexities, and strategic concerns for groups of States, and underlines the need for a compromise approach and political accommodation.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130309142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The ILO’s Standard-Setting","authors":"G. Politakis","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"Established 100 years ago as a normative institution to promote social justice, the International Labour Organization (ILO) fulfills its mission principally through the adoption of international labor standards. To date, those standards have taken the form of 189 international labor Conventions, six Protocols, and 205 international labor Recommendations. ILO standard-setting follows special techniques and practices, mainly because of the Organization’s unique tripartite structure, that have given shape to specificities such as the inadmissibility of reservations, the frequent recourse to built-in flexibility, and the limited possibility for denunciation. The interpretation of international labor Conventions is, pursuant to a specific constitutional provision, entrusted to the International Court of Justice, while the application of international labor standards is monitored by an elaborate supervisory system that combines standing bodies responsible for the regular examination of reports and special adversarial procedures activated by different complaint mechanisms. Today, the abrogation of outdated instruments and the consolidation of up-to-date standards into framework Conventions are among the key challenges for enhancing the relevance and impact of standards. Standard-setting has distinctively marked the Organization’s 100-year-long history and has in many respects broken new ground in the field of international treaty law.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132306703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Criminal Law and UN Treaties","authors":"S. Zappalà","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0027","url":null,"abstract":"The United Nations has been very closely linked to the development of international criminal law (ICL), including in the area of multilateral treaty-making. The UN General Assembly has been the forum for negotiations or preparation of most ICL treaties: from the Genocide Convention to the International Criminal Court Statute, and many other UN bodies (from the Secretariat to the Security Council, as well as the Economic and Social Council and the entire human rights machinery) have significantly contributed to the establishment and evolution of ICL. Moreover, the values protected through ICL enhance and reinforce some of the basic tenets of the UN Charter, including the prohibition of the use of armed force (reflected in the criminalization of aggression), as well as the protection and promotion of human rights (linked to the notion of crimes against humanity and war crimes). This chapter illustrates the historical developments of ICL and emphasizes the pivotal role of the UN in the implementation and further improvement of ICL.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127668846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Treaty-Making at the United Nations","authors":"Stephen Mathias","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Beginning in the mid-1970s, the UN General Assembly conducted a review of the multilateral treaty-making process. A 1980 Report of the Secretary-General on this review concluded that there was “extensive diversity” among the various procedures that had been utilized in treaty-making processes, including whether such processes made use of established entities or were ad hoc in nature, the extent to which this involved expert or representative bodies, and the extent of the involvement of the General Assembly. The only generalization that was seen to be possible was that such processes almost always involved a multistage process. This chapter assesses the conclusions of the Secretary-General’s 1980 Report in light of the practice of the intervening years, focusing, in particular, on the role of the Secretariat in the treaty-making process, and adopting for the purposes of its analysis the five stages in the multilateral treaty-making process as identified in the Secretary-General’s 1980 Report: initiation of treaty-making, formulation of multilateral treaties, adoption of multilateral treaties, post-adoption concerns, and supplementing and updating treaties. This chapter also briefly discusses other treaty-making activities of the Secretariat.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128692271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Treaty-Making in International Organizations","authors":"S. Scott","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"International relations research has in recent years become more relevant for international lawyers, even if it often requires some translation. This chapter engages with three bodies of international relations scholarship of relevance to understanding UN treaty-making. The first, on norm dynamics, has a unit of analysis smaller than a multilateral treaty; a norm typically equates to one or more of the substantive provisions of a treaty. The second and older body of literature, on regimes and more recently regime complexes, has generated insights pertaining to treaty design and effectiveness, often through the application of quantitative research methods. Given that there has been two-and-a half-decades of regime research the contribution of regime theory to knowledge of multilateral treaties nevertheless remains underwhelming. The third body of literature addressed in the chapter is that regarding the decline of the liberal international order. Liberal institutionalist scholars may be lamenting the apparent demise of the US-led order to which the complex web of UN treaties has been so integral but they may not be sufficiently conscious of the fact that such a sentiment is not universally shared. Understanding the politics of multilateral treaties can only be enriched by an even greater maturity and sophistication of international relations scholarship.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117174541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Participation of International Organizations in UN Treaties","authors":"J. Klabbers","doi":"10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190947842.003.0039","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter addresses some of the complexities of having regional economic integration organizations (above all the European Union) participate in treaty-making under UN auspices. Discussing conceptual matters such as how participation can take place (as full member, as observer, or anything in-between), it delves into some of the relevant legal issues on both sides of the equation: on the part of the regional economic integration organization as well as on the part of the UN and specialized agencies, devoting some attention to the solutions agreed upon within the framework of the Food and Agricultural Organization when it admitted the EU as a member in its own right. These include the delegation and distribution of treaty-making powers, negotiating mandates, and the like, as well as some practical matters. The discussion is situated against a backdrop of functionalist theorizing about the law of international organizations.","PeriodicalId":254022,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties","volume":"107 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116941526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}