{"title":"From treaty to custom: Shifting paths in the recent development of international humanitarian law","authors":"Giovanni Mantilla","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000705","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000705","url":null,"abstract":"From 1864 to the 1970s, international humanitarian law (IHL) changed through the path of formal treaty revision. Since 1977, however, purported changes to IHL have come not from treaty making but from interpretation, particularly through claims about the attainment of customary status by existing treaty rules. This article explains this shift as the result of the attitudes and choices of key IHL stakeholders under the changed conditions of post-Second World War multilateralism. It argues that the turn toward customary law claims-making was a reaction to the negotiation politics and contested outcomes of the 1977 Additional Protocols (APs) to the Geneva Conventions. After 1977, leading actors looked to custom as a means of arresting or encouraging legal change. The resulting, much-expanded IHL has proved influential and authoritative, even if its precise degree of acceptance by states remains unclear.","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139753675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deciphering l’esprit d’internationalité: The 1872 Alabama arbitration and the pacifist antithesis of modern international law profession","authors":"Xiaohang Chen","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000699","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In international legal historiography, it becomes a commonplace that the successful resolution of the <span>Alabama</span> dispute between Britain and the US by the 1872 Geneva Tribunal of arbitration – the 1872 <span>Alabama</span> arbitration – kindled the progressivist enthusiasm of liberal internationalists for projects of humanitarianism, the codification of international law, and international arbitration. The article aims to take this scholarship further by arguing that, against this backdrop of reformist enthusiasm for international law, two transnational social reform movements – pacifist internationalism and legalist internationalism – converged in a joint effort of social and intellectual mobilization in furtherance of an ordered system of international law and its judicial application in practice. The epitome of this encounter was the almost simultaneous creation of the International Law Association and the <span>Institut de Droit International</span> in 1873. The article shows that international jurists sought to delineate the nascent modern international law profession by strategically distancing their scientific cause of international law from the one embarked on by their pacifist counterparts. By demarcating international legal science in contrast to the contemporary pacifist activism of international law, international jurists set the parameters of their social networks, and manoeuvred for professional outreach. Yet it is precisely by bringing back the pacifist antithesis that had been deliberately relegated into the secondary by international jurists – ‘the men of 1873’ – that some previously under-emphasized aspects of the sensibility of <span>l’esprit d’internationalité</span> can be grasped.</p>","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139648474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dislodging the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism: Analysis of Article 281 of UNCLOS","authors":"Bjørn Kunoy","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000687","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000687","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Article 281 of UNCLOS allows states parties to a dispute to set aside the compulsory dispute resolution procedures under Section 2 of Part XV. This article discusses the recent jurisprudence that appears in the interpretations of Article 281. It discusses in turn whether, first, Article 281 provides requirements for agreements under Article 281(1) to activate the opt-out procedure from the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism; second, whether such agreements under Article 281(1) must include an explicit exclusion from the procedures under Section 2 of Part XV of UNCLOS; and, finally, whether agreements under Article 281(1) must include a compulsory dispute settlement procedure allowing binding decisions. It is concluded that Article 281 is not designed for compulsory dispute settlement procedures, which is the object and purpose of Article 282. Instead, Article 281 opts for consensual dispute settlement mechanisms which, under certain circumstances, may set aside the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism in Section 2 of Part XV.</p>","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139649025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Characterization of the violence between Türkiye and the PKK","authors":"Şehmus Kurtuluş","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000456","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article addresses the question of whether the violence between Türkiye and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) constitutes an armed conflict within the meaning of international humanitarian law. The article first explains the different non-international armed conflict descriptions provided by (i) the ICTY’s famous <span>Tadić</span> decision, (ii) Additional Protocol II, and (iii) the Rome Statute of the ICC and discusses the different applicability thresholds set by these sources. After noting that the terrorist nature of the acts of violence in a situation will not prevent them from being characterized as an armed conflict and that the application of the international humanitarian law norms would not in fact affect the legal status of the PKK, this article examines whether Türkiye’s struggle against the PKK could be classified as an armed conflict subject to international humanitarian law norms.</p>","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139396768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting Jessup and the imperial origins of transnational law","authors":"Michael Elliot","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000663","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Philip Jessup’s 1956 Storrs Lectures, <span>Transnational Law</span>, developed a case for theorizing law beyond the state which continues to shape understandings of transnational law. Yet while transnational law has assumed increasing importance with globalization, it remains beset by conceptual difficulties. This article suggests that such difficulties are at least partly attributable to misreadings of <span>Transnational Law</span> primarily as proposing a more pragmatic concept to drive law’s progression. Contextualizing the Lectures within Jessup’s involvement in the US’s postwar worldmaking project and the contrasting project pursued by Third World states, and through close textual study, it contends that <span>Transnational Law</span> is better understood as geared to undermining the legal foundations of key efforts to counter Western dominance. It further shows how this reading can aid in clarifying misunderstandings of Jessup’s Lectures that still inform transnational law scholarship and in considering how law’s capacity to sustain inequality and exploitation may be challenged.</p>","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"307 4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138821833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eradicating the exceptional: The role of territory in structuring international legal thought","authors":"Gail Lythgoe","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000675","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines the idea of the <span>sui generis</span> in international law and explores how these exceptions structure international legal thought. Exceptions are useful to international law theorizing because they create easy manageable narratives which explain situations not fitting traditional paradigms, yet as a category in their own right – specifically how they are structured and how they operate – they are often undertheorized. The two examples explored in this article are <span>sui generis</span> actors and the concept of extraterritorial jurisdiction. I demonstrate the foundational role played by (state-)territorialized thinking in the creation of oppositional categories: state and non-state, and the non-exceptional and exceptional exercise of jurisdiction. The category of exceptions has significantly expanded from the likes of the Holy See and irregular exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction to a broad array of actors, such as international organizations and transnational corporations, playing growing and varied roles in contemporary law-making and governance and the regular exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction by states. Rather than continuing with this overextended category, the article argues it is instead possible, by rethinking international law’s spatial imaginary, to first, better understand the spaces of non-state actors and regularized exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction and second, eradicate the now overstretched legal category of ‘<span>sui generis</span>’.</p>","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138630408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The 2003 Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention in Armed Conflict: An integrated reading of obligations towards culture in conflict","authors":"Ashrutha Rai","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000572","url":null,"abstract":"International law today recognizes that cultural heritage includes not only tangible but also intangible cultural heritage, encompassing traditions, customs, practices, and beliefs. While protections for tangible cultural heritage have existed since at least the nineteenth century, only relatively recently has the law gone beyond piecemeal human rights protections and extended direct and specific treaty protections to intangible cultural heritage through the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The push for this Convention was linked with broader discontent within the Global south at the prioritization of Eurocentric ‘monumentalism’ in international cultural heritage law. Nevertheless, in situations of armed conflict, the emphasis reverts to protection of tangible cultural heritage as international humanitarian law does not go beyond general civilian protections to directly address the protection of intangible cultural heritage in conflict. While the 2003 Convention provides for emergency assistance, its broadly-worded terms do not indicate the shape its other obligations would take in armed conflict or the manner in which they would interact with rules governing the conduct of hostilities. This article examines, first, the degree and extent to which the 2003 Convention’s various obligations in relation to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage circumvent de-prioritization and continue to apply in conflict; and second, the manner in which they can be integrated with rules of international humanitarian law to better protect intangible cultural heritage during active hostilities.","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"32 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138525956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploiting the deep seabed for the benefit of humankind: A universal ideology for sustainable resource development or a false necessity?","authors":"Rozemarijn J. Roland Holst","doi":"10.1017/s092215652300064x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s092215652300064x","url":null,"abstract":"A pivotal point in time has been reached in the ongoing negotiations under the auspices of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) towards the adoption of regulations for the commercial exploitation of mineral resources in the deep seabed beyond national jurisdiction. The ISA has a mandate to ensure that activities in the Area, legally designated as ‘common heritage of humankind’, are carried out for the benefit of humankind as a whole. Yet, there is a growing sense of unease with the potential imminence of the commercial exploitation phase, and concern that the implementation of all components of the common heritage principle, including its environmental and distributive ambitions, will be compromised in the interest of a handful of industry stakeholders. This article dives under the surface of these tensions by asking how the public interest in a global commons can become constructed in a way that conflates diverse and opposing interests in favour of value extraction by the private sector, revealing the ambivalent role of international law in the process. It uses the concept of ‘false necessity’ to question the apparent urgency and inevitability of commercial exploitation, more specifically to the extent it obscures and pre-empts more inclusive conceptions of ‘benefit’ for humankind. By shifting the focus from the much-debated risks of deep seabed mining to the notion of benefit, the article illuminates the inherent contradictions and distributional asymmetries obscured by the conflated yet purportedly universal conception of public interest in exploitation.","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"42 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138525960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The ‘ideal victim’: A cage for victims’ narratives at the International Criminal Court","authors":"Alessandra Cuppini","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000651","url":null,"abstract":"Despite Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) granting victims an autonomous standing in proceedings, victims’ participatory rights have often been tailored to fit within the retributive structure of the trials. This contribution aims to provide a different perspective on victims’ role and their narratives in proceedings at the ICC, building upon the expressivist model of international criminal justice and focusing on a specific strand that engages with the adjudication process’s performative and communicative features. In providing a better understanding of how victims’ narrative unfolds in trials at the ICC, the article addresses two issues: how the concept of the victim is constructed at the ICC; and whether and, eventually, how this construct impedes progress in recognizing their narratives in proceedings at the ICC. Concerning the first issue, drawing on criminologist Nils Christie’s theorizing of the ‘ideal victim’, it will be observed that the construct of victims in proceedings at the ICC reflects three main attributes: weakness; innocence; and dependency. The second issue shed light on the extent to which the emphasis on the ‘ideal victim’ can serve as a tool in the hands of institutional actors at the ICC to pre-empt, constrain and subordinate victims’ narratives, in a manner that oversimplifies victimhood. To impose a particular narrative upon victims’ experiences, three main procedural mechanisms have been identified: appropriation of victims’ interests; legal representation of abstract victimhood; and exclusion from the trial of victims who do not conform to the ideal victim.","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"34 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138542284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Science, epistemology and legitimacy in environmental disputes – The epistemically legitimate judicial argumentative space","authors":"Katalin Sulyok","doi":"10.1017/s0922156523000559","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156523000559","url":null,"abstract":"This article maps the elements of the epistemically legitimate argumentative space of judges in scientific disputes, where scientific facts and arguments intrude into the legally relevant aspects of the legal controversy. The article distinguishes four main forms of legitimate hybrid reasoning styles. It identifies the epistemic risks threatening the legitimacy of decisions in light of the corresponding limits of the epistemically legitimate argumentative space. The article concludes by discussing the parameters which help judges to select the appropriate reasoning style in particular cases, such as the judicial institution’s epistemic capacities, practical feasibility, and the role science plays in the fabric of legal rules.","PeriodicalId":46816,"journal":{"name":"Leiden Journal of International Law","volume":"19 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138526026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}