Should trees have standing? The decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) in its Question of Compensation (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua) case of February 2, 2018 provides a pioneering ...example of damage to the environment being litigated before an international tribunal. The judgment is the first time that the ICJ has adjudicated compensation for environmental damage, and it is only the third time the ICJ has awarded compensation at all. Nevertheless, the ICJ boldly asserted in this case that “damage to the environment, and the consequent impairment or loss of the ability of the environment to provide goods and services, is compensable under international law” (para. 42). That said, the reasoning employed by the Court leaves much to be desired. Given the increasing number of cases involving the environment, it is unfortunate that international courts and tribunals will garner only limited guidance from the methodology adopted by the ICJ in valuing environmental damage.
Advisory Opinion OC-22/16 Mejía-Lemos, Diego
The American journal of international law,
10/2017, Volume:
111, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
On February 26, 2016, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) issued an advisory opinion requested by the Republic of Panama (Advisory Opinion). The request stemmed from “doubts among ...States” as to whether “legal persons, being legal fictions, are not as such entitled to rights” (Request) (para. 2). The Court unanimously held that legal persons are not entitled to rights under the American Convention on Human Rights (Convention) because Article 1.2 of the Convention establishes rights only in favor of natural persons. The Court, also unanimously, reiterated that indigenous and tribal communities are entitled to rights under the Convention. By majority vote, the Court held that labor union organizations are entitled to rights under the Protocol of San Salvador (Protocol). The Advisory Opinion is most significant for its finding regarding labor union organizations and for its analysis of how general international law relates to various aspects of the Inter-American system.
Ghana v. Ivory Coast Peiris, Nuwan
The American journal of international law,
01/2018, Volume:
112, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The charm of maritime delimitation and its enigmatic lessons hardly surprise us, yet the reasoning behind them sometimes seems seductively elusive. On September 23, 2017, a Special Chamber of the ...International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued its decision in Ghana v. Ivory Coast. The glamour of maritime delimitation is reason enough to note the judgment, but the case also addresses the equidistance principle for maritime delimitation, the standard for the acceptance of a tacit agreement, and international responsibility under Article 83 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Khlaifia and Others v. Italy Goldenziel, Jill I.
The American journal of international law,
04/2018, Volume:
112, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In Khlaifia and Others v. Italy, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (Grand Chamber or Court) released a landmark opinion with broad implications for how states must respect the ...individual rights of migrants. In the judgment, issued on December 15, 2016, the Court held that Italy's treatment of migrants after the Arab Spring violated the requirement of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that migrants receive procedural guarantees that enable them to challenge their detention and expulsion. The Court also held that Italy's treatment of migrants in detention centers did not violate the ECHR's prohibition on cruel and inhuman treatment, in part due to the emergency circumstances involved. The Court further held that Italy's return of migrants to Tunisia did not violate the prohibition on collective expulsion in Article 4 of Protocol 4 of the ECHR. Enforcement of the judgment would require many European states to provide a clear basis in domestic law for the detention of migrants and asylum-seekers. Given the global diffusion of state practices involving migrants, and other states’ desires to restrict migration, this case has broad implications for delineating the obligations of states to migrants and the rights of migrants within receiving countries.
Few in Spain would have imagined two years ago that so much attention would be paid to questions such as the allocation of powers to hold referenda or the constitutional tools to enforce compliance ...with the 1978 Constitution (Constitution). But since the celebration of a “referendum” on October 1, 2017, and the subsequent declaration of independence and immediate suspension thereof by the president of Catalonia, numerous international voices have taken a stance on Catalonia's right to unilateral secession.
While many women have profited from the relatively recent rights-revolution in Latin America, their pregnant sisters have apparently had to sit in the back of the bus or stay off altogether. Even ...modest progress on abortion entitlements has come at a high price and slow pace, perhaps due to the opposition of an alliance of long-established and up-and-coming religious groups. On a positive note, however, the struggle for emancipation on this front seems to be moving forward. In Chile, the Constitutional Court's (or Tribunal's) opinion of August 28, 2017, STC 3729/2017, which generally upholds a legislative bill allowing a woman to abort in the face of risk to life, lethal prenatal pathology, or rape, provides a case in point. Significantly, it also expands the statutory category of conscientious objectors to include non-professional staff and institutions.
On August 24, 2017, the Supreme Court of India issued a rare, unanimous nine-judge decision holding that the right to privacy is protected by the Constitution of India. The case is all the more ...noteworthy because the Court reversed its prior decisions holding that the right to privacy was not protected by the country's Constitution. It arose out of the government's creation of a national database of biometric and demographic information for every Indian. Rejecting the government's arguments, the Court found that the right to privacy applies across the gamut of “fundamental” rights including equality, dignity (Article 14), speech, expression (Article 19), life, and liberty (Article 21). The six separate and concurring judgments in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Ret'd) and Anr v. Union of India and Ors are trailblazing for their commitment to privacy as a fundamental freedom and for the judges’ use of foreign law across jurisdictions and spanning centuries.
Prosecutor v. Al-Bashir Ventura, Manuel J.
The American journal of international law,
10/2017, Volume:
111, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
On July 6, 2017, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (the Court or ICC)—composed of Judges Tarfusser, Perrin de Brichambaut, and Chung—held that South Africa violated the Rome ...Statute of the ICC (Rome Statute) by failing to arrest and surrender to the Court President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan when he visited the country in June 2015. However, the Court did not refer the matter to the ICC Assembly of States Parties (ASP) or the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) pursuant to Article 87(7) of the Rome Statute. The decision added South Africa to a list of ICC state parties that have failed in their Rome Statute obligations with respect to the incumbent head of state of Sudan. It also marked the first time that the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), all ICC states parties, and the United Nations (UN) were invited to present their views and argue fully what is perhaps the most legally contentious and politically sensitive issue that the ICC has faced in its history.
"Der 'Antikenroman' in der islandischen Literatur des Mittelalters: Eine Untersuchung zur Ubersetzung und Rezeption lateinischer Literatur im Norden" by Stefanie Wurth is reviewed.
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