Public International Law Part III

Oona Hathaway, Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, discusses her ongoing project supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, entitled ‘War Unbound.’

Informal courts created in PoW camps and Jewish ghettos during World War II illustrate the disruption of law in war and the ways in which legal pluralism can help to structure thinking about the concept of law in such a context.

Eitan Diamond and Ellen Nohle explore the application of the prohibition of forcible displacement in armed conflict and the extent to which the non-consensual relocation of civilians may be prohibited under the IHL rules on the conduct of hostilities.

Tom Dannenbaum, Associate Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University, examines approaches to addressing the crime of aggression within a normatively coherent framework of immunities and international crimes. He particularly focuses on the legal and normative considerations on the establishment of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.

Peter Quayle argues employment law of international organizations tends towards incoherence, however, mapping international administrative law onto a larger framework of international organizations law can realize a more workable version of the law.

Dr. Alessandra Spadaro of Utrecht University outlines several challenges to the applicability of the doctrine of superior responsibility in the context of the use of autonomous weapons systems.

Natalie Klein, Professor at UNSW Sydney, presents on the Geneva Declaration on Human Rights at Sea, adopted in March 2022 as an initiative of UK charity Human Rights at Sea, and on the Declaration's lawmaking potential. Natalie Klein, Professor at UNSW Sydney, presents on the Geneva Declaration on Human Rights at Sea, adopted in March 2022 as an initiative of UK charity Human Rights at Sea, and on the Declaration's lawmaking potential.

Dr Eliana Cusato, postdoctoral fellow at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, presents an overview of the key arguments in her book, 'The Ecology of War and Peace: Marginalising Slow and Structural Violence in International Law'.

Monica Feria-Tinta discusses a landmark 2022 decision of the UN Human Rights Committee which found that Australia failed to protect indigenous Torres Strait Islanders against adverse impacts of climate change, in breach of human rights law. Monica Feria-Tinta, is a barrister at Twenty Essex chambers

Dr Nikola Hajdin outlines an analytical framework for criminal complicity in a war of aggression Dr Nikola Hajdin argues against the dominant view that a perpetrator of the crime of aggression must be in a position effectively to exercise control over, or direct, the political or military action of a state, and outlines an analytical framework for criminal complicity in a war of aggression

Professor Karen Scott of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, gives a presentation exploring the current regime complex for ocean plastics and considering how the law of the sea is likely to interact with a newly proposed plastics treaty.

Professor Errol P. Mendes of the University of Ottawa gives a presentation calling for a revisiting of the origins of the concept of sovereignty in Public International Law.

Freya Baetens, Professor of Public International Law at Oslo University, gives a presentation on how the International Court of Justice has addressed claims based on ‘regional’ customary international law.

Philippa Webb, Professor of Public International Law at King’s College London, gives a presentation on recent developments in English law in cases against current and former heads of state. Apologies that there was a brief technical issue shortly after the beginning of this recording.

Nicolas Lamp, Queen’s University, Canada gives a presentation to the Public International Law Discussion Group.

A presentation by Professor Stefan Talmon on Tactical Admissions in International Litigation, delivered to the Public International Law Discussion Group.

Professor Catharine Titi, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)-CERSA, University Paris II Panthéon-Assas, France, gives a talk for the Public International Law seminar series. (4/11/2021)

Professor Anne van Aaken, University of Hamburg, Germany, gives a talk for the Public International Law seminar series (11/11/2021).

Julia Emtseva, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, Germany, gives a talk for the Public International Law seminar series. Julia Emtseva is a research fellow and a PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, Germany. Julia obtained her LL.M. in International Human Rights Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, M.A. in Human Rights and Democratization in the Global Campus of Human Rights Regional Program in the Caucasus, and LL.B. at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA). Julia Emtseva obtained her qualification as a lawyer in Kyrgyzstan and before starting her PhD, she interned at different national courts, including the Constitutional Chamber of the Kyrgyz Republic, and worked as a teaching and research assistant at the law faculty of the AUCA, a human rights observer with the American Bar Association as well as in different NGOs, including the National Committee of the Red Cross in Kyiv and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin.

Professor Paul Gragl, European Law at the University of Graz, Austria, gives a talk for the Public International Law seminar series. Abstract: Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines are, in general, safe and effective, vaccine hesitancy continues to thrive due to various reasons, such as misinformation, the wish to protect one’s personal autonomy, and/or religious or moral beliefs. Vaccine hesitancy therefore endangers attaining and maintaining herd immunity which protects those that cannot be vaccinated due to medical reasons. Some States have consequently implemented compulsory vaccination schemes in order to close this gap in protecting public health, which, however, raises two essential questions in the context of human rights protection: (i) if a State has done so and implemented a compulsory vaccination scheme, does it potentially violate Articles 2,8, and 9 of the ECHR? In other words, are the ECHR Contracting Parties under a negative obligation to abstain from introducing such measures? Or (ii) if a State has not done so (yet), is it actually under a positive obligation to introduce such measures in order not to violate these provisions? On the basis of the ECtHR’s recent judgment in Vavřička and others v. the Czech Republic (April 2021), I will discuss these questions and conclude that States are, if specific requirements are met, not prohibited from implementing such measures, whilst they are also not obligated to do so under the ECHR as long as they protect those most vulnerable to infectious diseases through other means. The presentation is based on a paper which will be published in the European Convention on Human Rights Law Review. Paul Gragl is Professor of European Law at the University of Graz, Austria. His research interests include public international law, EU law, human rights law, and legal theory as well as philosophy, which is reflected in his most recent monograph Legal Monism: Law, Philosophy, and Politics (OUP, 2018).