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Case note: Corte Costituzionale, 21 September 2016, No. 219, Comune di San Ferdinando di Puglia v. Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri and Ministero dell’economia e delle finanze
No full textDecision no. 219/2016 of the Italian Corte Costituzionale provides interpretive guidance on the exercise of the right of redress by the central administration against local authorities responsible for breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights involving the state financial liability. The court was seized by the Tribunale di Bari, questioning the constitutionality of the right of redress (as enshrined in Article 16-bis(5) of Law No. 11/2005) with several constitutional provisions, most notably the standard of reasonableness drawn from Article 3 and the right of defence under Article 24 of the Italian Constitution. Dismissing the claim, the Corte Costituzionale pointed to local authorities' responsibility, required by Law 11/2005, as a condition for exercise of the right of redress. Since assessment of local responsibility must take place at domestic level, the right of defence is not violated by local authorities' lack of standing before the European Court of Human Rights
The Israeli strikes on Iranian forces in Syria: a case study on the use of force in defence of annexed territories
Full text linkThe extensive air strikes launched by Israel on Iranian forces and assets across Syria in the early morning of 10 May 2018 present a complex case study. The strikes were decided in retaliation for a rocket barrage fired some hours earlier from Syrian territory on IDF forward outposts in the Israeli-controlled Golan. The rockets were immediately attributed by the IDF to the Quds Force, the special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in charge of extraterritorial operations.
The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany explicitly referred to Israel's right to act in self-defence against Iran. The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu invoked 'Israel's obligation and right to defend itself against Iranian aggression from Syrian territory'. A self-defence argument raises in the present case a legal issue related to the status of the territory attacked: the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967 and annexed in 1981. Can an annexing state invoke Article 51 UN Charter to justify the use of force in self-defence against an armed attack directed exclusively at a territory that it annexed? This post submits that the answer to this question, which appears unsettled and largely unexplored, cannot overlook the situation of manifest illegality that a self-defence argument would purport to preserve and protract
Should the ICC assess complementarity with respect to non-state armed groups?: Hidden questions in the second Al-Werfalli arrest warrant
Full text linkOn 4 July 2018, the International Criminal Court (ICC, the Court) issued a second warrant for the arrest of Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli, a commander within General Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA). Already wanted by the Court since August 2017, Al-Werfalli remains at large. The LNA maintains that he is facing justice in Libya, implicitly excluding the surrender of the suspect to the ICC. As a result, in the second arrest warrant the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I (PTC I) addressed the admissibility of the case and declared that the proceedings initiated by the LNA do not satisfy the requirements of the complementarity test. This conclusion, although not surprising, hides a question on the relationship of the Court with non-state entities. It is a question the PTC I deliberately avoided answering: is the ICC required to assess its complementarity with respect to criminal prosecutions undertaken by non-state entities in general, and with non-state armed groups (NSAG) in particular? ICC Judge Kovács, presiding over the chamber, had already suggested that a rigid approach should be rejected when dealing with entities having both undisputed control over a territory and the capacity to exercise criminal jurisdiction. Moving from that hint, this article first shows that the issue is not unique to the Libyan situation and that the ICC can easily find itself confronted with criminal proceedings run by courts of NSAGs. It then restricts the analysis to NSAGs armed groups that control a territory, are capable of exercising criminal jurisdiction and have a legal basis in international law to do so. Finally, it submits that the combined effect of the ne bis in idem principle and the command responsibility regime under the ICC Statute provides a solid argument allowing the Court to answer the question in the affirmative
Mali: The Overlap and Combination of Separatist, Jihadist and Intercommunal Conflicts
Full text linkIn 2018 Mali, supported by France, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and by militias of the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA) and the Imghad Tuareg Self-Defense Group and Allies (GATIA), continued to be involved in a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) on its territory against Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). According to the War Report, intercommunal clashes between Dan Nan Ambassagou and the Alliance for the Salvation of the Sahel also reached the threshold of a NIAC during the last year.
This chapter in the War Report 2018 offers a complete overview of the several conflicts afflicting Mali in recent years. The first parttraces back the root causes of the initial Tuareg rebellion in the Northern regions, to then show the jihadist takeover of the insurgency. It provides an in-depth analysis of the planning, generation and deployment of two multinational operations, one sponsored by the African Union, the other authorised by the United Nations. It sheds light on the French intervention in Mali, first as Operation Serval and then under Operation Barkhane. Finally, it accounts for the progressive return to peace in the Northern territory, while intercommunal conflicts in the Central regions rise to the level of a separate non-international armed conflict. The second part of the chapter scrutinizes the status and legal position of each party to the conflict. Key developments in 2018 are then surveyed. The last part summarises concluded and ongoing prosecutions before the International Criminal Court for crimes committed in the Malian conflicts
Weapons Systems Supply and Operational or Logistical Support under the PSSA. A Training Guide to Comply with the Swiss Federal Act on Private Security Services provided Abroad
Full text linkThis Training Guide is designed for Swiss industry to fulfil the obligations introduced by the Federal Act on Private Security Services provided Abroad (PSSA) of 27 September 2013 and its accompanying Ordinance (OPSA) of 24 June 2015, entered into force on 1 September 2015. It is tailored to the needs of companies operating and maintaining weapons systems and/or providing installation services, training on equipment and systems, and/or operational or logistical support to armed forces. Its purpose is to enable company personnel to understand key concepts and standards of human rights and international humanitarian law, including the risk and avoidance of direct participation in hostilities, in order to ensure their activities do not violate the PSSA. The Guide therefore provides the necessary knowledge and tools to train company personnel to identify, prevent, and report activities that can constitute direct participation in hostilities or complicity in human rights and international humanitarian law violations. The Training Guide is complete with thirty scenarios for practical training on direct participation in hostilities, including answers, that can be used to discuss the risk and avoidance of activities amounting to direct participation in hostilities
Book review: Leuven Manual on the International Law Applicable to Peace Operations
Full text linkThe 'Leuven Manual on the International Law Applicable to Peace Operations' belongs to the class of publications that deserve a prominent place in every bookshelf on peace operations and public international law. The Manual provides a restatement of all international norms applicable to peace operations, thereby filling a gap in a field where political priorities and situational specificities hinder a comprehensive legal regulation. Its systematic analysis of the applicable international law responds to pressing calls by practitioners, policy-makers and academics, and will serve as an indispensable tool for better decision-making in future operations. The Leuven Manual does not have any major flaws in its legal findings. A limited number of issues, however, deserve closer scrutiny because of their considerable practical relevance for the establishment and conduct of peace operations. This book review selectively focuses on some of them: the consent of the parties to the deployment of a peace operation; the need of a UN Security Council mandate for non-UN peace operations; the deployment of peace operations in international armed conflicts without becoming a party to the IAC; the use of force in defence of others and the risk of direct participation in hostilities; the temporal scope of application of IHL to the military contingents of a peace operation that has become party to a conflict
Criminal repression of CBRN-related violations which do not amount to international crimes
Full text linkThe purpose of this chapter is to give a comprehensive overview of international obligations concerning the criminal repression of CBRN-related violations which do not amount to international crimes. Indeed, while a number of CBRN-related violations may meet treaty and customary definitions of international crimes, international law requires States to criminalise and prosecute a broader range of CBRN events in their domestic legal systems. The first section provides some introductory remarks, proposing a taxonomy of applicable obligations and linking them to the different phases of the CBRN emergency management cycle. The second and third sections deal respectively with the two main obligations in this field, namely the obligation to criminalise and the obligation to prosecute. The analysis proves that obligations to criminalise aim at reinforcing the prevention of and preparedness against CBRN events, whereas obligations to prosecute govern the response to and recovery from CBRN-related violations. The fourth section turns to national implementation and sheds light on the consequences of the failure to criminalise and prosecute in terms of State responsibility, and specifically human rights responsibility for violations of the right to life
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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