The Requisite Rigour in the Identification of Customary International Law: A Look at the Reports of the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noora Arajjrvi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

scholarly journals The Requisite Rigour in the Identification of Customary International Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noora Arajärvi
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

Over the last few decades, the methodology for the identification of customary international law (cil) has been changing. Both elements of cil – practice and opinio juris – have assumed novel and broader forms, as noted in the Reports of the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). This contribution discusses these Reports and the draft conclusions, and reaction by States in the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (unga), highlighting the areas of consensus and contestation. This ties to the analysis of the main doctrinal positions, with special attention being given to the two elements of cil, and the role of the unga resolutions. The underlying motivation is to assess the real or perceived crisis of cil, and the author develops the broader argument maintaining that in order to retain unity within international law, the internal limits of cil must be carefully asserted.

scholarly journals Identifying the Rules for Identifying Customary International Law: Response From Michael Wood and Omri Sender

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 196-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wood ◽  
Omri Sender
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Community ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission ◽  
Made In

We are grateful to AJIL Unbound for organizing this symposium on the work of the International Law Commission on identification of customary international law. We are particularly grateful to all who have contributed to the symposium for their interest and insights.We shall not here reply comprehensively to everything that has been said. Many points will be addressed in the Special Rapporteur’s third report, to be submitted to the UN Secretariat toward the end of March 2015 in preparation for the Commission’s session beginning in May 2015. We would only say that many of the points made in the symposium thus far seem eminently sensible, and will hopefully be seen as such by the Commission. It has to be noted, however, that the work of the Commission is collegiate, and the eventual output does not belong to the Special Rapporteur (who is just a facilitator) but to the Commission as a whole—and eventually to the General Assembly and the international community.

scholarly journals Identifying Customary International Law: First Thoughts on the ILC’s First Steps

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 184-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward T. Swaine
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
First Report ◽  
State Practice ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Early Returns ◽  
Law Commission

The International Law Association’s Statement of Principles Applicable to the Formation of General Customary International Law (2000) was a welcome addition to an admittedly voluminous literature. Stepping into the void of authoritative commentary, it balanced an estimable representation of contemporary thinking while it also tendered sometimes controversial views on unresolved matters. Though nominally on the same subject, the International Law Commission (ILC) project offers different strengths and faces different challenges. As the First Report by the Special Rapporteur, Sir Michael Wood, has noted, the ILC’s relationship with States, in particular, provides it with a special vantage and authority. This vantage may also make its pronouncements less tendentious, and more conservative, in character. I’d like to assess the (very early) returns on how this potential differentiation is faring. For sake of brevity, I will focus mostly on a likely harbinger, the treatment of State practice, as reflected in the Draft Conclusions already adopted by the Drafting Committee—including parts of the Second Report bearing upon them. Any stylistic or substantive criticism of the existing work recognizes, of course, that it is at an early stage, and that one of ILC’s many virtues is the deliberate and careful evolution of its projects.

scholarly journals Identifying the Rules for Identifying Customary International Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 169-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean D. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

The International Law Commission (ILC) decided in 2012 to add to its agenda a new topic on the “identification of customary international law” and to appoint Sir Michael Wood (United Kingdom) as special rapporteur. That project has reached an important point, with a series of Draft Conclusions having been cleared through the Commission’s Drafting Committee, and ready for the Commission’s provisional approval (together with commentaries) in 2015. As such, now is a propitious time for governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, scholars, and others to weigh in on the merits of these Draft Conclusions, and additional ones that will be developed in 2015–16.

scholarly journals Identifying International Organizations’ Contributions to Custom

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 174-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. DeBartolo
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Intergovernmental Organization ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Contentious Issue ◽  
State Practice ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Past Summer ◽  
Law Commission

It is widely acknowledged that international organizations (IOs) indirectly affect customary international law by catalyzing and focusing State practice. But next year the International Law Commission and Michael Wood, its Special Rapporteur on the Identification of Customary International Law, are primed to address a more contentious issue: when and how IOs can directly contribute, like States, to custom.This past summer the Commission’s Drafting Committee provisionally adopted a draft conclusion stating that “[i]n certain cases, the practice of international organizations also contributes to the formation, or expression, of rules of customary international law.” Based on Wood’s Second Report dated May 2014, three topics merit particular attention in the year ahead: 1) distinguishing State practice from IO practice, 2) scrutinizing potentially relevant types of IO practice, and 3) considering types of cases in which such IO practice might contribute to custom. (While the Drafting Committee declined to include definitions in its draft conclusions, this article defines “IO” as Wood did in his Second Report: “an intergovernmental organization.”)

scholarly journals Customary International Law: A Moral Judgment-Based Account

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 328-333
Author(s):  
John Tasioulas
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
International Law ◽  
Double Counting ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
State Practice ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Interpretive Process ◽  
Law Commission

In this contribution to AJIL Unbound, I outline a moral judgment-based account (MJA) of customary inter-national law. On the MJA, moral judgment plays a dual role in the formation of customary international law. First, MJA is part of a disjunctive analysis of opinio juris, which involves a moral judgment about what the law ought to be or what it justifiably is. Second, the interpretive process of adducing a customary norm from state practice and opinio jurischaracteristically requires some moral judgment on the part of the interpreter. Along the way, I draw attention to two points at which the MJA departs significantly from the analysis presented in the International Law Commission (ILC)’s Second Report by Special Rapporteur Sir Michael Wood, on the identification of customary international law.1 First, by more sharply separating state practice from opinio juris, MJA avoids systematically double-counting the same facts as both opinio jurisand state practice. Second, MJA offers an effective response to the so-called “paradox of custom”, according to which a customary norm can only come into existence if a sufficient number of states mistakenly believe (or pretend to believe) that it already exists.

Customary International Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Marie Dupuy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
General Practice ◽  
International Law ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
The World ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

International custom “as evidence of a general practice accepted as law”, is considered one of the two main sources of international law as it primarily derives from the conduct of sovereign States, but is also closely connected with the role of the international judge when identifying the applicable customary rule, a function it shares with the bodies in charge of its codification (and progressive development), starting with the International Law Commission. Though mainly considered to be general international law, international custom has a complex relationship with many specific fields of law and specific regions of the world. The editor provides comprehensive research published in the last seven decades, invaluable to everyone interested in the field of customary international law.

Part I Conclusion of Treaties, 4 Legal Consequences of an Impermissible Reservation to a Human Rights Treaty: Where Do We Stand?

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simma Bruno ◽  
Hernández Gleider I
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Legal Consequences ◽  
Law Commission

The Vienna Convention's regime on reservations is particularly unfit to cope with the specific characteristics of human rights treaties due to the very limited and particular role played by reciprocity and the ‘inward-targeted’ nature of the obligations stipulated in such instruments. Regional human rights courts and UN human rights treaty bodies have developed certain methods of monitoring the reservations practice of states parties to the respective instruments, but a central question has hitherto remained very controversial, namely that of the legal consequences of a reservation to a human rights treaty which is considered incompatible with that treaty's object and purpose and therefore impermissible. After many years of dealing with the topic of reservations, the UN International Law Commission has finally addressed this issue: Special Rapporteur Alain Pellet has proposed a solution which finds itself essentially in accord with the ‘severability’ doctrine advocated by the human rights community, reconciling this approach and the principle of treaty consent through the introduction of a presumption of severability of an invalid reservation from the body of a human rights treaty, to which the State making such a reservation will then remain bound in full. This chapter supports the Special Rapporteur's proposal, traces its development, and discusses both the advantages and the specific challenges posed by a presumption of severability.

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