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35 results

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  • Between Consent and Coherence: Incidental Questions in an Imperfect World

  • Part of
  • Payam Akhavan, Eirik Bjorge
  • Journal:
    AJIL Unbound / Volume 116 / 2022
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    20 June 2022, pp. 164-169
    • Article
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  • International courts and tribunals must maintain a delicate balance between consent and coherence when they consider incidental questions as part of their dispute settlement function. There are compelling reasons, in the contemporary world of unprecedented complexity and interdependence, to instill coherence into dispute settlement procedures, so as to avoid the denial of justice. The exercise of jurisdiction over an “incidental question,” however, must not be forced to the point that it undermines the willingness of states to give their consent to such procedures.

  • Economic Sanctions, International Law, and Crimes Against Humanity: Venezuela's ICC Referral

  • Dapo Akande, Payam Akhavan, Eirik Bjorge
  • Journal:
    American Journal of International Law / Volume 115 / Issue 3 / July 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    29 April 2021, pp. 493-512
    Print publication:
    July 2021

  • Economic sanctions, unilateral and multilateral, have a long pedigree in international relations. From South Africa and Israel, to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, such measures have, with varying results, been used in diverse contexts to influence the behavior of states. Some would celebrate the use of economic sanctions as a means of punishing “rogue states” for human rights violations or threats to the peace, while others would condemn it as “imperialism” by powerful states against the weak. Leaving aside Chapter VII enforcement action by the UN Security Council, the imposition of unilateral sanctions raises far-reaching questions in respect of the rights and duties of states under international law. A novel issue that has emerged recently is whether, in certain circumstances, such measures could even qualify as crimes against humanity.

  • 13 - Forum Shopping and Human Rights: Staring at the Empty Shelves

  • Edited by Martin Scheinin, European University Institute, Florence
  • Book:
    Human Rights Norms in ‘Other' International Courts
    Published online:
    22 July 2019
    Print publication:
    25 July 2019, pp 412-437

  • Summary

    A recurring theme is the legitimacy and harmonization of jurisprudence among international courts and tribunals. In this context, an important procedural consideration is so-called forum shopping; a strategy by which litigants pursue parallel or sequential proceedings, among multiple jurisdictions, in order to achieve the most favourable result. This chapter explores the differential treatment of forum shopping between the specialized regimes for human rights and the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) regime. It contends that the notable contrast between the restrictive rules applicable to individual human rights complaint procedures and the laissez-faire approach of the ISDS regime is instructive as to the place of human rights in the praxis of the international legal order; a procedural privileging of secondary human rights norms such as property rights over the most fundamental jus cogens norms such as the prohibition of extra-judicial executions and torture. The shift from norms to procedures provides a more honest picture of where the contemporary international legal order stands in regard to the fundamental principles that it espouses as unimpeachable axioms.

  • Balkanizing Jurisdiction: Reflections on Article IX of the Genocide Convention in Croatia v. Serbia

  • PAYAM AKHAVAN
  • Journal:
    Leiden Journal of International Law / Volume 28 / Issue 4 / December 2015
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 October 2015, pp. 893-897

  • When it first encountered the Genocide Convention in its 1951 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice recognized that the treaty reflected the ‘most elementary principles of morality’. Its provisions were to be read broadly, in light of the Convention's transcendent object and purpose. This expansive approach stands in contrast with the narrow interpretation of Article IX in the recent Judgment in Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia) case. This article is a commentary on the retroactive obligation to punish genocide under the Convention with regard to acts occurring prior to its entry into force for that state. It concludes that the Court's narrow interpretation of its jurisdiction ratione temporis raises wider questions for its contemporary jurisprudence, namely, whether it will interpret human rights treaties enshrining fundamental values any differently than other international instruments.

Reducing Genocide to Law
  • Definition, Meaning, and the Ultimate Crime
  • Payam Akhavan
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    26 January 2012
  • Could the prevailing view that genocide is the ultimate crime be wrong? Is it possible that it is actually on an equal footing with war crimes and crimes against humanity? Is the power of the word genocide derived from something other than jurisprudence? And why should a hierarchical abstraction assume such importance in conferring meaning on suffering and injustice? Could reducing a reality that is beyond reason and words into a fixed category undermine the very progress and justice that such labelling purports to achieve? For some, these questions may border on the international law equivalent of blasphemy. This original and daring book, written by a renowned scholar and practitioner who was the first Legal Advisor to the UN Prosecutor at The Hague, is a probing reflection on empathy and our faith in global justice.

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