Towards an Emancipatory International Law: the Bolivarian reconstruction

In this article, we argue that a unique South American treaty known as ALBA—the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas—puts forward a cohesive counter-vision of international law rooted in notions of complementarity and human solidarity. We further argue that Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholars might use this initiative as a springboard to push forward a long-overdue reform of the international legal regime. While, on its own, ALBA is unlikely to pose much of a challenge to the structural imbalances that permeate global society, when juxtaposed alongside the many initiatives of the Bolivarian Revolution, it appears to possess signi?cant democratic potential. With both scholarly and popular support, ALBA may even have the capability of sparking a renewal of a united Third World movement.

Why do national court judges refer to human rights treaties?: A comparative international law analysis of CEDAW

An analysis was conducted of 325 national judicial decisions across 55 jurisdictions, in which CEDAW was referred to in the reported decision. Despite predictions to the contrary based on previous scholarship, significant variations between courts in their interpretation of CEDAW occurred relatively infrequently, courts referred relatively seldom to interpretations of CEDAW by other national courts, and there was little evidence of transnational dialogic approaches to judging. An analysis of these results suggests that domestic judges invoking CEDAW act primarily as domestic actors who use international law in order to advance domestic goals, rather than acting primarily as agents of the international community in applying CEDAW domestically, or contributing to the transnational shaping of international law to suit national interests. The Article suggests an understanding of the domestic implementation of a human rights treaty as not only law, but a unique kind of law that performs a particular function, in light of its quality as something akin to hard and soft law simultaneously.

Is there any room for the doctrine of fundamental rights of states in today's international law?

This article serves as a general substantive introduction to the special issue on the fundamental rights of states in international law. It introduces the concept in theoretical and doctrinal terms, and lays out the questions that will be addressed by the contributions to the special issue. These questions include: 1) What do attributes like ‘inherent’, ‘inalienable’ and ‘permanent’ mean with regard to state rights?; 2) Do they lead to identifying a unitary distinct category of fundamental rights of states?; 3) If so, what is their source and legal character?; 4) What are their legal implications, eg, when they come into conflict with other obligations of the right holder or with the actions of other states and international organisations?; and ultimately, 5) Is there still room in today’s international law for a doctrine of ‘fundamental’ rights of states? The article reviews the fundamental rights of states in positive law sources and in international legal scholarship, and identifies the reasons for a renaissance of attention for this doctrine.

National Application of International Law: The Statutory Interpretation Perspective

Reprinted with permission of the Publisher from The Canadian Yearbook of Internation Law, 41 by Don McRae © University of British Columbia Press 2003. All rights reserved.

Death for life : a study of targeted killing by States in international law

"Mémoire présenté à la faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de Maîtrise en droit (LL.M.)". Ce mémoire a été accepté à l'unanimité et classé parmi les 10% des mémoires de la discipline.