Suchergebnisse

"[I]f humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica—to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?" – Kofi Annan This question asked by Kofi Annan over twenty years ago has not lost its relevance since, as for instance demonstrated by the paralysis of the Security Council in the face of the continued use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against its own population. The present work addresses the question of whether the unilateral use of force by states for humanitarian purposes, hence without a Security Council authorization, could be justified via the concept of 'humanitarian countermeasures'. In this context, humanitarian countermeasures are derived from the notion of countermeasures, which stems from the law of state responsibility as conceived in Art. 49 et seq. DARS and traditionally only refers to peaceful, bilateral measures. The core of the study is to open up countermeasures to humanitarian military action, discuss the legal feasibility of such an approach, while effectively containing the potential for abuse by establishing a legal framework. In a final step, concrete conditions for humanitarian countermeasures are defined, which can guide a reinterpretation of countermeasures and the further development of customary law.

The browser remains a key focal point for much of the surreptitious data gathering and surveillance that pervade the web. There are a multitude of vectors by which corrupt advertisers, repressive governments, and other malicious players can attack the browser to identify its user and access valuable personal data without consent. One avenue that has shown promise in frustrating data collection in the browser, however, has been obfuscation. Obfuscation, has in part proven successful as a strategy due to the ubiquity of the browser itself. While a web service provider may be able to filter out unwanted requests from individuals, it is far more difficult when tens of thousands of different users are attempting to pollute their captured data in this way. As such, obfuscation may represent a useful avenue of resistance against contemporary datafication in online space.

The adoption in August 2001 by the International Law Commission (ILC) of its articles on responsibility of states for internationally wrongful acts well and truly brings to a close the twentieth century's engagement with international law as (in Martti Koskenniemi's memorable refashioning of George Kennan's savage critique) a "gentle civilizer of nations." Including the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the seven pillars of international legal codification have been completed with some form of assistance by the ILC: diplomatic immunities, the law of the sea, a comprehensive law of treaties, the Nuremberg Principles, andjurisdictional immunities of states. Indeed, the articles on state responsibility may represent an even greater methodological challenge for international law codification because they pose fundamental questions regarding the identity and nature of states. Like the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States and the ILC's own somewhat obtuse efforts on the international law of state succession, the articles on state responsibility go to the intellectual core of public international law by delimiting the character of states and the nature of their obligations when they interact with other international actors. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that the ILC's journey into that doctrinal realm took over half a century, and consumed the attention of five special rapporteurs and countless Commission members.