Suchergebnisse

What does the protection or prohibition of a speech tell us about the tripartite relationship between political power, democracy and rights? This question has somehow underscored the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in hate speech cases for more than a half century. We argue that this question has invariably placed the Court in an uneasy position, which is, choosing between a democracy empowered by unlimited freedom of speech, but with recurrent social tensions, and a democracy with rather strict hate speech laws, but at ease with different segments of population. That said, the jurisprudence of the European Court outlines a pattern by which to identify a specific direction for the evolution of rights and democracy. This article considers this pattern. Not only does this article, examine the pattern in the Court's and the Commission's jurisprudence, but it also argues that this pattern unfolds a subtle presence of Hobbesian and Lockean theories of political power and the limits in its midst. By invoking this presence, we indicate how the debate in the jurisprudence of the European Court has shifted from the language of protecting democracy to that of rights.

There is more legal complexity to the secession of Crimea than meets the eye upon the first encounter with the 2014–2015 crisis of Ukraine. The secession of Crimea calls into question the traditional configuration of the right to self-determination. The question of Crimea is compounded when, in discerning the legality of some of the key issues linked to it, one must pay regard to the standards of both international law and national law. In other words, a constructive analysis of the secession of Crimea must delve into the national law standards of Ukraine, whilst simultaneously analysing the effect of observing or otherwise ignoring those standards as for the legality of secession therein from the perspective of international law. With a view to this complexity, this essay aims to combine some of the most controversial dimensions to the secession of Crimea in one piece, and clarify whether the case of Crimea can in any way be justified by the rules of international law on self-determination.

Abstract
Imagine, as part of its ongoing investigations into the situation in Ukraine, the icc prosecutor finally seizes on the opportunity to make a case for prosecuting the war crime of attacking the environment as formulated under Article 8(2)(b)(iv) and cite, inter alia, the Nova Kakhovka Dam's destruction as the principal incident triggering the application of the article. In the event of such a possibility, what restraints and difficulties punctuate the application of Article 8(2)(b)(iv), and what do such limits tell us about the juridical value of this provision? This essay argues that many technical nuances such as the meaning of 'attack' under international humanitarian law, incomplete information on who is responsible for the attack, and high thresholds of responsibility for environmental damage established under the Rome Statute will create insurmountable barriers to establishing responsibility for even the gravest damage to the environment, such as those witnessed in the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam.