James Summers

The Rhetoric and Practice of Self Determination. A Right of all Peoples or Political Institutions

The right of peoples to self-determination occupies a prominent position in a number of key international instruments, like the Human Rights Covenants and the United Nations Charter. Yet, despite this, many questions remain about the right in international law. This article is an analysis of the right which will look at its language in relation to its practical application. Its focus is on self-determination as a rhetoric, which, it is argued, is used to legitimize political activities by presenting those activities in terms of peoples and their self-realization. It will be further argued that as political rhetoric self-determination is most likely to be invoked in the institutions that direct and provide a focus for political life. This produces the paradox in the right. Although the rhetoric of self-determination suggests that peoples and their characteristics provide the basis for political institutions, the right, in fact, seems to be shaped in large part by those institutions. This, in turn, has important implications for how self-determination should be looked at in relation to other legal principles.

Kosovo: A Precedent?

This book brings together leading scholars to consider the legal impact of the precedent set by Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence and its consequences for statehood, self-determination and minority rights.

Self-determination, Resources and Borders: Introduction to the Special Issue

This special edition developed from the “Conference on 21 Century Borders” held at Lancaster University on 13 June 2014. This conference took place in the context of the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea earlier in March, but sought to address tensions over borders more widely. A key assumption in the UN system is that changes in political and economic relations can take place between states within established borders. However, not only in Russia’s asserted ‘near abroad’, but also in Asia, a shifting balance of power has stoked territorial tensions. In Asia many of these have focussed competing claims over islands and marine resources amongst countries bordering the South and East China seas. This special edition will look at disputes over borders and resources, not only from the perspective of self-determination but also from broader principles for the settlement of territorial claims. Borders are an inevitable part of self-determination. The subject of the right, the people, by necessity, is distinguished from other peoples by the boundaries used to define it, both internally and externally. In addition, the state, which is territorially-defined, forms the principal object of the right. It is either a mechanism for its realisation, if the right is aimed to be realised ‘internally’ within a state, or a model for a new political entity, in the case of secession. Nonetheless, while borders are an inherent element in self-determination, their relationship with it has not been rigid and evolved over time. After the right gained international currency in the First World War, plebiscites were used in limited circumstances to change established borders in accordance with the wishes of the people. The UN Charter developed clear protection for a territorially-defined inter-state system with its unambiguous formulation of the principle of the territorial integrity of states in Article 2(4). Nonetheless, there little examination in the drafting of the relationship between this principle and that of selfdetermination in articles 1 and 55, aside from condemnation of the latter as a basis for intervention. The emergence of self-determination as a legal right in the decolonisation process, though, was closely connected with territorial integrity. The colonial units entitled to selfdetermination, and their exercise of that right, were territorially defined. Colonial territories were asserted to have a separate political status from the states administering them. Their territorial integrity was upheld in Principle 6 of the Declaration on the Granting on Colonial Independence, GA Res. 1514(XV) 1960. This protected their unity against actions by administering powers to dismember them (e.g. the separation of Walvis Bay from Namibia) and after independence against secessionist movements (e.g. Katanga or Biafra).

Contemporary challenges to the laws of war : essays in honour of Professor Peter Rowe

Foreword Christopher Greenwood Preface Caroline Harvey, James Summers and Nigel D. White 1. Introduction James Summers 2. Army legal services and academia A. P. V. Rogers and Gordon Risius Part I. Structural and Systemic Aspects of the Laws of War: 3. Development of new rules or application of more than one legal regime? Dieter Fleck 4. Its a bird! Its a plane! Its a non-international armed conflict: cross border hostilities between states and non-state actors Lindsay Moir 5. Security Council mandates and the use of lethal force by peacekeepers: what place for the laws of war? Nigel D. White 6. The relationship of international humanitarian law and war crimes: international criminal tribunals and their statutes Robert Cryer Part II. Effective Protection?: 7. The future of Article 5 tribunals in the light of experiences in the Iraq war, 2003 Nicholas Mercer 8. Direct participation and the principle of distinction: squaring the circle Charles Garraway 9. Droning on: some international humanitarian law aspects of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in contemporary armed conflicts David Turns 10. Does the law of targeting meet twenty-first-century needs? William Boothby 11. Protecting civilians from the effects of explosive weapons in International Humanitarian Law Maya Brehm 12. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the initiative to strengthen legal protection for victims of armed conflicts Michael Meyer Part III. Responsibility and Accountability: 13. Corporate criminal responsibility for war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law: the impact of the business and human rights movement Alex Batesmith 14. The trial of prisoners of war by military courts in modern armed conflicts Peter Rowe 15. The right to conduct ones own defence before the ICTY and a fair and expeditious trial: an impossible balancing act Caroline Harvey.