Karin Oellers-Frahm

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Alleged victims: The complainants State party: Canada Date of complaint: 14 November 2012 (initial submission) Date of present decision: 2 December 2015 Subject matter: Failure to initiate criminal proceedings against a former Head of State responsible for torture Procedural issues: Admissibility ratione personae Substantive issues: Impunity; obligations of States; jurisdiction (universal) Articles of the Convention: 5 (2), 6 (1), 7 (1) and 22

European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

I. Participation in the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is not exclusively limited to member States of the Council of Europe. The Convention is also open for accession by other non-member States, provided that they have been formally invited to accede by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The relevant provision of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Article 18, paragraph 2 reads as follows:

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations

1. Ο παρών Νόμος θα αναφέρεται ως ο περί της Σύμβασης της Βιέννης για το Δίκαιο των Συνθηκών μεταξύ Κρατών και Διεθνών Οργανισμών ή μεταξύ Διεθνών Οργανισμών (Κυρωτικός) Νόμος του 1990. 2. Στον παρόντα Νόμο— «Σύμβαση» σημαίνει τη Σύμβαση της Βιέννης για το Δίκαιο των Συνθηκών μεταξύ Κρατών και Διεθνών Οργανισμών ή μεταξύ Διεθνών Οργανισμών που έγινε στη Βιέννη στις 21 Μαρτίου του 1986 και της οποίας το κείμενο στο αγγλικό πρωτότυπο εκτίθεται στο Μέρος Ι και σε Ελληνική μετάφραση στο Μέρος II του Πίνακα:

International Rivers and Lakes

I. The UN/ECE Water Convention: exporting experience in water cooperation to the world....................................................... 1 II. Virginia wins Potomac water war in Supreme Court..................... 2 III. Water conflicts unlikely according to new study .......................... 3 IV. Privatization of the world’s waterways criticized.......................... 3 V. Water for five million Americans lost to Mexico?......................... 5 VI. Mexican President blames water debt on predecessors..................... 5 VII. Rio Grande water to be sold to Mexico....................................... 6 VIII. Suez may sue Puerto Rico......................................................6 IX. Tribunal chosen to hear dispute over Peruvian preserve.................. 7 X. Transboundry Issues – Iraq requests talks with Syria and Turkey........ 8

Lawmaking Through Advisory Opinions

International courts and tribunals are firstly and particularly conceived to settle legal disputes between States and/or other organs or individuals admitted as parties according to the statute of the respective court by means of a binding decision. An advisory function is not inherent in the function of a judicial body, but has to be transferred expressly upon a court or tribunal in the constituent instrument. For non-standing judicial bodies, i.e., arbitral tribunals, an advisory function is rather unusual, but not altogether ruled out: The parties to a compromis may empower the tribunal to give an advisory opinion.

Expanding the Competence to Issue Provisional Measures: Strengthening the International Judicial Function

In international law, jurisdiction serves the same principal aim as in national law, namely the settlement of disputes in order to maintain (legal) peace and security. In international law, as in national law, judicial procedures take time, sometimes a lot of time, during which the rights at stake may be negatively affected by acts of one of the parties potentially resulting in an ineffective judgment. A remedy against such an occurrence has been developed through an instrument of interim protection by which the court directs the parties to leave the rights as they stand and not to interfere with the situation.1 Such an instrument appears indispensable in order to ensure that a court or tribunal is able to effectively exercise its function.2 At the national level, interim protection is usually unproblematic since the competence of the tribunals is mostly comprehensive.

World Court Digest

The first three volumes of the World Court Digest cover the periods 1986 to 1990, 1991 to 1995 and 1996 to 2000. We are happy to issue the fourth volume, covering the period from 2001 to 2005. We hope that this new Digest will be welcome to all those interested in the case law of the International Court of Justice. We are, of course, aware that nowadays the decisions of the Court are easily accessible through electronic data systems. However, there is no systematic analysis available in the form presented by the World Court Digest. Therefore, the Digest will be useful for those who wish to find the most recent position of the Court on a particular issue of international law. As the three previous volumes, also this fourth volume will be made available through electronic data on the homepage of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. The first five years of the new century have been a busy period for the Court due to its continuing heavy caseload. The cases concerned a variety of legal issues reaching from the use of force and self-defence to questions of land and maritime boundary delimitation, immunity, consular matters, revision of judgments and the effect of provisional measures. The parties to the cases were States from all parts of the world demonstrating the general acceptance of the Court.

International Law and Municipal Law

The fact remains however that, as the Court has already observed, the United States has declared (letter from the Permanent Representative, 11 March 1988) that its measures against the PLO Observer Mission were taken “irrespective of any obligations the United States may have under the [Headquarters] Agreement”. If it were necessary to interpret that statement as intended to refer not only to the substantive obligations laid down in, for example, sections 11, 12 and 13, but also to the obligation to arbitrate provided for in section 21, this conclusion would remain intact. It would be sufficient to recall the fundamental principle of international law that international law prevails over domestic law. This principle was endorsed by judicial decision as long ago as the arbitral award of 14 September 1872 in the Alabama case between Great Britain and the United States, and has frequently been recalled since, for example in the case concerning the Greco-Bulgarian “Communities” in which the Permanent Court of International Justice laid it down that “it is a generally accepted principle of international law that in the relations between Powers who are contracting Parties to a treaty, the provisions of municipal law cannot prevail over those of the treaty (P.C.I.J., Series B, No. 17, p. 32).

Advisory Opinions of the International Court of Justice

In the present case, the Court is not called upon to decide whether the measures adopted by the United States in regard to the Observer Mission of the PLO to the United Nations do or do not run counter to the Headquarters Agreement. The question put to the Court is not about either the alleged violations of the provisions of the Headquarters Agreement applicable to that Mission or the interpretation of those provisions. The request for an opinion is here directed solely to the determination whether under section 21 of the Headquarters Agreement the United Nations was entitled to call for arbitration, and the United States was obliged to enter into this procedure. Hence the request for an opinion concerns solely the applicability to the alleged dispute of the arbitration procedure provided for by the Headquarters Agreement. It is a legal question within the meaning of Article 65, paragraph 1, of the Statute. There is in this case no reason why the Court should not answer that question.

Dritter Teil: Die Sicht von ehemaligen und jetzigen Direktoren (in zeitlicher Reihenfolge)

Rudolf Bernhardt und Karin Oellers-Frahm sind fur dieses Buch und die darin enthaltenen Darstellungen verantwortlich. Es erschien aber angemessen, fruhere und die jetzigen Direktoren des Instituts mit personlichen Ausfuhrungen zu Wort kommen zu lassen. Die Auswahl war hinsichtlich fruherer Direktoren schwierig. Insofern wurden von den nicht mehr lebenden ehemaligen Direktoren nur zwei Stellungnahmen aufgenommen, die wegweisend fur die weitere Arbeit des Instituts waren, namlich die Abhandlungen von Viktor Bruns im ersten Band der Institutszeitschrift und Hermann Mosler 50 Jahre spater in Band 36 der Zeitschrift uber das „Volkerrecht als Rechtsordnung“. Die noch lebenden fruheren und die jetzigen Direktoren haben ihre personlichen Ansichten zur wissenschaftlichen Arbeit im Institut und/oder seiner Direktoren und Mitarbeiter nach eigenem Ermessen verfasst; ihre Beitrage folgen also keinem einheitlichen oder vorgegebenen Schema.