1

I. The Nature of International Law

ubi societas ibi jus:

“where a society exists, law exists

also.” It is a natural consequence of men and women living in society that

they must necessarily be governed by rules. Whether those rules are just or even

rational is another question. As Sir Thomas More, King Henry VIII’s chancel-

Power and Weakness, Pol’y Rev.,

June–July 2002, at 3. Or is it that the U.S.

government is split between those supporting vigorous, decisive, and unilateral action, and those

supporting multilateral approaches, including working through the United Nations, as declared

Beware the Soft-Line Ideologies,

Wall St.

Jan. 7, 2004, at A12. Those in the first camp are said to include Vice-President Cheney, Defense

Secretary Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. Those in the second include former Secretary of State

Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage, and Brent Scowcroft.

*George P. Smith Distinguished Visiting Professor, Indiana University School of Law—

Bloomington; Former Challis Professor of International Law, University of Sydney, Australia;

L.L.B., L.L.M. (Adelaide), S.J.D. (Northwestern).

Ivan Shearer

lor, and revered now as a martyr and saint, once declared, it is better to have bad

law than no law at all. A reminder of this is the near anarchy that has prevailed

in recent times in such places as Somalia, Rwanda, and Liberia, where any idea

of civil society broke down.

We date the emergence of a clear concept of a society of nations bound by international

law to the recognition of the independent states of Europe in the

Peace of Westphalia, 1648, following the end of the wars of religion. International

law is thus a relatively new phenomenon. It is dynamic in nature as the

rules necessarily emanating from the fact of states living in society are made

more numerous and complex in order to deal with changing circumstances and

new needs. Moreover, in addition to the rules found necessary in any society, a

whole host of new rules has come into existence as the result of political efforts

2

The primary

reflection of this transition from society to community lies in the creation

of the League of Nations after the First World War and the United Nations

(U.N.) after the Second World War. Yet some nations stood aside from the

former, notably the United States, or later withdrew from it. They feared a diminution

of their sovereignty. Even today, deep-seated reservations are held in

certain influential quarters in both Australia and the United States in relation to

the United Nations. There are also new areas of law developing in what has

been called the international law of cooperation, such as in the regulation of

trade, the protection of natural resources, and the control of the environment.

In order to evaluate this fear, it is important to have a clear view of the

sources of international law. As confirmed in article 38 of the Statute of the International

Court of Justice, those sources are: (a) treaties, conventions, and other

forms of international agreement between states that bind them (contractually)

in their relations; (b) customary international law based on general state practice;

(c) general principles of law common to national legal systems; and (d) judicial

decisions of international and national courts and tribunals and the opinions of

learned writers, as subsidiary sources of law.

It can be seen that international law is essentially a voluntarist system of law.

The first source is most obviously voluntarist. No state is obliged to enter into a

treaty with any other state, but if it does so it accepts the rights and obligations

flowing from that treaty. For example, the United States has chosen not to be-

Gesellschaft

Gemeinschaft.

347

come a party to the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court. Australia,

by contrast, has accepted that treaty. What prior legal principle makes such a

pacta sunt servanda—

the general principle

common to all national legal systems that agreements are to be observed in good

faith. Some would buttress this legal justification with a political one. Formal

promises are binding because states seek reciprocity and security in relations: no

one trusts a person (or a state) who breaks his (or its) promises.

The second source is also essentially voluntarist, but only if understood with

a degree of subtlety. Customary international law consists of those principles and

rules that have been accepted by the great majority of states, as evidenced by

their practice or acquiescence, and provided further that there is a demonstration

of their conviction that the posited rule is—or ought by logical or practical

3—binding on them (opinio juris).4

As laid down by the International

North Sea Continental Shelf cases,5

perfect uniformity

of state practice is neither to be expected nor required for a rule to enter into

force as customary international law. But it is essential that the rule be accepted

by the great majority of states, including those most affected by the existence of

such a posited rule. Moreover, the practice of the more powerful states is more

significant than that of the smaller states since it is more likely that the practice

of the former, by virtue of their widespread interests, would have “brought them

that way” previously. Extending the metaphor of the great Belgian jurist Charles

De Visscher, likening the field of customary law to a piece of vacant ground, one

opinio juris sive necessitatis

(sometimes

opinio juris ex necessitate).

For to state that a rule must already be thought to be

binding at the same time as initial state practice has occurred presents a logical difficulty in that

the first examples of state practice must have been based on a false assumption. If, however, “necessitatis”

is conceived of in terms of the natural law or of logical or practical necessity, the difficulty

is avoided.

4. Practices unaccompanied by the conviction that they are required by law remain in the

realm of courtesy or comity. An example often given is the salute customarily given at sea by the

warship of one nation to that of another. Weightier examples include the non-recognition of a

duty to extradite criminals in the absence of a treaty obligation, and the absence of a legal duty to

grant development assistance to poorer countries, both of which practices are nonetheless widely

observed. The latter example is often regulated through the mechanism of memoranda of understanding

(MOUs), which are agreements in non-binding form, as evidenced by the avoidance of

language normally associated with legally binding intentions.

5. North Sea Continental Shelf (F.R.G. v. Den., F.R.G. v. Neth.), 1969 I.C.J. 3 (Feb. 20).

Ivan Shearer

could say that the footprints of the elephants are more indelibly marked than

6

The emergence of customary law out of state practice, especially in the form

of adherence to international conventions of a normative character, adhered to

by a large number of states, but not by the United States, might be ruled out according

to the criteria specified by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the

passages referred to above. Moreover, the Court has also recognized the notion

of the “persistent objector,” that is, of the right of a state to opt out of any consensus

gathering around a posited rule, provided it makes its contrary position clear

7

Nevertheless, fears remain in

certain quarters in the United States that political majorities in the United Nations

and other forums may conspire to promote rules of customary international

law inimical to the interests of the United States. Specific examples of

these concerns will be discussed later in this paper.

The third source—general principles of law common to civilized nations—

consists of a body of rules of an auxiliary, but necessary character, that would not,

owing to their nature, be the normal subject of state practice as such. Examples

pacta sunt servanda,

the principle of good faith, notions

8

Some see in this source of law recognition of the continuing influence of natural

law. In practice it seems that the ICJ has been satisfied that a principle is general

if it is recognized in both the common law and the civil law traditions.

The fourth, and final, source of international law specified in the Statute of

the International Court of Justice is the oddly grouped categories of judicial decisions

and the opinions of learned writers (quaintly termed in the Statute “the

most highly qualified publicists of the various nations”). However, article 59 of

the Statute makes it clear that decisions of the ICJ are not binding except as between

the parties to the decision. (Decisions, however, do tend to have strong

precedent value.) It should not be overlooked that national courts also can make

valuable contributions to the understanding and interpretation of international

law in the course of decisionmaking on questions of international law that arise

as part of domestic law. Examples include the interpretation of such conventions

Charles De Visscher, Theory and Reality in Public International Law 254–55 (

P.E.

Corbett trans., Princeton Univ. Press rev’d ed. 1968) (1957).

See, e.g.

, Fisheries (U.K. v. Nor.), 1951 I.C.J. 116 (Dec. 18).

See

The Corfu Channel (U.K. v. Alb.), 1949 I.C.J. 3 (Apr. 9).

349

as the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1984 Torture Convention, the 1929 Warsaw

Convention on International Air Carriage, as well as of the application of

customary law, for example the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Perversely, in

stare decisis

can entrench

9

The U.S. courts have

10

The

awards of international arbitral tribunals have also had a significant impact on

11

It would be invidious, and probably impossible, to single out writers of authority

who have most influenced the development of international law. It is easier

to recall the names of some of those authors who have published general

treatises on international law, which tend regularly to be cited before both international

and national courts and tribunals. Oppenheim springs most readily to

mind in the Anglophone literature, in its various editions through to Lauterpacht

12

Those works tend not to be argumentative

13

It is notable that few

general works covering the whole of international law have been written in recent

times by American scholars. The field seems to have been left mostly clear

for British, other European, and Latin-American writers. (I can offer no explanation

for this.) Argumentative writers, who propose in specialized monographs

or periodical articles a particular view of a disputable question, will be

cited in support of whatever interest is espoused in judicial or arbitral proceedings,

or in diplomatic exchanges. The qualification “most highly qualified” is

Trendtex Trading Corporation v. Central Bank of Nigeria

, 1 Q.B. 529 (1977), Lord Denning

M.R. was willing to disregard prior binding decisions of the House of Lords, reflective of the old

international law rule of absolute sovereign immunity, in favor of giving effect to the more recently

developed rule of qualified, or restrictive, immunity that would not shield the trading or

commercial activities of governments from suit in the English courts. His fellow judges in the

Court of Appeal, however, shrank from this step and decided the case against immunity on other

grounds.

The

, 11 U.S. (1 Cranch) 116 (1812), come readily to mind.

11. An outstanding example is the award of the arbitral tribunal established by Canada and the

United States in Trail Smelter 3 R.I.A.A. 1905 (1941).

See Oppenheim’s International Law (

Robert Jennings et al. eds., 9th ed. 1992). Other large

“magisterial” works include those of Ian Brownlie, D.P. O’Connell, and G. Schwarzenberger.

13. As one of my colleagues is apt to joke, “If it’s in Oppenheim, it’s international law.” By necessary

implication, if a rule is not to be found there, it is either not law or not yet clearly established

lex ferenda

).

Ivan Shearer

not taken literally in practice, although of course the better known the author

the more attention is likely to be paid to the opinion. In the extensive (and seemingly

ever increasing) periodical literature and number of monographs on particular

topics support will be found for almost any proposition. But this is not to

say that the discipline of international law is in disarray. The breadth and weight

of general opinion must also be taken into account.

It is therefore evident—at least to me—that there is nothing intrinsically

threatening to the vital interests of states in the sources of international law. The

two major sources are essentially voluntarist in nature. There is no international

legislature capable of forcing states to submit to the wishes of a majority. The international

community makes laws for itself through persuasion and consent.

Insofar as international custom is constitutive of universally binding law, and insofar

opinio juris

and subsequent concordant

practice of states adhering to multilateral conventions, there is always the

opt-out possibility of the persistent objector, as mentioned above, or of the abstention

from the practice by one or more of the states which would be especially

14

II. Public Understanding of International Law

I have deliberately begun this essay with an elementary survey of the nature

of international law because of the widespread ignorance about its nature in current

political discourse. We must understand the basic elements of the international

legal system so that we do not fall into the trap of either undervaluing it or

expecting too much of it.

We have experienced a public debate recently in Australia (which is likely to

continue) on the relevance of international law to the formulation and execution

of government policy, and also on the legitimacy of reference to international

See generally

North Sea Continental Shelf (F.R.G. v. Den.; F.R.G. v. Neth.) [1969] I.C.J. 4

(Feb. 20). It is implied by dicta of the Court in this case that practice based on the execution of treaty

obligations should be discounted as practice potentially constitutive of a customary rule; only freestanding

practice should count. This view must be questioned, since if there were 99% adherence to

a convention, then logically no parallel customary rule could ever crystallize. The better view, in

my opinion, is that customary law emanating from widely accepted multilateral conventions

opinio juris

comes first, in the

form of what states believe is, or ought to be, the law and as expressed by them in the conference negotiations.

Practice then follows in the form of application of the convention’s provisions.

351

law standards by judges in developing the common law and filling in the gaps

left by statute law. Misunderstandings of the nature of international law have

been very evident. Polemicists either attribute a false certainty to international

law, or dismiss it altogether as irrelevant. There are, I think, parallel emanations

of that misunderstanding here in the United States.

In relation to the intervention in Iraq, which began in March 2003, and in

which Australia played a significant role as a partner of the United States and

the United Kingdom in the coalition forces, critics of the Australian Government

asserted that the U.N. Charter forbade such an action in the absence of explicit

endorsement by the Security Council. This, as will appear from what I

shall argue later, is to take an unduly rigorous view of the Charter and ignores

possible (and to me persuasive) considerations that the intervention was compatible

with international law. To view international law—and indeed the laws of

any domestic legal order—as a rigid set of clear rules is a common error made by

non-lawyers everywhere. Journalists and opinion and editorial writers abound

who share this misunderstanding.

At the other end of the spectrum lie those politicians and commentators

who have read somewhere that “international law is not really law” in the sense

that it can be enforced against evil-doers through an international police force,

international courts, and international jails. So they readily fall for the line that

law is merely the projection of power, and we might as well live with that fact. It

is distressing that these people have been given comfort by one who understands

international law very well but has become cynical about it. Referring to the system

of collective security established by the U.N. Charter in the wake of the intervention

in Iraq, Professor Michael Glennon of the Fletcher School of Law

and Diplomacy at Tufts University has spoken of the end of a grand “experiment.”

In my view this is a counsel of despair. I hope it is not widely shared in

academic circles in the United States.

At the political level we have to consider the similar views of the Honorable

John Bolton, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security in

the U.S. State Department. At the November 12, 2003 National Lawyers Con-

Why the Security Council Failed, 82 Foreign Aff.,

May–June 2003, at

See also Michael J. Glennon,

The Fog of War: Self-defense, Inherence and Incoherence in Article 51

, 25 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y

539 (2002). Thomas M. Franck provides

See Thomas M. Franck,

What Happens Now? The

, 97 Am. J. Int’l L

. 607, 617 (2003).

Ivan Shearer

vention, sponsored by the Federalist Society, Mr. Bolton effectively dismissed international

law as a necessary element in the justification of foreign policy. He

sees the basis of state power as lying in the consent of the people governed, expressed

through national law:

Indeed, there’s a fundamental problem of democratic theory for

those who contend, implicitly or otherwise, that the proper operation

of America’s institutions of representative government are

not able to confer legitimacy for the use of force. Make no mistake:

not asserting that our constitutional procedures themselves

confer legitimacy will result over time in the atrophying of our

ability to act independently. . . . [This] has been fundamentally

misunderstood in the U.N. system. Many in the U.N. Secretariat

and many U.N. member governments in recent Security Council

debates have argued directly to the contrary. Increasingly, they

place the authority of international law, which does not derive directly

from the consent of the governed, above the authority of national

law and constitutions.

This argument has been raised in Australia under the banner of “the democratic

deficit,” but more in relation to international conventions than in relation to

customary law or the U.N. Charter. There was disquiet that Australia might, for

reasons of diplomatic expediency, be led into unwise commitments engineered by

the United Nations and other committees, which are comprised of representatives

of a number of countries, not all of them democratic. That debate led in a short

time to the establishment of a Standing Committee of the Australian Parliament

to review all international agreements which the executive government planned to

sign or ratify in order to advise on their desirability, whether or not their implementation

was dependent on implementing legislation. This development enjoyed

the support of all the main political parties. By contrast, I do not think that

any government leader in Australia would argue that the U.N. Charter does not

impose restraints on the nation, and that our ability to use force is entirely a matter

for the duly elected government of the day and the Constitution and laws of Australia.

The view would be taken that we are necessarily constrained in matters as

fundamental as peace and war by our membership in the United Nations and the

provisions of the U.N. Charter. After all, does not the Charter itself declare in its

preamble the determination of all its members to unite their strength to maintain

353

international peace and security, and “to ensure, by the acceptance of principles

and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common

16

This is the community that we freely joined. There are

rights and obligations of membership. They are set out in the Charter. There are

17

but they are

not resolved by ignoring or circumventing the United Nations.

The use of international law, or reference to it as a yardstick, by judges in

Australia has come in for criticism. Padraic P. McGuinness is a prolific columnist

Quadrant

. In

newspaper columns during the past few years, and now most recently in an editorial

Quadrant

, he has attacked a distinguished justice of the Australian High

Court (the equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court), Justice Michael Kirby. Some

of you will remember that Justice Kirby stood where I am standing before you

not long ago giving the Branigin Lecture. Mr. McGuinness attacked what he

called “judicial adventurism” which produces decisions that, unlike legislative

enactments, have retroactive effect. “Where there is no predictability in the law

there is no law, only the fiat of unelected appointees who once appointed are accountable

to no one.” (Remember that in Australia we do not elect judges at any

level of the judiciary.) Without citing a single case or specific example of Justice

Kirby’s adventurism, Mr. McGuinness continued:

But Kirby does not believe that judicial adventurism is without

principle. He relies on another theory. This is unclear, but seems to

be essentially that there are principles of human rights and justice

which are inherently true, and only judicial authorities can define

them. Where do the judges find these principles? Either they make

them up as they go along, or they rely on a theory of natural moral

law, either as defined by, say, Catholic natural law philosophy (as

U.N. Charter

, at pmbl.

A More Secure World: Our

, Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change,

available

www.un.org/secureworld/panelmembers.html.

Ivan Shearer

18 and Deane19 did in the Mabo case20

) or some

21

Taking into account Mr. McGuinness’ previous writings on this theme, we

can understand his dark reference to “some other external doctrine” as a reference

to international law. He had earlier castigated international conventions on

human rights, the environment, and other topics of relevance to national policy

as having been invented by unelected delegates in Geneva, New York, and other

places, often representing undemocratic states. He sees Justice Kirby, and some

other judges, as smuggling these principles and ideas into Australian law

through the back door.

Justice Kirby has not, of course, responded directly to this attack. Judicial

propriety forbids this. His answers must be found in his published judicial opinions,

as well as in extracurial speeches and papers, of which he delivers many. He

22

In these lectures he reflected

on the nature of the judicial function and on the more open acknowledgment

today than in the world of forty or more years ago that judges are not mere

automatons mechanically applying rules handed down from the past but do indeed

make law. But he acknowledges limits to the power of judicial lawmaking.

One of Justice Kirby’s law teachers, the eminent scholar of jurisprudence and international

law Julius Stone, invented a telling expression to describe these limits:

23

This expression denotes that there are

fixed poles between which a judge exercises an interstitial competence. The

poles are the provisions of the Constitution or the clear words of a statute. Or

they may be the clear rules of courts standing higher in the judicial hierarchy

than the deciding judge. Or they may, on occasion, be prohibitions founded on

Mabo v. Queensland

[No.2] (1992) 175 C.L.R. 1 (Austl.) (Sir Gerard Brennan, majority opinion).

Mabo v. Queensland

[No.2] (1992) 175 C.L.R. 1 (Austl.) (Sir William Deane, dissenting).

Mabo v. Queensland

[No.2] (1992) 175 C.L.R. 1 (Austl.). This was the case that reversed the

terra nullius

before

European settlement, and recognized the subsistence of certain aspects of aboriginal land title that

survived settlement. This decision dates prior to Justice Kirby’s appointment to the Court.

Judicial Adventurism and Public Debate, Quadrant,

Jan.–Feb. 2004, at 2–3 (internal citations

added).

Michael Kirby, Judicial Activism

(2004). Mr. McGuinness very fairly published extracts

Quadrant where his censorious editorial appeared. See, e.g.

,

Beyond the Judicial Fairy Tales, Quadrant,

Jan.–Feb. 2004, at 26–33.

Julius Stone, Legal System and Lawyers’ Reasonings

234, 274–78 (1964).

355

public policy. The word “clear,” of course, invites consideration in some cases,

where there may well be room for more than one interpretation of the rule in

question. But Justice Kirby recognizes these limits and has demonstrated no desire

to move beyond them. In the end, he states, “the duty to deliver and publish

reasons compels a judge to engage in a kind of dialogue between the past and the

present.” Smuggling new law through the back door is alien to his nature.

So it is with international law as a source of guidance or inspiration to modern

judges. Where that source is an international convention adhered to by the state,

and the state has not seen fit, or found it necessary, to incorporate its provisions directly

into national law by statute, it remains a statement of rules and standards

that the state has accepted at the executive level. It becomes, therefore, a legitimate

consideration for the courts to take it into account when interpreting a statute, or

developing the common law, but always within the leeways for judicial choice.

The reasons for looking in the direction of international law may not necessarily

be that it is a higher or better source of law than any other, but that the judiciary

should try, so far as possible, not to embarrass the executive in its conduct of foreign

relations by adopting or entrenching contrary positions at the national level.

For the courts to ignore treaties and conventions, or customary international law,

when not compelled to do so by reason of a contrary prescription of superior force,

would thus injure the state’s international reputation. A good example is the 1966

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This international instrument

has not been given legislative force in Australia. In the United States, by contrast,

24

In

Australia, courts increasingly look to the Covenant for guidance in the case of gaps

in Australian statute or common law, but only for guidance; the Covenant is not

25

See Foster v. Neilson, 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 253, 314 (1829) (Marshall, C.J.). See also 1

Laurence H.

, American Constitutional Law

§ 4-4, at 643–44 (3d ed. 2000).

See Dietrich v. The Queen (1992) 177 C.L.R. 292, 305 (Austl.). In Dietrich

, the High Court

reconsidered its previous holdings that there was no absolute right to free counsel by indigent defendants

in criminal cases. It now held that a necessary incident of the right to a fair trial included

professional legal assistance in cases involving potentially serious penalties. It was not, however,

able to implement directly the provisions of article 14 (3)(d) of the Covenant because courts do not,

in Australia, dispose of funds out of which legal assistance is provided. These funds are dispensed

by other public authorities. The Court therefore held that a trial court should, in cases such as

Dietrich

 

 

, order a stay of proceedings until such time as—by whatever means—the defendant can

appear with legal representation.

 

 

Id.

at 311–12.

356

 

Ivan Shearer

The so-called “democratic deficit” when international law is cited as a

source of such principles, rules, or ideas is an overblown concept. With the possible

exception of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) convention on the “new international information order,”

which years ago led to the withdrawal of the United States from that organization

and ultimately to the downfall of its director-general (the United States has

since rejoined), international conventions reflect generally acknowledged and

accepted standards. They are democratic in the sense that a majority (normally

two-thirds) of states present at the adopting conference must approve their texts

before opening them for general acceptance. They tend to reflect a lowest common

denominator. The important thing is that they do reflect the world as a

community and put pressure on states to adhere to basic standards. If advanced

states, like Australia and the United States, think that these conventions are only

for others, they fail in their duty to assist less developed countries in understanding

the need to strive for higher standards of behavior, not least in relation to

their own citizens. They can do this only by subscribing to those standards themselves.

There is nothing, however, to prevent more advanced states parties aspiring

to higher standards in their own legislation, where appropriate.

 

 

26

III. Three areas of fear

I have chosen just three examples to illustrate why certain governments

have been fearful of international law in recent times.

 

 

27

There are others, and

even these three must necessarily be treated briefly. Each could be the subject of

a lecture in its own right.

26. However, in relation to higher national standards that may cause difficulty for other states,

there may be a duty not to exceed the conventional limits. For example, the U.N. Convention on

the Law of the Sea, Dec. 10, 1982, 1833 U.N.T.S. 3, provides in a number of articles that national

laws bearing on freedom of navigation, controlling pollution, and the arrest of vessels may not

exceed the standards agreed to in generally applicable international regulations (principally IMO

instruments).

27. For an overview of the situation in Australia, see generally a recent joint article by four of

my colleagues, Hilary Charlesworth et al.,

 

 

Deep Anxieties: Australia and the International Legal Order

,

25

 

 

Sydney L. Rev. 423 (2003), available at

http://www.law.usyd.edu.au/~slr/v25/n4/

vol%2025%20No%204%202003.pdf.

 

 

See generally

John F. Murphy, United States and the Rule

of Law in International Affairs

 

 

(2004) (presenting a recent masterly study of the situation in

the United States).

In Fear of International Law

 

357

A. The International Law of the Sea

The international law of the sea is of obvious importance to countries like

Australia and the United States with long coastlines and lengthy lines of communication

and commerce by sea. It specifies the permitted breadths of territorial

seas, contiguous zones, and continental shelves, and establishes the new

exclusive economic zone and the regime of archipelagic waters. The law of the

sea is also of strategic importance, insofar as it places limits on the power of

coastal states to interfere with navigation and overflight. Issues of protection of

the marine environment and the rational management of fisheries, even of previously

unregulated high seas fisheries, are also dealt with.

It might be thought, therefore, that the United States would have been an

enthusiastic adherent to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982,

which resulted from a long process of negotiation from 1973 to 1982. Most of the

issues of importance to the United States, particularly of freedom of navigation

and overflight, were satisfactorily resolved through the negotiation of a balanced

package. However, the United States has abstained from signing or ratifying

the Convention, notwithstanding that more than 140 countries have

become parties. The sticking point was Part XI of the Convention, dealing with

the exploitation of the seabed beyond national jurisdiction, i.e., the deep seabed

beyond the limits of the continental shelves and exclusive economic zones of

states. This difficulty emerged late in the Conference, only just after the election

of the Reagan Administration, which had ordered a complete review of the

draft text as it stood at the end of 1981. There was insufficient time for the Conference

to consider the many objections raised by the United States to this part of

the draft Convention, which was pledged to hold its concluding sessions in 1982.

Thus the signing ceremony went ahead without the United States.

Without the participation of the United States there was less incentive for

other developed states to ratify the Convention, especially since they would bear

the full weight of the financial contributions required to support the administration

of the Convention. (Under the U.N. formula, contributions are assessed in

relation to GDP. The United States, therefore, pays about 25 percent of the U.N.

budget, and the same percentage in relation to separate funds such as that under

the Law of the Sea Convention; the least developed states pay about 0.06% each.)

Ten years after signing the Convention, the number of ratifying states had still

not reached the minimum number of sixty required for it to enter into force.

These were overwhelmingly developing states. Worse still, it seemed that in

358

 

Ivan Shearer

1993 the Convention was likely to enter into force with the bare number of sixty,

after which the opportunity to amend the Convention would be governed by the

provisions of the Convention that state that a review conference can not be held

for at least fifteen years after entry into force. A group of “Friends of the Convention,”

which included Australia, looked for a way out of this difficulty. The

group formulated a series of texts, which were designed largely to remove the

objections to Part XI that had been raised by the United States too late in the

Conference. These texts made the regime of the deep seabed more responsive to

free market principles, less bureaucratic in administration, more equitable in its

treatment of entrepreneurs, less able to overrule the views of major interest

groups such as the United States, and more restrictive of third party access to

technology, especially technology having a military value. These texts were then

placed in a free-standing draft “Agreement for the Implementation of Part XI of

the Convention.” The Agreement provides that, notwithstanding any contrary

or inconsistent provisions of the Convention, parties to the Agreement will implement

the Convention only in accordance with the new Agreement. In 1994,

the U.N. Secretary-General, who had originally been excluded from the group,

endorsed the proposals and put them to a vote in the U.N. General Assembly for

approval. The text was approved, and the Implementing Agreement became an

integral part of the Law of the Sea regime.

The way then seemed clear for the Convention to move ahead with the United

States coming aboard, its earlier objections now having been largely met. But this

was not to be. The other major powers ratified the Agreement, but not the United

States. The Clinton Administration put the Convention and Implementing Agreement

to the Senate for approval, but the submission was not even brought forward

for discussion, let alone approval. The then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, Senator Jesse Helms, refused to place it on the agenda. Now, at

last, under new Committee leadership, the issue is being debated. On October 14,

2003, University of Miami School of Law Professor Bernard H. Oxman, a member

of the U.S. delegation to the Law of the Sea Conference throughout its negotiation,

and other supporters, gave important testimony to the Committee urging ratification

of the Convention. We await the result.

Professor Oxman rightly pointed out in his testimony that the provisions of

the Law of the Sea Convention have, in most of their principles (save for the

original text of Part XI—the U.S. “footprint” in De Visscher’s metaphor being

In Fear of International Law

 

359

absent), achieved a parallel status as customary international law.

 

 

28

Thus the

United States was able to rely on the customary status of the Convention to assert

navigation and overflight rights and to claim an Exclusive Economic Zone for

itself. But there was still clear advantage to the United States in being able to rely

on specific provisions as binding treaty commitments vis-à-vis other states, as

well as being able to participate and bring influence to bear on the institutions established

under the Convention.

 

 

29

These advantages would come only with ratification

of the Convention.

I have put this example first because, even in relation to a subject that—

while important—does not go to the heart of American concerns about world

order, there seems to be a fear of becoming tied down to international agreements

and international regimes. The objections to the 1994 Agreement, if any,

were never articulated. It seemed to be an objection to binding international

agreements as such.

B. The Use of Force Against Iraq

This example concerns the restraints of an international treaty that undoubtedly

bind all states: the Charter of the United Nations. There are those

who say that the power and influence of the central guardian of the system of

collective security established by the U.N. Charter, the Security Council, has

been irreparably broken by the events of 2003.

 

 

30

There are others who consider

that the Charter has been breached, but not broken, by the intervention in Iraq

by the coalition led by the United States. After all, rules are often broken in do-

28. Achieving such parallel status as customary international law was recognized and discussed

in depth by the I.C.J. in the

 

 

North Sea Continental Shelf cases. See

North Sea Continental Shelf

(F.R.G. v. Den., F.R.G. v. Neth.), 1969 I.C.J. 3, 42–46 (Feb. 20).

29. It is disappointing that the customary law character of much of the Convention failed to be

noted as relevant in a recent decision of a U.S. federal court. In a suit brought by an environmental

group against the U.S. government regarding the use by the U.S. Navy of new sonars causing injury

and death to whales, dolphins, and other marine life, the customary law concept of due regard in the

use of the oceans was not raised as a relevant consideration.

 

 

See

Natural Res. Def. Council v. Evans,

279 F. Supp. 2d. 1129 (N.D. Cal. 2003). In

 

 

United States v. Alvarez-Machain

, 504 U.S. 655, 669 (1992),

international law was swept aside as “a matter for the Executive Branch,” not for the courts, by the

majority led by Chief Justice Rehnquist. In dissent, Justice Stevens, with whom Justices Blackmun

and O’Connor joined, argued the relevance of international law in the courts.

 

 

Id.

at 670–71.

30.

 

 

See generally Agora: Future Implications of the Iraq Conflict, 97 Am. J. Int’l L

. 553–642, 803–

872 (2003) (collection of short articles of contrasting views and comments).

360

 

Ivan Shearer

mestic as well as international law. That does not necessarily mean that the system

no longer has force or value.

But has the Charter been breached? Here we see an interesting difference in

approach to the justification of the use of force against Iraq in 2003 by the United

States and two of its coalition partners, the United Kingdom and Australia. The

latter two found legal justification in prior resolutions of the Security Council. If

that was correct, then there was clearly no breach of the Charter because the Security

Council has the power to authorize the use of armed force. Those prior

resolutions were the resolutions that brought to an end the active hostilities, but

not the right of enforcement action, of the first Iraq war. In 1991, the Security

Council demanded that Iraq meet a large number of conditions relating to its future

conduct, including full disclosure of its programs of development of weapons

of mass destruction and submission to inspections for verification. Security

Council Resolution 1441 of 2002 found Iraq to be in material breach of those earlier

resolutions in view of its failure to cooperate fully with the inspection missions.

This resolution, in the view of the United Kingdom and Australia,

revived the right to use force originally mandated by the Security Council in

1991; the enforcement action suspended twelve years earlier could resume.

 

 

31

Although this argument is valid, in my view, taken by itself, it is rather spoiled

by the fact that, when speaking on the adoption of Resolution 1441 in 2002, both

the U.S. and U.K. representatives in the Security Council explicitly disavowed any

automatic effect of that resolution to resume hostilities.

 

 

32

This was done to encourage

other members of the Council to endorse the resolution. Many members (including

China, France, and Russia) would not have voted in its favor if they had

thought they were voting to use force against Iraq without giving Iraq further

time to conform to the inspection regime. They might well argue estoppel in law,

or at least bad faith in political terms, against the coalition governments.

The United States did not advance the same ground of justification. It advanced

its case principally on the basis of self-defense (particularly anticipatory

31.

 

 

See Legal Basis for the Use of Force Against Iraq

(Mar. 17, 2003) (based on the opinion of Lord

Goldsmith, Attorney-General of the United Kingdom),

 

 

at

http://www.labour.org.uk/legalbasis;

Memorandum of Advice on the Use of Force Against Iraq from Bill Campbell, QC First Assistant

Sec’y Office of Int’l Law Att’y-Gen.’s Dep’t & Chris Moraitis, Senior Legal Adviser Dep’t of Foreign

Aff. & Trade of Australia (Mar. 12, 2003),

 

 

at

http://www.pm.gov.au/iraq/displayNewsContent.

cfm?refx=96.

32.

 

 

See Security Council Holds Iraq in ‘Material Breach’ of Disarmament Obligations, Offers Final

Chance to Comply

 

 

, U.N. SCOR, 58th Sess., 4644th mtg. at 8–9, U.N. Doc. SC/7564.

In Fear of International Law

 

361

or “preemptive” self-defense) and on the need to secure regime change in Iraq in

order to promote both regional and global security and the human rights of the

oppressed population groups of Iraq.

 

 

33

I want to examine both these grounds with an eye more toward the future

than to the past.

1. Humanitarian Intervention

Does such a doctrine exist in international law, compatible with the Charter?

Writing before the intervention in Iraq in 2003, Professor Ian Brownlie of

Oxford stated that the so-called right of humanitarian intervention was contrary

to the U.N. Charter, but that in extreme cases of humanitarian need, where the

Security Council had been unable to agree to act owing to political divisions in

its ranks, intervention might be excusable, even though unlawful. In this he

drew the rather curious parallel of how prosecutors overlook some cases of euthanasia

under domestic law.

 

 

34

“Illegal but excusable” also appears to be the position

of Australian scholar Simon Chesterman in his recent widely noted study

of humanitarian intervention.

 

 

35

I find this a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. The law must surely make sense

and must ultimately conform to what is right. There is sound political sense in

the justification given by British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the earlier intervention

by NATO in Kosovo and the bombing of Serbia without the authorization

of the Security Council: “We did it because it was right to do so.”

 

 

36

The law

should try to conform to what is politically and morally sound. There can, of

course, be no right of states to take the law into their own hands and to make

judgments about humanitarian intervention lightly, or as a mere pretext to act in

advancing their own particular interests. The tests of true humanitarian intervention

have been persuasively articulated by the Report of the International

Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, co-chaired by the former

Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, and Ambassador Mohamed Sahnoun

33.

 

 

See Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary (Feb. 28, 2003), at

http://

www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030228-5.html.

 

 

See also

William H. Taft IV &

Todd F. Buchwald,

 

 

Preemption, Iraq and International Law, 97 Am. J. Int’l L

. 557–63 (2003).

34. Ian Brownlie,

 

 

Thoughts on Kind-hearted Gunmen, in

Humanitarian Intervention and the

United Nations

 

 

139, 146 (R. Lillich ed., 1973).

35.

 

 

Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace?

87 (2001).

36. United Kingdom Materials on International Law, 1999

 

 

Brit. Y.B. Int’l L. 586; 2000

Brit.

Y.B. Int’l L.

 

 

649–650.

362

 

Ivan Shearer

of Algeria. The Report, sponsored and published by the Government of Canada

in 2001, makes a powerful case for humanitarian intervention, but as a responsibility

rather than as a right. The Report stresses the need to base humanitarian

enforcement actions within chapter VII of the Charter, and calls upon the Security

Council to exercise its powers and duties responsibly and on an objective

view of the facts of each case. Nevertheless, the Report does envisage, even while

deploring the need for, actions by individual states or coalitions of states to intervene

where the Security Council fails to act.

 

 

37

Humanitarian intervention was not a primary ground of justification for the

intervention in Iraq, although it was sometimes mentioned as a secondary ground

or a desirable by-product. No one defends the regime of Saddam Hussein or fails

to acknowledge the horrific abuses of human rights inflicted by his regime on the

people of Iraq. Whether it could have been justified on that ground alone involves

weighing a number of factors, including prudential considerations. It is unnecessary

to do that here, other than to point to the Report of International Commission

which outlines the relevant factors.

 

 

38

It is enough to say that humanitarian intervention

as an exception to the prohibition of the use of force under the Charter has

inevitably demanded renewed consideration following events in Somalia, Rwanda,

Kosovo, Sierra Leone, the Congo, East Timor, and Sudan, among others.

Where the Security Council fails to act by endorsing forcible intervention in

cases of extreme humanitarian need, I would find authority in article 2(4) of the

U.N. Charter for coalitions of the willing, or even—under still stricter conditions—

of individual states, to act without a mandate from the Security Council.

That paragraph reads: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations

from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political indepen-

37.

 

 

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility

to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

53–55 (2001),

 

 

available at

http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/pdf/Commission-Report.pdf

[hereinafter

 

 

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty].

38.

 

 

Id.

at 32. These conditions owe much to traditional just war theory. A brief modern restatement

of the just war theory (which goes back to St. Augustine) is contained in the document of the

Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, also known

as

 

 

Gaudium et Spes.

Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the

Modern World ¶

 

 

79 (1965). A more lengthy exposition, applied to the case of Iraq, was given by

the Anglican (Episcopalian) Chief Chaplain to the Australian Armed Forces, Bishop Tom Frame,

in an article in

 

 

The Australian. See Tom Frame, Battle Hymn for a Three Week War, Australian

,

Feb. 11, 2003, at 11.

In Fear of International Law

 

363

dence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the

United Nations.”

 

 

39

This is a curiously worded paragraph. It owes much to the drafting of Australia’s

Foreign Minister, Dr. H.V. Evatt, at the San Francisco Conference in 1945.

Why did it not say simply “No Member shall threaten or use force against any

other state” (except, of course, in self-defense or under the authority of the Security

Council, which is implicit under either wording)? Most authorities on the Charter

maintain, on the basis of the

 

 

travaux préparatoires,

that this was indeed the intention

of the delegates to the San Francisco Conference. But it has to be conceded, at least

on the face of it, that the words following “force” would then be mere verbiage. If,

however, those words were not mere verbiage or surplusage but were intended to

clarify the meaning of the first part of the sentence, then the additional words can

well be read as words of qualification. Thus it can be postulated that if a threat or

use of force were aimed not at territorial integrity or political independence (as

would be the case of naked aggression, invasion, annexation, or occupation), but

were intended to right a manifest injustice where peaceful methods had failed, it

would not be prohibited by the Charter. This more elastic reading of article 2(4) is

favored by a number of scholars, albeit a minority, as allowing for forcible intervention

in order to prevent grave and widespread abuses of human rights, such as

genocide.

 

 

40 The scholars who support this position include Julius Stone,41

Derek

Bowett,

 

 

42 and Anthony D’Amato.43

A justification for the intervention by NATO

in Kosovo in 1999, based on article 2(4), was advanced by Belgium in the case

brought by Yugoslavia before the International Court of Justice.

 

 

44

Although a number of current scholars, including Simon Chesterman, consider

this interpretation of article 2(4) unsupported by past state practice, the ques-

39. U.N.

 

 

Charter

art. 2, para. 4.

40.

 

 

See Chesterman, supra

note 35, at 47–48 (critically reviewing these views).

41.

 

 

Julius Stone, Aggression and World Order

43 (1958).

42.

 

 

D.W. Bowett, Self-Defence in International Law

152 (1958).

43.

 

 

Anthony D’Amato, International Law: Process and Prospect

56–72 (1995).

44. Thus this is not an intervention against the territorial integrity or independence of

the former Republic of Yugoslavia. The purpose of NATO’s intervention is to rescue

a people in peril, in deep distress. For this reason the Kingdom of Belgium takes

the view that this is an armed humanitarian intervention, compatible with article 2,

paragraph 4, of the Charter, which covers only intervention against the territorial

integrity or political independence of a State.

Legality of Use of Force (Yugoslavia v. Belgium), CR 99/15 (May 10, 1999),

 

 

at

http://www.icj-cij.org/

icjwww/idocket/iybe/iybeframe.htm.

364

 

Ivan Shearer

tion now is whether such an interpretation

 

 

should

be admitted in order to give to

individual states (or—better in political terms—coalitions of states) the necessary

legal basis under the Charter to do what is morally right, where the Security Council

has failed in its duty to address the humanitarian situation dispassionately and

reasonably. It is a general legal principle that a document, be it a contract, a statute,

or a treaty (as here the U.N. Charter), is open to purposive interpretation in order

to respond to new circumstances or needs, so long as that interpretation can fairly

be regarded as within the meaning of the words of the document. The fact that a

more restrictive interpretation may have been given in the past is not an insuperable

obstacle. Moreover, the U.N. Charter should be viewed similarly to a constitution.

To adhere to rigid interpretations or to be unwilling to allow growth and

development in understanding is to render the instrument brittle and may lead to

rupture and disillusion. In my view, a wider interpretation must be given to article

2(4) in order to make the Charter relevant to the present and foreseeable future

needs of the international community. In adopting that view, I would fully endorse

the precautionary conditions set out in the Report of the International Commission

on Intervention and State Sovereignty as giving valid guidance as to the occasions

on which such intervention may be justified. These conditions are

principally: right intention, last resort, proportional means, and reasonable prospects

of success.

 

 

45

In other words, intervention should not be embarked upon if the

remedy would likely be worse than the disease.

 

 

46

45.

 

 

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, supra

note 37.

46. Considerations that arise in the aftermath of the intervention in Iraq are well canvassed in

the series of articles collected in the

 

 

Agora

section of the American Journal of International Law in

volume 97.

 

 

See generally Lori Fisler Damrosch & Bernard H. Oxman, Editors’ Introduction, 97

Am.

J. Int’l L.

 

 

553–57 (2003) (introducing a group of articles on the intervention in Iraq); Taft & Buchwald,

supra

 

 

note 33, at 557–63 (2003) (arguing that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a lawful action);

John Yoo,

 

 

International Law and the War in Iraq, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

563–76 (2003) (arguing that the

intervention in Iraq was authorized based on Security Council resolutions and the 1991 cease-fire

resolution); Ruth Wedgwood,

 

 

The Fall of Saddam Hussein: Security Council Mandates and Preemptive

Self-Defense

 

 

, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

576–85 (2003) (arguing for a U.N. Charter interpretation that

allows for flexibility in reacting to evolving security challenges); Richard N. Gardner,

 

 

Neither

Bush nor the “Jurisprudes

 

 

,” 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

585–90 (2003) (arguing that the doctrine of preemption

is an unnecessary expansion of the concept of self-defense); Richard A. Falk,

 

 

What Future for

the UN Charter System of War Prevention

 

 

?, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

590–98 (2003) (comparing the Kosovo

intervention with Iraq intervention and arguing that the Iraq intervention was illegitimate);

Miriam Sapiro,

 

 

Iraq: The Shifting Sands of Preemptive Self-Defense, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

599–607

(2003) (arguing that the doctrine of preemption is a radical change and is dangerous); Franck,

supra

 

 

note 15, at 607–20 (arguing that the intervention in Iraq demonstrates a disregard for the

mmm

In Fear of International Law

 

365

2. Self-Defense, Especially “Preemptive” Self-Defense

The right of self-defense, which is part of general international law,

 

 

47

is recognized

in article 51 of the U.N. Charter.

 

 

48 It is stated there to be an “inherent”

49

right of states to act in individual or collective self-defense pending the taking of

effective action by the Security Council to deal with an act of aggression. Article

51 speaks of this right as arising “

 

 

if an armed attack occurs.”50

No one reads these

words today so literally as to require that a state remain passive until after the

first blow has been delivered by an aggressor. Since April 1945, when the Charter

was adopted, the advent of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction

has rendered such a narrow interpretation untenable. Some degree of anticipation

must be allowed in deciding when an armed attack begins, so that a potentially

catastrophic attack may be averted. The degree of danger must be assessed

in light of the capabilities of modern weaponry. Moreover, the degree of anticipation

allowed must take into account the existence of increasingly sophisticated

devices that can detect and give warning of imminent threats. In other words,

the law must keep pace with modern technology.

“Anticipatory self-defense” has been criticized as too broad and self-judging

a doctrine to be left to the unfettered discretion of states. For example, does the

development of nuclear weapons by a likely aggressor constitute grounds for

47. It is important to understand that the right of self-defense did not originate in the U.N.

Charter but is part of customary and general international law. This was clearly recognized by the

International Court of Justice in

 

 

Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua

(

 

 

Nicar. v. U.S.

), 1986 I.C.J. 14 (June 27).

48.

 

 

U.N. Charter

art. 51.

49.

 

 

Id.

50.

 

 

Id.

Charter and further arguing that the invasion was not justified); Tom J. Farer,

 

 

The Prospect for International

Law and Order in the Wake of Iraq

 

 

, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

621–28 (2003) (discussing the effect

of the Iraq invasion on international norms); Jane E. Stromseth,

 

 

Law and Force After Iraq: A

Transitional Moment

 

 

, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

628–42 (2003) (considering the impact of the Iraq intervention

on the U.N. Charter); Lori Fisler Damrosch & Bernard H. Oxman,

 

 

Editors’ Note, 97

Am. J.

Int’l L.

 

 

803–04 (2003) (summarizing articles on the Iraq conflict); Carsten Stahn,

Enforcement of

the Collective Will After Iraq

 

 

, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

804–23 (2003) (discussing the implications of the

Iraq intervention); Thomas D. Grant,

 

 

The Security Council and Iraq: An Incremental Practice

, 97

Am. J. Int’l L.

 

 

823–42 (2003) (discussing the relationship between the Security Council and the rebuilding

of Iraqi self-governance); David J. Scheffer,

 

 

Beyond Occupation Law, 97

Am. J. Int’l L.

842-60 (2003) (discussing international law as it concerns the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq);

Eyal Benvenisti,

 

 

Water Conflicts During the Occupation of Iraq, 97 Am. J. Int’l L.

860–72 (2003)

(discussing the occupiers’ obligations concerning Iraq’s water supply).

366

 

Ivan Shearer

seeking to remove that threat before the aggressor has had time to activate and

deploy them? Such was the justification given by Israel of its attack on the

Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, when intelligence reports gave strong

grounds for believing that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons for use against

Israel.

 

 

51

A widespread opinion at that time was that this action drew too long a

bow. Professor Yoram Dinstein believes that the action went beyond the boundaries

of legitimate self-defense. In recognizing that article 51 must allow for

some degree of anticipation, he seeks to confine it to actions in immediate selfdefense,

in cases where the aggressor has shown that it is unmistakably and irrevocably

committed to an attack. He calls this “interceptive self-defense.”

 

 

52

It is

proper to seek to confine the right narrowly, but it is difficult to do so except in

light of particular circumstances. In the end, at least as exercised by a permanent

member of the Security Council (which may veto a condemnatory resolution), it

is a matter for judgment by the wider international community whether the action

was justified.

The resolutions adopted by the Security Council after the attacks on the

World Trade Center and the Pentagon (and the foiled attack on the White

House) on September 11, 2001 are notable for the recognition, in their preambular

paragraphs, that the right of self-defense under article 51 of the Charter extends

beyond attacks by states to attacks by non-state actors, such as terrorists. It

is therefore possible to consider together defensive action against both.

Much has been made in recent comments of the alleged promotion by the

U.S. government of a novel doctrine of “preemptive attack.” It is necessary to examine

exactly what has been said in the relevant documents. What the United

States has announced—and which might be regarded as new doctrine—is that

it may take preemptive action

 

 

against terrorists.

It is not stated as an extension of

the right of self-defense

 

 

against states. In

The National Security Strategy of the

United States of America,

 

 

published by the White House in September 2002, it is

stated thus:

We will disrupt and destroy terrorist organizations by . . . defending

the United States, the American people, and our interests at

51.

 

 

See

Timothy L.H. McCormack, Self-Defense in International Law: The Israeli Raid

on the Iraqi Nuclear Power Reactor

 

 

16–18 (1998); see also

A. Mark Weisburd, Use of Force:

The Practice of States since World War II

 

 

, 287–89 (1997).

52.

 

 

Yoram Dinstein, War, Aggression and Self-Defence

189–91 (2d ed. 1994).

In Fear of International Law

 

367

home and abroad by identifying and destroying the threat before

it reaches our borders. While the United States will constantly

strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will

not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of selfdefense

by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent

them from doing harm against our people and our country . . . .

The United States will not use force in all cases to preempt emerging

threats, nor should nations use preemption as a pretext for aggression.

Yet in an age where the enemies of civilization openly and

actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United

States cannot remain idle while dangers gather. We will always

proceed deliberately, weighing the consequences of our actions.

 

 

53

These remarks were clarified in January 2003 by the Legal Adviser to the

State Department, William Howard Taft IV:

The United States, or any other nation, should not use force to

pre-empt every emerging threat or as a pretext for aggression. We

are fully aware of the delicacy of this situation we have gotten

into. After the exhaustion of peaceful remedies, and after careful

consideration of the consequences, in face of overwhelming evidence

of an imminent threat, though, a nation may take preemptive

action to defend its nationals from catastrophic harm.

 

 

54

Note the prudential character of the words “overwhelming,” “imminent,” and

“catastrophic.” These are consistent with a conservative reading of the right of

self-defense in an era of weapons of mass destruction, whether we are speaking

of actions against terrorists as such, or against hostile states.

53. White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States (Sept. 17, 2002) 15–16,

available at

 

 

http://whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf;

National Security Asserts Legitimacy of “Preemptive”

Use of Force

 

 

, 14 Foreign Pol’y Bull

. 225, 231 (2003).

54. William Howard Taft, IV, Remarks at the Foreign Policy Association discussion, Pre-emptive

Force: When can it be used? Implications for Iraq and North Korea,

 

 

transcript available at

http://www.fpa.org/topics_info2414/topics_info_show.htm?doc_id=142893,

 

 

quoted in

Andru E.

Wall,

 

 

Lawfully Defending the Peace: The Bush Doctrine and the Global War on Terrorism, 4

Engage

95, 100 (2003).

368

 

Ivan Shearer

Terrorists cannot operate from bases outside the territory or jurisdiction of

any state. So how may measures of self-defense be taken against terrorists without

affecting the territorial sovereignty of the country from which they operate,

or in which they may be found? In cases of immediate (and “interceptive”) selfdefense,

it must be that the territorial sovereignty of the place from which the attack

has been, or is immediately about to be, launched, is unavoidably infringed

as a matter of necessity. The principles agreed to in the correspondence between

Great Britain and the United States following the

 

 

Caroline

incident of 1837 still

have application today, where the victim state can show a “necessity of selfdefence,

instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for

deliberation.”

 

 

55

“[The action taken must also involve] nothing unreasonable or

excessive; since the act, justified by the necessity of self-defense, must be limited

by that necessity, and kept clearly within it.”

 

 

56

The defense of immediate necessity

thus excuses the breach of territorial sovereignty.

In the case of preemptive self-defense, however, greater circumspection is

required. Professor Dinstein proposes a category of self-defense that can be applied

to such cases. He terms it “extraterritorial law enforcement.”

 

 

57

He considers

that where a terrorist, who has committed criminal acts in the territory or

jurisdiction of a state, is found in any other state, the authorities of the latter state

are to be called on by the victim state to surrender or prosecute the terrorist in accordance

with international law.

 

 

58

If the state is unwilling, or unable, to take

these measures of international law enforcement, then the victim state may itself

undertake the task of capturing the terrorist or destroying the terrorist base, as

the case may be.

 

 

59

Clearly this doctrine cannot be applied except where the state

from which the terrorist attack was launched or directed has been given sufficient

opportunity to enforce the law itself. And it must be exercised only with the

55. Letter from Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster, U.S. Secretary of State (July 28, 1842)

 

 

reprinted

in

 

 

30 Brit. & Foreign St. Papers, 1841–1842,

195, 196 (1858). The language of this formula, although

sometimes closely parsed as though it were a statute, overlooks the hyperbole common in

pleading a partisan cause. The essence of the formulation is contained in the notions of necessity,

reasonableness, and proportionality. For a cogent analysis of the

 

 

Caroline formula, see Wall,

supra

note 54, at 98–99.

56. Letter from Mr. Webster, U.S. Secretary of State, to Mr. Fox (Apr. 24, 1841)

 

 

reprinted in

29

Brit. & Foreign St. Papers, 1840–1841, 1129, 1138 (1857).

57.

 

 

Dinstein, supra

note 52, at 237–45.

58. There are a number of international conventions criminalizing acts of terrorism and requiring

international cooperation in their suppression.

 

 

See infra

note 63.

59.

 

 

See Dinstein, supra

note 52, at 237–41.

In Fear of International Law

 

369

utmost care for observance of the

 

 

jus in bello

(i.e., the principles and rules of international

humanitarian law), especially for the protection of innocent civilian

lives and property.

While Professor Dinstein links this doctrine to the right of self-defense,

which is certainly arguable, I prefer to locate it, as earlier argued, in article 2(4) of

the U.N. Charter. I see it as an example of a use of force that is not directed

“against” territorial integrity or political independence but as a use of force consistent

with the Purposes of the United Nations. It is true that, in the case of an unreasonable

refusal by a state to prosecute or hand over a terrorist, extraterritorial

law enforcement would necessarily breach the territorial integrity of that state and

would also, for the moment, take the power of political control out of its hands,

but these would be necessarily incidental effects rather than the object of the use

of force in itself. An earlier example was the raid by Israeli forces on Entebbe Airport

in Uganda in 1976 in order to free hostages being held there by Palestinian hijackers

with the apparent connivance of the Ugandan authorities.

 

 

60

A more recent

example is the intervention by coalition forces in 2001 to 2002 in Afghanistan in

pursuit of Al-Qaeda, after the Taliban government had been called upon to surrender

Osama bin Laden and had refused—indeed had joined forces with Al-Qaeda.

I also believe that the attacks by the coalition against Iraq in 2003 can be explained

best as extraterritorial law enforcement. Whether Iraq really had weapons

of mass destruction at the time the attacks were launched in March 2003 is

now a highly controversial issue. It would appear that they did not, and that the

intelligence upon which the United States and the United Kingdom acted was

faulty. That, however, does not serve retroactively to invalidate the attacks as legitimate

self-defense. There is no doubt that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction.

The evidence of their use against Iran and against the Kurdish

population of Iraq between 1980 and 1990 is unchallenged. Moreover, U.N.

weapons inspectors from 1991 onwards discovered and neutralized many such

weapons, or material capable of making such weapons, until their inspections

were halted by Iraq. The real point is that Iraq failed to cooperate with the inspection

missions mandated by the Security Council, and behaved (out of bravado or

for whatever reasons) as though they had something to hide. Iraq stood in flagrant

violation of resolutions of the Security Council, binding upon it, through its failure

to cooperate. This conclusion was reaffirmed by Security Council Resolution

60.

 

 

See generally Michael Akehurst, The Use of Force to Protect Nationals Abroad, 5 Int’l Rel

. 3

(1977).

 

 

See also Francis A. Boyle, The Entebbe Hostage Crisis, 29 Neth. Int’l L. Rev

. 32 (1982).

370

 

Ivan Shearer

1441. Seeing no prospect of compliance, and after numerous warnings, the coalition

went in to enforce those resolutions. The fact that Iraq resisted the enforcement

changed the action from law enforcement to armed conflict, with the result

that it could then be defeated and occupied like any party to an armed conflict. But

that does not affect the initial character, and validity, of the action.

C. Anti-Terrorist Legislation

 

 

61

Both Australia and the United States have enacted new anti-terrorist legislation

since the events of September 11, 2001. In the United States there is the USA

PATRIOT Act, among other pieces of related legislation. In Australia there are

the amendments to the Criminal Code and the Australian Security Intelligence

Organization (ASIO) Act, the latter of which for the first time has given powers

of arrest and detention for questioning to officers of Australia’s intelligence organization.

In addition, military tribunals have been established by the President,

under executive powers given to him by Congress, to try persons detained on the

battlefields of Afghanistan and kept for the present in custody at U.S. Naval facilities

at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

 

 

62

61. For notable recent contributions to this theme, see generally Symposium, ‘

 

 

A War Against

Terrorism’: What Role for International Law? U.S. and European Perspectives

 

 

, 14 Eur. J. of Int’l L

.

209 (2003) and especially Joan Fitzpatrick,

 

 

Speaking Law to Power: The War Against Terrorism and

Human Rights

 

 

, 14 Eur. J. of Int’l L

. 241 (2003).

62. These “battlefield detainees,” of uncertain legal status, include two Australians: David

Hicks and Mamdouh Habib. The trial of the first was announced, in January 2004, as imminent.

He has been assigned U.S. military counsel, Major Mori. Whether the U.S. Naval Base at

Guantánamo Bay, leased from Cuba, is a place to which the U.S. Constitution—and thus a right

to the writ of

 

 

habeas corpus—

applies has been answered differently by U.S. courts. The Supreme

Court has now ruled that a right to

 

 

habeas corpus is enjoyed by detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

See

Rasul v. Bush, 124 S.Ct. 2686, 159 L.Ed.2d 548 (2004). The Human Rights Committee of the

United Nations, in a draft General Comment on article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights, has declared that States Parties to the Covenant

are required by article 2, paragraph 1, to respect and ensure the Covenant rights to

all persons who may be within their territory and to all personas subject to their jurisdiction.

This means that a State Party must respect and ensure the rights laid down in

the Covenant to anyone within the power or effective control of that State party, even if

not situated within the territory of the State Party.

Draft General Comment (May 5, 2003),

 

 

The Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on

States Parties to the Covenant

 

 

, CCPR/C/74/CRP.4/Rev.3, available at

http://www.ohchr.org (emphasis

added).

In Fear of International Law

 

371

Time does not permit a review of this legislation, or of the critical comment

on it that has come from many quarters that include, but are not limited to, civil

liberties groups. I intend to focus, consistently with the theme of this address, on

the international law dimensions of the legislative reactions to the events of September

11, 2001.

The need for adequate legislation worldwide to respond to terrorism was

endorsed, in urgent terms, by the United Nations itself within days of the attacks.

In Resolution 1373 (2001), the Security Council called upon all members

of the United Nations to report, within ninety days, on the steps they had taken

to ensure that “terrorist acts are established as serious offenses in domestic laws

and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such acts.” The resolution

further required states to criminalize the provision of funds to terrorists,

and to freeze the financial assets of persons who commit terrorist acts. The resolution

also required states to review their laws relating to banking practices,

arms control, law enforcement, cooperation in the suppression of terrorism, and

other matters concerned with security.

The intention of the United Nations is obviously to ensure that a tight network

of reciprocating laws is in place to deal with the prevention and punishment

of terrorist acts. Provided that the laws of a state in which a terrorist

suspect is located provide that the terrorist’s acts are contrary to the law of that

state, the state has a choice either to prosecute the person itself or to extradite him

or her to a state requesting surrender and that has jurisdiction over the act committed.

In international law this is known as the principle

 

 

aut dedere aut judicare

(“either extradite or prosecute”), and has been a standard feature of all international

conventions on international criminal law since the 1970 Hague Convention

on the hijacking of aircraft.

 

 

63

The formula “either extradite or prosecute” has a greater significance than

might at first sight be thought. Although there is no obligation in general to extra-

63. The most important worldwide terrorism-related conventions are: Convention for the Suppression

of the Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, The Hague, Dec. 16, 1970; Convention for the Suppression

of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, Montreal, Sept. 23, 1971; Convention

on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, including

Diplomatic Agents, New York, Dec. 14, 1973; International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages,

New York, Dec. 17, 1979; Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports

Serving International Aviation, Montreal, Feb. 28, 1988; Convention for the Suppression of

Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, Rome, Mar. 10, 1988; International Convention

for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, New York, Dec. 15, 1997; International Convention

for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, New York, Dec. 9, 1999.

372

 

Ivan Shearer

dite criminals under customary international law, extradition being governed by

treaties and domestic law, the obligation to do so, or to prosecute, under international

criminal conventions meets three particular difficulties. In the first place,

terrorist acts are normally committed for political motives and might therefore

come under the exception, found in extradition treaties, of political offenders or

those who might, if extradited, face prosecution for political motives. Efforts are

underway at the United Nations to draft a comprehensive definition of terrorism

that would exclude it altogether as a political offense for the purposes of extradition.

But, these efforts have bogged down owing to a split of opinion in the Committee

in relation to the characterization of Palestinian liberation groups.

 

 

64

Failing

an accepted definition, if the present laws of some states would characterize a suspect

as a political offender, then it is absolutely required to investigate with a view

to prosecute the suspect. The second difficulty it avoids is that the laws of many

states exempt their own citizens from extradition. This is not so in the cases of

Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, but is so in the European

countries. Thus if a French citizen is accused of a terrorist offense committed in

the United States, he or she cannot be extradited to the United States, but under

international conventions, France will be obliged to submit the case to its own

prosecution authorities. The third difficulty is the death penalty, which is applicable

under U.S. federal law to many terrorist offenses. The laws of a large number

of countries now exclude extradition to a place where the death penalty may

be imposed or carried out. One way around the difficulty is for the requested state

to offer extradition conditionally upon an assurance that the death penalty, if imposed,

will be commuted to a sentence of imprisonment.

This last is perhaps the most difficult hurdle of all. The United States is becoming

increasingly isolated among the developed nations by reason of its adherence

to the death penalty.

 

 

65

I shall not here take sides on this contentious

64.

 

 

See Report of the Ad Hoc Committee Established by General Assembly Resolution 51/210 of 17

December 1996

 

 

, U.N. GAOR, 57th Sess., Supp. 37, U.N. Doc. A/57/37; Article 18 of the draft

comprehensive convention,

 

 

available at

http://www.un.org/law/terrorism/index.html. The Ad Hoc

Committee resumed its consideration of the draft convention at its session in 2003 but made no

progress in resolving the deadlock, which it decided to refer to the U.N. Sixth Committee.

65. See the scathing comment by Justice Scalia on Justice Stevens’ invocation of the views of the

world community in relation to the death penalty in

 

 

Atkins v. Virginia

, 536 U.S. 304, 335, 370

(2002). For an example of a parallel clash of judicial views occurring in the High Court of Australia,

see J. McHugh’s and J. Kirby’s opinions in

 

 

Al Kateb v. Godwin (2004), available at

http://

www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/2004/37.html.

In Fear of International Law

 

373

issue. I shall merely observe that it can be expected that there will be cases in the

future of terrorists found in foreign countries where the executive branch of the

federal government, having requested extradition, may be obliged to give assurances

to a requested state that the death penalty, if imposed, will be automatically

commuted, as the price of justice. The political consequences of this are

manifest, where people convicted of less serious non-terrorist offenses are regularly

executed.

Is there a standard against which one can measure the necessity and reasonableness

of the laws passed in Australia, the United States, and other countries to

combat terrorism? I wish to suggest that, far from being a nuisance or an irrelevance,

international law does offer both guidance, and—to a degree—validation

of, measures necessary to combat the scourge of terrorism.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was

adopted in 1966 as one of a trilogy of instruments that makes up the “International

Bill of Rights” (the others being the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human

Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural

Rights). It has been adhered to by 150 countries, including Australia and the

United States. It is a statement in precise terms of the basic rights of the human

person. As such, it stands as a benchmark against which the laws and practices of

members of the international community are to be measured. These members

must appear before the Committee on Human Rights, established under the

Covenant, every five years (or more often if called upon) to give an account of

their observance of these standards.

Aspects of anti-terrorist measures inevitably give rise to questions of their

compatibility with provisions of the Covenant, in particular those provisions relating

to length of detention after arrest (article 9), the right to a public trial before

an independent and impartial tribunal, the right to be tried without undue

delay, the right to counsel (article 14), and the right to privacy (article 17). All of

these rights are subject to exceptions or qualifications that are reasonable in all

the circumstances. The term “arbitrary,” which appears in many of these provisions,

such as “no person shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference

with his privacy . . .” (article 17), means “unreasonable” in the understanding of

the Committee.

 

 

66

66. M. Nowak,

 

 

U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary

10 (Engel, Arlington

VA, 1993).

374

 

Ivan Shearer

It might be thought that the Covenant is sufficiently elastic through its “reasonableness”

criteria to accommodate the inevitable inroads on personal liberties

made by recent anti-terrorism legislation. Neither Australia nor the United

States have yet availed themselves of the right to derogate from their obligations

under the Covenant, which is allowed under article 4:

In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation

and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties

to the present Covenant may take measures derogating from

their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent strictly

required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such

measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations under

international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the

ground of race, color, sex, language, religion, or social origin.

The article then goes on to specify certain non-derogable rights, such as the

right to life and the prohibition of torture, and also to require that any derogations

be notified to other parties through the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

There would be an understandable reluctance to make a public proclamation

of an emergency necessary to trigger these provisions, even after such catastrophic

events as those of September 11, 2001, for fear of spreading panic in the community,

or appearing to confess the inability of the government to take effective measures

against terrorists within existing law, or within the framework of special

laws considered to be compatible with basic norms of human rights. Nevertheless,

by contrast to Australia, both the United States and the United Kingdom declared

states of emergency after September 11th. The United Kingdom additionally

gave notification of derogation from article 9(1) of the Covenant in respect of the

detention of foreign nationals intended to be deported from the United Kingdom

under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act.

 

 

67

The fact that the

United Kingdom has taken this step, in conscientious adherence to its international

obligations, may also be a reflection of the fact that the United Kingdom

has, in the past, made declarations of emergency and derogation in relation to

Northern Ireland, and to that extent the British public are not unused to them.

The fact that article 4(2) lists certain articles of the Covenant as being nonderogable

(e.g., the right to life and the prohibitions of torture and slavery) and

67. Notice of derogation dated Dec. 18, 2001.

In Fear of International Law

 

375

that the non-derogable rights do not include articles 9 and 14, considered above,

does not mean that those provisions can be set aside entirely when an emergency

is proclaimed and the derogation is communicated to the U.N. Secretary-General.

On this the Human Rights Committee made an important pronouncement in

2001, just prior to the events of September 11th. In General Comment No. 29 on

Derogations During a State of Emergency,

 

 

68

the Committee explained that:

[T]he obligation to limit any derogations to those strictly required

by the exigencies of the situation reflects the principle of proportionality

which is common to derogation and limitation powers.

Moreover, the mere fact that a permissible derogation from a specific

provision may, of itself, be justified by the exigencies of the

situation does not obviate the requirement that specific measures

taken pursuant to the derogation must also be shown to be required

by the exigencies of the situation. In practice, this will

ensure that no provision of the Covenant, however validly derogated

from will be entirely inapplicable to the behaviour of a state

party. . . . The legal obligation to narrow down all derogations to

those strictly required by the exigencies of the situation establishes

both for States parties and for the Committee a duty to conduct a

careful analysis under each article of the Covenant based on an

objective assessment of the actual situation.

 

 

69

The Committee also emphasized that measures derogating from the provisions

of the Covenant “must be of an exceptional and temporary nature.” It must

be wondered whether, in an age of terrorism, special measures, if they are of

such a nature as to require formal notification as derogations, could ever be regarded

as “temporary.” It is likely that they are here to stay. In light of the events

of September 11, 2001, the Committee may have to revisit this aspect of its General

Comment in a future Comment.

68.

 

 

General Comment No. 29: States of Emergency (Article 4),

U.N. CCPR 56th Sess., U.N. Doc.

CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.11 (2001). In this General Comment, it is evident that the Committee had

regard for the earlier work of two nongovernmental groups of experts whose recommendations

are worthy of study.

 

 

See Int’l L. Assoc.,

Paris Minimum Standards of Human Rights Norms in a State

of Emergency

 

 

(1984), reprinted in 79 Am. J. Int’l L.1072 (1985);

Siracusa Principles on Limitation and

Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

 

 

, U.N. ESCOR, 41st

Sess., E/CN.4/1985/4 (1984),

 

 

reprinted in 7 Hum. Rts

. Q. 1 (1985).

69.

 

 

General Comment No. 29, supra

note 68, ¶¶ 4, 6.

376

 

Ivan Shearer

In my opinion, knee-jerk reactions of horror at restrictions on certain rights

are not helpful to the general cause of human rights in an age of terrorism. There

must be a sober analysis of the dangers posed by terrorists, and of the measures

necessary to forestall and combat them. We in Australia and the United States are

more alive to the importance of human rights and civil liberties than the peoples

of many other countries, as our histories show. Nevertheless, while we may feel

ourselves to be qualified and equipped by our laws and political traditions to face

these challenges, useful guidance is to be found in the international standards outlined

above. Above all, the considerations of strict proportionality set out in General

Comment No. 29 of the Human Rights Committee should be pondered.

There is, unfortunately, no indication that such guidance has been sought in the

counsel of our governments or even, so it would seem, in public debate.

Conclusion

It has been evident that at many points international law has been ignored

or pushed to the sidelines by the governments of the United States and—to a

lesser extent—Australia. My thesis has been that this is not only wrong, but unnecessary,

since the objectives we strive to attain may be made compatible with

international law. Our security is made stronger if we can bring the rest of the

international community with us and show that we are prepared to live by the

same rules as all.

Some years ago when I was a new faculty member of a certain law school in

Australia, I attended my first staff meeting, at which the dean outlined a certain

proposal for adoption. He spoke very eloquently and persuasively in favor of its

approval. When the time came to vote I put up my hand, but noticed that the

colleague sitting next to me, and several others, did not. I asked the colleague

later, “why did you vote against such a sensible motion?” His answer was, “I

wasn’t really against it, and I knew it would be passed, but I just can’t stand how

the Dean is always so very right.” I was reminded of this when last year Libya

was elected to the Chair of the U.N. Human Rights Commission (the political

body of fifty-three, not to be confused with the Human Rights Committee of

eighteen independent experts, mentioned earlier). How could the representative

of a rogue state be elected to the chair of a body dedicated to the advancement of

human rights? The answer, it would seem, is that a substantial number of delegates

simply wanted to do something to annoy the United States, feeble and

scarcely important in its practical consequences though it might be, by remind

 

 

In

Fear of International Law

 

377

ing it that there were others out there. Much has been muttered “out there”

about the refusal of the United States to adhere to the Rome Statute of the International

Criminal Court, the rather heavy-handed pressure on states to conclude

so-called article 98 agreements for the non-surrender of U.S. nationals to the International

Criminal Court, opposition to the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming,

and some other popular international proposals. This has been termed

“American exceptionalism.” And it is resented.

Australian scholar and commentator Owen Harries has recently written that

Americans are presently divided over their nation’s core beliefs, and that “American

exceptionalism” is a key factor. On the one side there are those who believe that the

intentions of the United States are benign and can only bring good to the rest of the

world. Everyone should recognize this. On the other side are those who recall that

even the founding fathers of the United States were not prepared to trust in benign

intentions, but instead established a constitution in which there was a balance of

powers, each capable of curbing and restraining the other. “It is that same distrust

that underpins the concept of balance of power in international politics.” Professor

Harries concludes that “[t]he really interesting and important debate is not between

anti-Americans and pro-Americans; it is between two different American traditions

concerning how the US can best promote its values and ideals.”

 

 

70

I have argued today that international law is a necessary curb and restraint

on the exercise of power, and that it should be recognized more widely as such,

not only at the executive level but also at the judicial and legislative levels.

 

 

71

I

have also argued that international law is sometimes enabling and empowering;

it should not always be seen in terms of prohibiting or restraining. In whichever

70. Owen Harries,

 

 

A New Threat to the United States From Within

, Fifth Lecture in the Austl.

Broad. Comm’n 2003 Boyer Lecture Series,

 

 

in Sydney Morning Herald

, Dec. 12, 2003, at 13.

71. Recall the extraordinary action of Congress in passing legislation blatantly violating the U.N.

Headquarters Agreement, which was the subject of an Advisory Opinion by the I.C.J.

 

 

See Applicability

of the Obligation to Arbitrate Under Section 21 of the United Nations Headquarters Agreement of 26

June 1947

 

 

, 1988 I.C.J. 12 (Apr. 28, 1988). Two months after the I.C.J. had ruled unanimously that the

United States was thereby in dispute with the United Nations and was required to arbitrate the difference,

a federal court managed to interpret the offending legislation, which had been used to order

the closure of the Observer Mission to the United Nations of the Palestine Liberation Organization,

as not applying to a mission accredited to the United Nations and covered by the Agreement.

 

 

See

United States v. PLO, 695 F. Supp. 1456, 1460 (S.D.N.Y. 1988) (“It has been a maxim of statutory

construction since the decision in

 

 

Murray v. The Charming Betsy,

6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64, 118 (1804), that

‘an act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations, if any other construction

remains.’” (quoting Weinberger v. Rossi, 456 U.S. 25, 32 (1982)).

378

 

Ivan Shearer

regard, our governments need to be more attentive to the claims international

law justly make on our allegiance (my own government especially in relation to

the treatment of asylum seekers in detention

 

 

72

—in which respect the United

States has a much better record).

At the World Economic Forum held at Davos, Switzerland in January 2004,

speakers were invited to answer a simple question: what advice

would they give the next president of the United States? “Listen

to others,” said Thierry de Montbrial, head of a French policy

research institute. Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty International,

said, “Look around the world. And remember the

impact of your power.”

 

 

73

72. For a comparative study of the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia, the United Kingdom,

and the United States, see

 

 

Frank Brennan, Tampering With Asylum:

A Universal Humanitarian

Problem

 

 

(2003).

73. Alan Cowell,

 

 

Anti-Americanism May Be Fading, But Forum Is No Love Fest, N.Y. Times,

Jan.

 

 

 

 

 

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