Melbourne Journal of International Law 

About: Melbourne Journal of International Law is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): International law & Human rights. It has an ISSN identifier of 1444-8610. Over the lifetime, 350 publications have been published receiving 3376 citations.

Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Abstract: On 26 February 2007, one of the longest running and most tortuous pieces of litigation in the history of the International Court of Justice came to a close when a decision on the merits was handed down in the case brought by Bosnia and Herzegovina ('Bosnia') against Serbia and Montenegro ('Serbia') in March 1993. The case is truly one of superlatives: a duration of 14 years resulted in a majority judgment running to 171 pages (the first 32 of which are exclusively dedicated to recounting the history of the proceedings); appended to the Court's judgment are three declarations, two separate opinions and four dissenting opinions (one of which unites three Judges but itself contains a joint dissenting opinion of all three on certain points, plus a separate opinion of one of them and a joint declaration for the two others in respect of other points on which all three were not in agreement).

The responsibility to protect after Libya and Syria

Abstract: At the United Nations World Summit in 2005, global political leaders endorsed a new doctrine to govern international political behaviour entitled the 'responsibility to protect'. Pursuant to this doctrine, the nations of the world affirmed that the primary responsibility for the prevention of mass atrocity crimes rests with the sovereign state in which such crimes are anticipated or occurring. If, however, a state fails to exercise that responsibility, the international community may assume a corresponding duty to protect civilian populations from the commission of genocide and crimes against humanity. Only a short time later, in 2011, the international community was confronted with the prospect that large-scale civilian casualties may occur as a consequence of fighting between government and rebel forces in Libya. The UN Security Council, therefore, was confronted with the dilemma of whether to authorise an intervention to avert what seemed likely to be a humanitarian catastrophe. In this case, the UN Security Council sanctioned an intervention by NATO forces in accordance with the new doctrine. Soon after, the Syrian rebellion took hold and civilians began to be killed and injured in their thousands. In that case, however, the Security Council was paralysed. Neither sanctions nor military intervention could be agreed upon. In this article the Libyan and Syrian cases are analysed with a view to determining why the international community's response to the two conflicts has been so different and what these differences tell us about the current standing and practice of the responsibility to protect doctrine.

The Past, Present and Future of International Law: A Critical Third World Approach

Abstract: A third world approach to international law, or TWAIL as it has come to be known, represents in general an attempt to understand the history, structure and process of international law from the perspective of third world states. The approach goes further and gives meaning to international law in the context of the lived experiences of the ordinary peoples of the third world in order to transform it into an international law of emancipation. This paper explains the aspect of globalization and the international relations around the world.

The Exile of Inclusion: Reflections on Gender Issues in International Law over the Last Decade

Abstract: The International Women's Tribune Centre's strategies to promote women's equality and rights had followed the power that had been increasingly concentrated in the Security Council after the end of the Cold War2 and, since September 11, had become unapologetically 'hegemonic'. In response to the strategic lobbying of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security ('NGO Working Group'), of which the IWTC is a key member, the Security Council had adopted two thematic resolutions that directly addressed women's concerns undoubtedly a significant achievement. The first, in 2000, urged, inter alia, the increased participation of women in conflict resolution and post-conflict peace-building. The second, in 2008, condemned the use of sexual violence as a 'tactic of war' and as an impediment to the restoration of international peace and security. The question that the discussion at the IWTC raised for me was what this entry of feminist ideas into the sphere of influence of the Security Council would mean for the long feminist struggle to utilise international law to promote and protect women's rights and gender equality, and to secure peace. My insistence that it was important to acknowledge the non-binding character of the resolutions seemed unduly legalistic. Why was I championing the power of formal 'law' over that of 'politics'? Was I engaging the 'politics of expertise' because it gave me, as an international lawyer, a privileged position in the debate? Is it possible to combine feminist activism with critical engagement in both law and feminism, or is the role of scholarly critical thinking to raise issues, rather than resolve them? In thinking through these questions, as I reflect on gender issues in international law over the last decade, I will treat these two Security Council resolutions as bookends to my discussion. They allow me to begin by describing the remarkable spread of feminist ideas throughout the UN system, into the most unlikely places, and they illustrate the productivity that can flow from the institutional embrace of 'emancipatory' ideas, in the form of institutional developments as well as inspiring local and global movements for change. At the same time, the Security Council resolutions illustrate a number of major problems for feminists, which have emerged from increased institutional incorporation. These problems include a pattern of selective engagement with feminist ideas as they are instrumentalised to serve institutional purposes; an across-the-board absence of strong accountability mechanisms, even as the outside pressure for accountability grows; and the tendency for protective stereotypes of women to normatively re-emerge following an initial flirtation with more active and autonomous representations. I return, in conclusion, to my discomfort about the IWTC claim that the Security Council resolutions on women are binding as international law. I decide that my uneasiness has more to do with lending feminist support to the hegemonic power of the increasingly emboldened Security Council, and a worry about what this means for the future of international law generally, and for feminist efforts to shape the law in particular.

International Environmental Governance: Managing Fragmentation through Institutional Connection

Abstract: The 'fragmentation' of international law is used as a term of description and - more commonly - as a lament. It emphasises the isolation and disconnect between regimes and institutions and has particular resonance within international environmental law; a complex regulatory field comprising multiple regimes and institutions giving rise to overlapping and, occasionally, conflicting legal and policy mandates. This article will focus on the extent to which environmental governance strategies, in particular, the creation of formal cooperative arrangements and other institutional connections between multilateral environmental agreements ('MEAs'), can be deployed, not just to manage the consequences of overlap and outright conflict between regimes, but also to maximise the benefits that arise from a confluence between MEA mandates. This article will argue that these governance strategies represent an important mechanism for managing the consequences of fragmentation and improving the effectiveness of international environmental governance. Nevertheless, closer cooperation and institutional integration among MEAs also raise serious questions relating to the accountability of the regime to its state parties and, more generally, to the legitimacy of that regime. Moreover, the impact of this new form of international environmental governance potentially extends beyond the realm of international environmental law; these governance strategies arguably challenge the fundamentals of the international legal system itself: who we regard as participants within the system, what the sources of international law are and even international law's ultimate basis in consent.