Thema: Krieg & Konflikt

Verfassungs- und völkerrechtliche Aspekte bewaffneter Konflikte, Kriegsverbrechen, humanitäres Völkerrecht, Militäroperationen und Konfliktgovernance. Umfasst verfassungsrechtliche Kriegsbefugnisse, humanitäres Völkerrecht, Recht bewaffneter Konflikte, Friedensdurchsetzung und verfassungsrechtliche Grenzen militärischen Handelns.

Nicht um jeden Preis

Die Kriege in der Ukraine und im Nahen Osten prägen unsere Gegenwart. Für viele symbolisieren sie die Auflösung der internationalen Rechtsordnung. Angesichts der Handlungsunfähigkeit des UN Sicherheitsrates erstarkt dabei das Selbstverteidigungsrecht nach Art. 51 SVN mit seinen Schranken der Erforderlichkeit und Verhältnismäßigkeit zum entscheidenden Maßstab für die Einhegung militärischer Gewalt. Doch kann der unbestimmte Verhältnismäßigkeitsgrundsatz in einem dezentralen Rechtssystem überhaupt Steuerungswirkung entfalten?

23. Januar 2025

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The ICC Under a New Threat

Since the ICC announced arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, the world has started to observe open equivocation from France and other European states about executing those arrest warrants. This inevitably raises the question whether it had been too easy in the past for nations of the West to profess “unflinching support” for the ICC when all the accused persons were Africans; even though the conducts of some of them (consider, for instance, the defendants from Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire) came nowhere close to the extravagant cruelty on full display in Gaza, despite rulings of the International Court of Justice and the relentless appeals of the UN Secretary General.

23. Dezember 2024

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Deutschland, Israel und der IGH

Das Verfahren zwischen Südafrika und Israel vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof zählt vielleicht zu den bedeutendsten in der Geschichte des Gerichts. Bereits zehn Staaten sind dem Verfahren beigetreten oder haben ihren Beitritt beantragt. Deutschland kündigte seine Absicht zur Intervention bereits kurz nach der Klageeinreichung Südafrikas an, noch bevor es selbst in einen Rechtsstreit mit Nicaragua über die Unterstützung Israels verwickelt wurde. Eine politisch motivierte Intervention unter Art. 63 des IGH-Status würde sich jedoch dem Vorwurf der Doppelmoral aussetzen. Erweiterten Handlungsspielraum eröffnet dagegen eine Intervention unter Art. 62 des IGH-Status.

19. Dezember 2024

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Under Guise of War

The Knesset’s legislative work since October 2023 has included several legislative initiatives that may be creating a framework for furthering systemic discrimination against Arab Israelis. These new laws could pose a dangerous new precedent in Israel, stripping the right to equality and human dignity of their meaning and threatening the already fragile state of democracy as we know it.

4. Dezember 2024

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A Piece of Advice

In this blog post, we discuss two pieces of advice about the legal and political consequences for the Netherlands arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These are the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion of July 2024 and the Advisory Letter from the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs of October 2024. Both pieces of advice provide concrete recommendations, many of which, in our view, require fundamental changes in the current Dutch policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Dutch Government is constitutionally obliged to provide a meaningful response to both these pieces of advice. So far, however, it has failed to do so.

12. November 2024

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Tackling Israel’s Interference with the International Criminal Court

On 8 October 2024, The Guardian reported that a criminal complaint had been filed in the Netherlands in connection with the shocking (yet unsurprising) revelations published by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call on 28 May concerning hostile state activities targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC). The criminal complaint is both timely and viable and should lead to the expeditious opening of an investigation by the Dutch prosecution service. The political response by the Dutch and other governments of ICC States so far is insufficient to address the problem of interference with the ICC investigation in the Situation in the State of Palestine.

21. Oktober 2024

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Apartheid or Systemic Discrimination?

This contribution argues that, reading between the lines, the expression “systemic discrimination”, which the Court referred to in para. 223 of the Advisory Opinion, was used as a synonym for “apartheid”, even though the Court did not link this description to a breach of Article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, but there does not appear to be any substantial difference between apartheid and systemic discrimination. This is because the word systemic is associated with crimes against humanity which is how apartheid is defined as a crime in international law.

17. Oktober 2024

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The ICJ Advisory Opinion and Israeli Law

This post examines the relationship between the Advisory Opintion and Israeli law with respect to the duty to distinguish between Israel and the OPT. While the Opinion requires States to distinguish between Israel and the OPT in their dealings with Israel, and to omit acts that may strengthen Israel’s hold of the Territories, calls for such distinction are a civil tort under Israeli law, and those making them can be denied entry to Israel. As a result, Israelis are unlikely to support the Opinion. This will contribute to the growing gap between the international discourse and the domestic discourse in Israel with respect to the OPT.

17. Oktober 2024

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