Preventing Irreparable Harm

International human rights adjudicators, while facing urgent cases, have used provisional measures in order to prevent irreparable harm, e.g. to order States to halt an expulsion, the execution of a death sentence, the destruction of the natural habitat, as well as to ensure access to health care in detention or protection against death threats. In the practice of the various adjudicators, the traditional concept of provisional measures has undergone a process of humanization. Preventing Irreparable Harm addresses the question of how such provisional measures can be made as persuasive as possible. Apart from the Inter-American Court, none of the human rights adjudicators motivate or publish their provisional measures. Yet the book analyzes their best practices and obstacles, determines the underlying rationale for their use of provisional measures, and establishes the core of the concept of provisional measures that all adjudicators have in common. It argues that clarity - on what belongs to the core of the concept and on what does not belong to the concept at all - enhances the persuasive force of provisional measures. The practices of the international adjudicators that are made accessible in this book will prove useful in the ongoing cross-fertilization that occurs among these adjudicators. Moreover, the analysis provided allows individual victims, their counsel, NGOs, as well as international institutions, to address more effectively urgent human rights cases.

The irreparable injury rule says that courts will not grant an equitable remedy to prevent harm if it would be adequate to let the harm happen and grant the legal remedy of money damages. After surveying more than 1400 cases, Laycock concludes that this ancient rule is dead--that it almost never affects the results of cases. When a court denies equitable relief, its real reasons are derived from the interests of defendants or the legal system, and not from the adequacy of the plaintiff's legal remedy. Laycock seeks to complete the assimilation of equity, showing that the law-equity distinction survives only as a proxy for other, more functional distinctions. Analyzing the real rules for choosing remedies in terms of these functional distinctions, he clarifies the entire law of remedies, from grand theory down to the practical details of specific cases. He shows that there is no positive law support for the most important applications of the legal-economic theory of efficient breach of contract. Included are extensive notes and a detailed table of cases arranged by jurisdiction.

Justifies a two-track approach that includes individual and systemic remedies in both domestic and international human rights law.

Since the decision of the International Court of Justice in LaGrand (Germany v United States of America), the law of provisional measures has expanded dramatically both in terms of the volume of relevant decisions and the complexity of their reasoning. Provisional Measures before International Courts and Tribunals seeks to describe and evaluate this expansion, and to undertake a comparative analysis of provisional measures jurisprudence in a range of significant international courts and tribunals so as to situate interim relief in the wider procedure of those adjudicative bodies. The result is the first comprehensive examination of the law of provisional measures in over a decade, and the first to compare investor-state arbitration jurisprudence with more traditional inter-state courts and tribunals.

This book analyses the use of the expression 'serious violations of human rights', and similar ones, such as 'gross' or 'grave', in international practice. It highlights some of the recurring responses and consequences to such violations and suggests that a new special regime - eponymous to the above-mentioned expression - was formed. This special regime is understood as substantively limited to a very specific issue-area of human rights violations. Within this regime, a series of monitoring mechanisms and procedures are in place to highlight, document, and record such violations; specific measures are taken to enforce compliance; and certain consequences arise focused on remedying the victims of such violations. As such, this special regime is comprised of at least four thinly interconnected components: the substantive, the monitoring, the enforcement, and the remedial ones. This monograph constitutes a first step towards the recognition of such a regime, allowing far more constructive and coherent elaboration in the future. Practice around this category of violations may well evolve in a different direction than the one suggested here. However, what becomes apparent from this work is that the serious violations of human rights are a key notion in the international legal order as it allows the international community to depict those factual situations requiring its attention and action.

The irreparable injury rule says that courts will not grant an equitable remedy to prevent harm if it would be adequate to let the harm happen and grant the legal remedy of money damages. After surveying more than 1400 cases, Laycock concludes that this ancient rule is dead--that it almost never affects the results of cases. When a court denies equitable relief, its real reasons are derived from the interests of defendants or the legal system, and not from the adequacy of the plaintiff's legal remedy. Laycock seeks to complete the assimilation of equity, showing that the law-equity distinction survives only as a proxy for other, more functional distinctions. Analyzing the real rules for choosing remedies in terms of these functional distinctions, he clarifies the entire law of remedies, from grand theory down to the practical details of specific cases. He shows that there is no positive law support for the most important applications of the legal-economic theory of efficient breach of contract. Included are extensive notes and a detailed table of cases arranged by jurisdiction.

The doctrine of hell presents the most intractable version of the problem of evil, for though it might be argued that ordinary pain and evil can somehow be compensated for by the course of future experience, the pain and suffering of hell leads nowhere. This work develops an understanding of hell that is common to a broad variety of religious perspectives, and argues that the usual understandings of hell are incapable of solving the problem of hell. Kvanvig first argues that the traditional understanding of hell found in Christianity suffers from moral and epistemological inadequacies. Historically, these shortcomings lead to alternatives to the traditional doctrine of hell, such as universalism, annihilationism, or the second chance doctrine. Kvanvig shows, however, that the typical alternatives to the traditional understanding are inadequate as well. He argues that both the traditional understanding and the typical alternatives fail to solve the problem of hell because they share the common flaw of being constructed on a retributive model of hell. Kvanvig then develops a philosophical account of hell which does not depend on a retributive model and argues that it is adequate on both philosophical and theological grounds.