State Sovereignty And Non Interference In International Law

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, grade: 3.6/4, , course: Law, language: English, abstract: The principles of state sovereignty and non-interference rest at the very heart of International law and springs from the 1648 Westphalian treaty.Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs to the exclusion of all external powers. This is founded on the principle of non-interference in another country‟s domestic affairs and that each state irrespective of its size is equal in International law. This study shall rely principally on the doctrinal research methodology by systematic and thematic analysis of existing data on sovereignty and non-interference. The interpretation of sovereignty as narrowly as the non-intervention principle has placed sovereignty against the possibility of intervening for the protection of Human rights. The Rwanda genocide, mass atrocity crimes and crimes against humanity that characterized the state of Rwanda and Srebrenica amongst others raised the need for action by the International community to protect not only states, but also people. This thesis attempts therefore, to find a bridge between these two seemingly opposing interests -protecting the state for a strong international order and protecting the people to save lives. Responsibility to protect is based on the notion of a primary responsibility with each and every state to protect its population, and a secondary responsibility with the international community to assist a state, which is unwilling or unable to protect its people. This thesis concludes that responsibility to protect is part of sovereignty, as a duty of a state, corresponding to the right of non-intervention. If the reign fails to protect its people, or is itself abusing its people, the right of non-intervention becomes void.

Responsibility to Protect: Research, bibliography, background. Supplementary volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

Interest in international law has increased greatly over the past decade, largely because of its central place in discussions such as the Iraq War and Guantanamo, the World Trade Organisation, the anti-capitalist movement, the Kyoto Convention on climate change, and the apparent failure of the international system to deal with the situations in Palestine and Darfur, and the plights of refugees and illegal immigrants around the world. This Very Short Introduction explains what international law is, what its role in international society is, and how it operates. Vaughan Lowe examines what international law can and cannot do and what it is and what it isn't doing to make the world a better place. Focussing on the problems the world faces, Lowe uses terrorism, environmental change, poverty, and international violence to demonstrate the theories and practice of international law, and how the principles can be used for international co-operation.

Examines the difficulties in applying international law to recent armed conflicts known as 'new wars'.

The new edition of the highly influential Tallinn Manual, which outlines public international law as it applies to cyber operations.

Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election was illegal because it violated the American people's right of self-determination.

'State sovereignty' is often referred to as an obstacle to criminal justice for core international crimes by members of the international criminal justice movement. The exercise of State sovereignty is seen as a shield against effective implementation of such crimes. But it is sovereign States that create and become parties to international criminal law treaties and jurisdictions. They are the principal enforcers of criminal responsibility for international crimes, as reaffirmed by the complementarity principle on which the International Criminal Court (ICC) is based. Criminal justice for atrocities depends entirely on the ability of States to act. This volume revisits the relationship between State sovereignty and international criminal law along three main lines of inquiry. First, it considers the immunity of State officials from the exercise of foreign or international criminal jurisdiction. Secondly, with the closing down of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals, attention shifts to the exercise of national jurisdiction over core international crimes, making the scope of universal jurisdiction more relevant to perceptions of State sovereignty. Thirdly, could the amendments to the ICC Statute on the crime of aggression exacerbate tensions between the interests of State sovereignty and accountability? The book contains contributions by prominent international lawyers including Professor Christian Tomuschat, Judge Erkki Kourula, Judge LIU Daqun, Ambassador WANG Houli, Dr. ZHOU Lulu, Professor Claus Kre, Professor MA Chengyuan, Professor JIA Bingbing, Professor ZHU Lijiang and Mr. GUO Yang.