Vol. 1, No. 19 (November 1, 2008)

Introduction: Why international law

The summer of 2008 will go down in history as a turning point in international relations – as momentous as the attacks of 9/11, or even as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  Russia ended its period of long retreat and asserted her power over a much weaker neighbor.  A few weeks later, Western states were forced to take on a level of public debt not seen since the end of World War II in order to save their financial systems from collapse.  It is too soon to tell what the political, economic and strategic repercussions of these events will be in the long term, but a ten...
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The Kosovo question

On 8 October 2008, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted resolution 63/3 requesting the International Court of Justice to “render an advisory opinion on the following question:  Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?” The legal basis for the advisory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice is in Article 96 of the United Nations Charter, which empowers the General Assembly and the Security Council to request opinions from the Court “on any legal ques...
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European convention on human rights and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) has jurisdiction under the European Convention of Human Rights (“the Convention”) in two types of cases: claims brought by one Contracting State against another (“inter-State cases”), and claims brought against a Contracting State by an individual or group (“individual applications”). Inter-State cases have been relatively rare: there have been less than 25 claims since the Court was established in 1959 and only two have resulted in final judgments by the Court.  They generally fall within three categories: first, wher...
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Recognition of states and governments in international law

After the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s the topic of recognition in international law lay dormant for several years until in February 2008 it was revived, perhaps not unexpectedly, with the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo and the controversy about its recognition as a sovereign and independent State by some 51 States (as of 15 October 2008).  The topic recently gained further prominence when in August 2008 the Russian Federation recognized the statehood of Georgia’s breakaway regions ...
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Concluding remarks

The geo-political position of Azerbaijan must be a central consideration in devising a strategy of engagement with international law. Already integrated in some of Europe’s key regional institutions like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan aspires to even closer links with Europe, but is in the middle of one of the world’s most unstable regions, the Caucasus, and borders with another one, the Middle East.  The reintegration of its national territory and the maintenance of a safe route for exporting its oil are probably Az...
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