List of top Legal Studies Questions on International Law asked in CLAT PG

The document presents a critique of the United Nations (UN) organization, arguing that it has failed to carry out its charter-mandated tasks, specifically to ”maintain international peace and security” and ”to achieve international cooperation” in solving global problems. The author notes growing public frustration with catastrophic humanitarian situations and the failure of peace-keeping operations, leading to widespread scepticism about the possibility of ”revitalization”.

UN Reform Approaches

Discussions on UN reform are divided into two main categories: the conservative approach and the radical approach.

1. Conservative Approach:

The conservative view considers the existing Charter ”practically untouchable” and believes in improving ”collective security” as defined in Chapter VII. Key positions include:

US Position: Prioritizes its own interests, supports better management and the creation of an Inspector General, favours enlarging the Security Council (to include Germany and Japan, mainly for financing peace-keeping), and associates the UN with regional organizations like NATO for peace enforcement. The US remains reluctant to allow full application of Chapter VII and views collective security restrictively.
Secretary-General’s Position (Boutros Ghali): Advocated for the full implementation of ’collective security’ as envisaged in 1945, including the use of the Military Staff Committee (Article 47) and the conclusion of special agreements (Article 43) for providing armed forces. He also proposed ’peace enforcement units’ under the command of the Secretary-General and wider use of ’preventive diplomacy’. The report candidly recognized the Security Council’s incapacity to deal with threats from a major power.

2. Radical Approach:

The radical approach criticizes the principles of the present system and proposes an overhaul. It reflects increasing doubts about the value of the Charter’s collective security system, especially in intra-State conflicts. Radical proposals include:

Establishing an Economic Security Council.
Modifying the Charter with less reluctance.
Reforming the IMF and World Bank.
Developing a new global security system .
The creation of a consultative parliamentary assembly at the world level.

Future Outlook:

The author asserts that no major or minor reform has any chance of being implemented now, primarily because the Charter’s amendment procedures (requiring a two-thirds majority including all five permanent Security Council members) preclude agreement. However, he concludes that the continuing deterioration of the global situation, driven by economic integration, rising inequality, and intra-State conflicts, will inevitably lead the political establishment to define a new global institutional structure. This future debate will become highly political.

The Russian Federation’s specific claims alleging genocide, and invoking that alleged genocide as the basis for military action against Ukraine, include:

On 21 February 2022, the President of the Russian Federation stated in an official address that there was a “genocide” occurring in Ukraine, “which almost 4 million people are facing”.
The President of the Russian Federation then announced a “special military operation” and stated that “[t]he purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime.”
In an interview on 25 February 2022, the Russian Ambassador to the European Union was asked about President Putin’s reference to genocide as justification for Russia’s unlawful acts against Ukraine and said “[w]e can turn to the official term of genocide as coined in international law. If you read the definition it fits pretty well.”

Ukraine has emphatically denied that any act of genocide has occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts or elsewhere in Ukraine, and that Russia has any lawful basis whatsoever to take action in and against Ukraine for the purpose of preventing and punishing genocide.

Therefore, the parties’ dispute over first, the existence of acts of genocide, and second, Russia’s claim to legal authority to take military action in and against Ukraine to punish and prevent such alleged genocide, is a dispute that concerns the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the [1] Convention. Accordingly, the Court should recognize its jurisdiction on a prima facie basis for purposes of indicating provisional measures.

[Excerpted from: Request for the Indication of Provisional Measures Submitted by Ukraine, February 26, 2022, in Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation), International Court of Justice]

The International Court of Justice recalls that, pursuant to Article 41 of its Statute, it has the power to indicate provisional measures when irreparable prejudice could be caused to rights which are the subject of judicial proceedings or when the alleged disregard of such rights may entail irreparable consequences. However, this power will be exercised only if there is urgency, in the sense that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights claimed before the Court gives its final decision.

The condition of urgency is met when the acts susceptible of causing irreparable prejudice can “occur at any moment” before the Court makes a final decision on the case. The Court must therefore consider whether such a risk exists at this stage of the proceedings. The Court is not called upon, for the purposes of its decision on the Request for the indication of provisional measures, to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of the right found to be plausible.

Having determined that Ukraine can plausibly assert a right under the Genocide Convention and that there is a link between this right and the provisional measures requested, the Court then considers whether irreparable prejudice could be caused to this right and whether there is urgency, in the sense that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to this right before the Court gives its final decision.

To every State whose land territory is at any place washed by the sea, international law attaches a corresponding portion of maritime territory. International law does not say to a State: “You are entitled to claim territorial waters if you want them.” No maritime State can refuse them. International law imposes upon a maritime State certain obligations and confers upon it certain rights arising out of the sovereignty which it exercises over its maritime territory.

The possession of this territory is not optional, not dependent upon the will of the State, but compulsory. In the ninth edition of Oppenheim's International Law, the nationality of ships in the high seas has been referred to in paragraph 287, wherein it has been observed that the legal order on the high seas is based primarily on the rule of International Law which requires every vessel sailing the high seas to possess the nationality of, and to fly the flag of, one State, whereby a vessel and persons on board the vessel are subjected to the law of the State of the flag and in general subject to its exclusive jurisdiction.

In paragraph 291 of the aforesaid discourse, the learned author has defined the scope of flag jurisdiction to mean that jurisdiction in the high seas is dependent upon the Maritime Flag under which vessels sail, because no State can extend its territorial jurisdiction to the high seas. Of course, the aforesaid principle is subject to the right of “hot pursuit”, which is an exception to the exclusiveness of the flag jurisdiction over ships on the high seas in certain special cases.