Groningen Journal of International Law

International Law Under Construction


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International Arbitration & the Remedy Gap for Victims of Business-Related Human Rights Abuses

 Prof. Katerina Yiannibas | katerina.yiannibas@deusto.es

In a legal utopia, every jurisdiction in the world could boast of efficient and affordable access to justice that would provide appropriate remedy to victims of human rights abuses. There would be equal protection and enforcement of international human rights, responsible cross-border business conduct, fair and unbiased adjudicative processes with effective assistance of counsel, and never any reprisals against victims or their defenders. Regrettably, this is not the world we live in. The contemporary legal reality instead evidences widespread legal and practical barriers to access remedy for victims of business-related human rights abuses.

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Technologies for International Law & International Law for Technologies

Dr Berenice Boutin | b.boutin@asser.nl

Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), and their societal and policy implications, are at the forefront of current public debates (see, e.g., here, here, and here). The topic is also on the agenda of international organisations, and, in September 2018, the United Nations Secretary-General launched a ‘Strategy on New Technologies’ outlining ‘how the United Nations system will support the use of these technologies to accelerate the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and to facilitate their alignment with the values enshrined in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the norms and standards of international law.’

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My office – my rules?

By Tina Korošec | korosec.tina1@gmail.com

Spending on average more than 40 hours a week at work means that my office colleague is by default the person I see most. I keep my sports gear and medical prescriptions in the office drawer and my planner and pictures of people I care about on the desk. I have a YouTube playlist I listen to at work. In short, my workplace is very home-like and my home is often the office for the weekend.

I am not here to judge whether this lifestyle evolution should be welcomed or rejected but I believe the blurring of divisions between the professional and personal should be observed with due caution. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recognised the difficulties in distinguishing the two and the problems with drawing the lines of human rights protection artificially in the Niemietz v. Germany case, holding that the protection of ‘private life’ under the Convention extends to the workplace. In recent years, the Court has developed considerable case-law on a broad range of workplace-related issues relevant to employees in Europe, who are often unfamiliar with the protection of their rights offered by the Convention. This blog post discusses two aspects of employers’ restrictions on employees in the workplace: dress code and surveillance. Continue reading →


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The Horizontal Effect of International Human Rights Law

By Lottie Lane |c.l.lane@rug.nl

This blog post summarises some of the main findings of the author’s PhD thesis, entitled ‘The Horizontal Effect of International Human Rights Law: Towards a Multi-Level Governance Approach’. The findings are taken from an extensive comparative analysis of the extent to which international human rights law is applied to non-State actors (i.e. the horizontal effect of human rights) in jurisprudence at the international, regional and national levels.

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Immunity, Accountability and Politics – the AU’s bid for an ICJ Advisory Opinion

By Angela Mudukuti |angelamudukuti@gmail.com

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s continued visits to Rome Statute Member States, including but not limited to Chad, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and most recently Jordan, have caused much legal consternation and uproar from both divides of the head of state immunity debate. It has also provided significant momentum for the African Union (AU) to finally seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the matter.

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The United States’ Withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal: Understanding the Legality of the Move and Obligations Under UNSC Resolution 2231

By Rohan Jain| rohanjain@nujs.edu

On May 8 2018, Donald Trump made public his decision to pull the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. The lack of comprehensiveness of the Deal, demonstrated by its alleged failure to restrict Iran’s ability to build ballistic missiles or regulate its acts of aggression and attempts to sponsor terrorism and destabilise the Middle East region through proxy wars, has been cited as one of the primary reasons for United States’ withdrawal. President Trump also took issue with the unqualified lifting of economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for only weak restrictions on its nuclear programme. The final straw for the US was Iran’s alleged attempts to continue its programme while hiding it from the relevant monitoring agencies. With the US’ withdrawal from the Deal, Iran’s nuclear programme is stripped of its right to be treated at par with the nuclear programmes of other non-nuclear weapons states, and the United States’ ability to impose nuclear and economic sanctions on Iran has been reinstated. Continue reading →