Access to justice in international courts for indigent states, persons and peoples

Funding and litigation finance is an important aspect of international adjudication. The growing literature on courts and tribunal has however overlooked the subject of litigation cost and finance. This paper considers the development of the practice of trust funds that aid access to international courts and tribunals for states as well as corporate and natural persons. Next, the paper addresses strategies to increase access to justice by poorer developing states and indigent persons. The paper evaluates the means by which further confidence in the adoption of international adjudication, arbitral routes and other appropriate dispute resolution routes may be promoted among poorer parties in order to reduce the deleterious effects of acute financial inequalities between litigants and other participants. In order to exhaustively deal with this issue of litigation financing the paper will, therefore, compare the relevant law and processes of the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Human Rights, the various International Criminal tribunals, the World Trade Organisation and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute

International Moral Legalism and the Competence over Prosecution of Corruption Crimes

The paper highlights the acute nature of the problem of grand business corruption and the major legal developments in anticorruption legislation nationally, regionally and internationally. While accepting the utility of the black letter analysis of anticorruption laws the author argues that it is equally worthwhile that legal writers establish the moral abhorrence of international corruption across human cultures and forms of civilisation. It is suggested that there is ample basis for doing so by distilling the philosophical, religious and cultural jurisprudence of corruption from the corpus of indigenous African religion, Islamic thought, Christian theology and cultural values common to human societies. It is noted that the complicity of western societies in providing home for stolen and illegal wealth systematically transferred from the developing world is at odds with this shared moral vocabulary of human civilisations. It is argued that the utility of establishing the moral imperative of the global anticorruption movement is to put a stop to this phenomenon and to ensure the expansion of the jurisprudence and international criminal jurisdiction against gross abusers on the same basis as is presently done against pirates, terrorists, hijackers and other persons engaging in acts regarded as delicta jure gentium

Repatriation of Africa: Imperative of the African Union Boundary Programme Within Contemporary International Law and Practice

“Frontiers are indeed the razors edge on which hangs suspended the modern issues of war and peace, life or death of nations.” Spatial boundaries have ambiguous features: they divide and unite, bind the interior and link it with the exterior, are barriers and junctions, walls and doors, organs of defence and attack and so on. Frontier areas (borderlands) can be managed so as to maximise any of these functions. They can be militarised, as bulwarks against neighbours, or be made into special areas of peaceful interchange. This paper explores the core issues surrounding Africa national boundaries within the context of national sovereignty and international laws

The Province of International Business Transactions Defined: Content, Scope and Intersections with International Legal Studies

The law of International Business Transactions as a subfield within the general field of international commercial law can appear to be quite amorphous to students and practitioners. It may be observed that different authors converge, diverge and intersect in their focus on the various relevant themes and topics within the general phenomena of international commercial transactions. This article offers some explanation for this reality by seeking to establish certain necessary connections between the study of the law of transnational business and allied fields of international studies. The article also seeks to dispel certain myths such as that which views international business regulation as devoid of power politics. The paper, thus, places the study of international business transactions well within the scope of socio legal as well as critical legal theory

Legal consequences for disregard of the world court’s decision and the continuing construction of a wall in the occupied palestinian territory

A decade after the delivery of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Request for advisory opinion) popular opinion appears to be that the advisory opinion has not produced any appreciable and positive outcome for and in the interest of the Palestinian people. This article discusses the issues surrounding the legal validity, authoritativeness and bindingness of advisory opinions and notes that although advisory opinions are not judgments but "merely opinions and merely advisory” they do carry a recognisable authority and are generally persuasive and followed by UN member states and even states that are not yet members as exemplified by Israel in relation to the Conditions Of Admission of a State to Membership In The United Nations [1948]. The article considers the impact the wall has had over the last 11 years evaluates attempts to give effectiveness to the advisory opinion and makes suggestions as to the future. The article thus, lays the ground for the conclusion that the opinion in the case under discussion ought to be followed by Israel; that Israel bears international responsibility and liability for its action in defiance of the position of international law and particularly for large scale abuse of the rights of individuals and communities in Palestine as a result of the wall policy; and that all UN bodies particularly the Security Council should seek all ways to bring about the implementation of the Courts decision in this case. The reception of the opinion by various key stakeholders are evaluated and the major steps taken by the General Assembly to encourage compliance and to impose liability on the state of Israel are discussed along with suggestions on how to ensure that the legal opinion in this case is finally used as a basis to bring down the much criticised and illegal, approximately 700 km structure, which is a clog in the wheel of the general resolution of the problems surrounding the occupation of Palestinian territories and the law and politics of the Israeli-Palestinian issue in international relations

Aspects of the International Legal Regime Concerning Privatization and Commercialisation of Space Activities

Gbenga Oduntan analyzes the current state of law and practice of space activities as they relate to private enterprise, highlighting the need for national and international reform to better align international systems. The article traces the increasing scope of law relevant to private enterprise in space and advises directions in which it can evolve