The contribution of the International Court of Justice to international humanitarian law

© 2001 Kluwer Law InternationalThis article considers the contribution of the International Court of Justice (‘ICJ’) to the development of the rules and principles of international humanitarian law (‘IHL’). In recent times, the contribution of the Court to this body of the law has been overshadowed by the work of the two ad hoc international criminal tribunals, the ICTY and the ICTR, established by the Security Council to punish those responsible for serious breaches of IHL. Nevertheless, the ICJ, in both its contentious and advisory jurisdictions, has considered the provisions of IHL on a number of occasions, and in the process has clarified many areas of IHL. This article is concerned with one particular issue: how does the Court perceive the fundamental nature of IHL? The analysis adopts two themes. First, an assessment is made of the part played by the Court in the process of bringing IHL into conformity with the changing emphasis of general international law. In both the Nicaragua case and the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion the Court continued the process of what has been referred to as the “humanization of international law.” Second, the approach of the Court to the vexed issue of the relationship between ius ad bellum and IHL is considered. The conclusion is reached that the approach of the Court to this latter issue has undermined its contribution to infusing the humanitarian ethos into IHL

The neglected aspect of women and armed conflict - progressive development of the law

© 2005 T.M.C. Asser Instituut and ContributorsThe impact of armed conflict on women is the subject of three recent international studies, two under the auspices of the United Nations and one undertaken by the International Committee of the Red Cross. These studies make a significant contribution to increasing knowledge of the ways in which women experience armed conflict and, moreover, propose strategies to address the problems they identify. There is virtual consensus, however, that the existing legal regime protecting women in times of armed conflict is adequate and that there is no place for progressive development of the law. This article challenges this conclusion. After examining the approach of the studies to the regime protecting women in times of armed conflict, the author argues that there is a need for a comprehensive initiative to consider whether in fact the law is adequate to deal with their situation of women in armed conflict

Non-Canonical NF-κB Signaling Initiated by BAFF Influences B Cell Biology at Multiple Junctures

It has been more than a decade since it was recognized that the nuclear factor of kappa light polypeptide gene enhancer in B cells (NF-κB) transcription factor family was activated by two distinct pathways: the canonical pathway involving NF-κB1 and the non-canonical pathway involving NF-κB2. During this time a great deal of evidence has been amassed on the ligands and receptors that activate these pathways, the cytoplasmic adapter molecules involved in transducing the signals from receptors to nucleus, and the resulting physiological outcomes within body tissues. In contrast to NF-κB1 signaling, which can be activated by a wide variety of receptors, the NF-κB2 pathway is typically only activated by a subset of receptor and ligand pairs belonging to the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) family. Amongst these is B cell activating factor of the TNF family (BAFF) and its receptor BAFFR. Whilst BAFF is produced by many cell types throughout the body, BAFFR expression appears to be restricted to the hematopoietic lineage and B cells in particular. For this reason, the main physiological outcomes of BAFF mediated NF-κB2 activation are confined to B cells. Indeed BAFF mediated NF-κB2 signaling contributes to peripheral B cell survival and maturation as well as playing a role in antibody responses and long term maintenance plasma cells. Thus the importance BAFF and NF-κB2 permeates the entire B cell lifespan and impacts on this important component of the immune system in a variety of ways

The Surface Group Conjectures for groups with two generators

Funding: This work has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 850930), and from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), grants EP/R035814/1 and EP/S010963/1, and was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project ID 427320536 – SFB 1442, as well as under Germany’s Excellence Strategy EXC 2044–390685587, Mathematics Münster: Dynamics–Geometry–Structure.The Surface Group Conjectures are statements about recognising surface groups among one-relator groups, using either the structure of their finite-index subgroups, or all subgroups. We resolve these conjectures in the two generator case. More generally, we prove that every two-generator one-relator group with every infinite-index subgroup free is itself either free or a surface group.PostprintPeer reviewe