This paper focuses on the following question: how can the ICC safeguard against an accused's misuse of the right to self-representation, thus preserving his right to a fair trial, and why such safeguards are needed at the first place?The structure of the article is determined by its aim which is the analysis and application of the right to self-representation. In effect, the first part ponders on the two practical situations where the court is allowed to interfere with the defendant’s rights. If the accused is behaving in a disrupting manner or if the case is ‘highly’ complex, the court should restrain the exclusive self-representation. By acknowledging that the interference could be justifiable, I will then put forward in the following section three possible solutions for the court to react. So to speak, imposing a legal representative is not the only possibility, viz. representation in person could be still allowed, however, with particular modifications. In the last chapter I will question the incentive of the court’s encroachment into the defendant’s rights. I find the notion of justice essential in understanding this issue and therefore I will circle my argument around it. By way of conclusion, I will highlight circumstances and options for the court’s justifiable interference and present the notion of justice — as a value that protects the legitimacy of the court’s proceedings — in the way I see it.

To adjudicate a claim on individual criminal responsibility, the court has to establish objective and subjective links between the individual and the crime. This article studies the material (actus reus/objective) elements of the crime of aggression (conduct, consequence and circumstance) and suggests a reading that solves most of the conceptual and practical issues regarding criminal responsibility for this crime. The main contribution is an ontological distinction between the material act of use of violence and the act of aggression, which are both subsumed under the term ‘state/collective act’. The former is a consequence element and therefore is to be understood in its naturalistic meaning – a perceivable result of one’s action. The latter is a legal-evaluative notion and as such constitutes a circumstance that renders the violation of the prohibitory norm (the union of conduct and consequence) as being wrongful. This distinction is crucial for the system of attribution of criminal responsibility, as different mental (subjective) elements apply to consequences and circumstances.

Since the Nuremberg trials, it has been accepted that only the highest echelon of state leadership can be responsible for the crime of aggression. The crime of aggression is distinguished from other core crimes under the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) purview by, inter alia, its leadership nature. According to Articles 8bis(1) and 25(3bis) of the Rome Statute, only a person ‘in a position effectively to exercise control over or direct the political or military action of a State’ can be held responsible for aggression. The ‘control or direct’ standard was adopted at the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute in Kampala in 2010 and differs from the customary counterpart (‘shape or influence’) established by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT). This article will explore how the leadership clause has evolved and whether the new standard is more appropriate for the ICC.

The Nuremberg Charter introduced the crime of aggression into international law. The American Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson gave a famous promise that offenders who commit acts of aggression shall be prosecuted and international criminal law would be applied against them. Notwithstanding the efforts of the United Nations to criminalize aggression, in the period between the Nuremberg trial and the Kampala Conference in 2010 there has not been a universally accepted definition of aggression. Even though the Nuremberg Principles had been recognized and the Tokyo judgment followed the Nuremberg precedent, a universally accepted definition of the ‘supreme crime’ was missing for more than 60 years. One could argue that the Cold War was the main reason for the absence of international follow-up to the criminalization of aggression after 1947; or one may also say that the international community relied on the UN Charter provisions as a trustworthy bulwark against acts of aggression. The definition of ‘act of aggression’ from 1974 could not be labeled as ‘historic’ simply because in reality nothing truly changed. The international tribunals prior to the establishment of the International Criminal Court did not have the crime of aggression in their statutes. In this article the author describes the development of the ‘supreme crime’ specifically after the Nuremberg trial, with a focus on the UN efforts in dealing with acts of aggression. Individual responsibility for the crime of aggression as such is also examined in this ‘vacuum period’ where the international consensus was missing.

During the COVID-19 pandemic many states have resorted to proclaiming a state of emergency (SOE), expanding executive powers and curtailing civil liberties. Why have some states have declared SOEs when others have not? Our legal analysis suggests that although international law provides states with the option of declaring an SOE and derogating from human rights obligations to ensure the life of the nation, other ways to handle the pandemic without declaring an SOE do exist. Our theoretical analysis leads to three main propositions centred on the impact of regional diffusion, democratic institutions, and pandemic preparedness. Our empirical analysis combines a range of quantitative data sources to analyse the SOE decisions of 180 states during the first half of 2020. The results suggest that states' declarations of SOEs are driven by both external and internal factors. A permissive regional environment, characterised by many simultaneously declared SOEs, may reduce the reputational and political costs of emergency powers, making their employment more palatable. At the same time, internal characteristics, specifically democratic institutions and pandemic preparedness, have shaped governments' decisions. Weak democracies with poor preparedness have been considerably more likely to opt for an SOE than dictatorships and robust democracies with higher preparedness.

Runt en miljon flyktingar och migranter upp­ges förra året ha sökt sig till Europa över Medel­havet. EU försöker allt­jämt hitta håll­bara lösningar på flykting­situationen, men vad gäller egentligen för hanteringen av flyktingar som befinner sig till havs? Vilket regel­verk styr exempel­vis EU-samordnade insatser som Operation Triton och Operation Sophia? I den här analysen redogör Martin Ratcovich för vad folkrätten och EU-rätten har att säga när det gäller flykting­strömmarna över havet. Fokus för analysen är den internationella havs­rättens regler om ingripande mot fartyg och sjö­räddning.

What does authority mean under international law? There are various actors with different forms of authority, but no overarching concept of what characteristic endows an actor with authority, and even less of a coherent conception of legitimacy as a requirement for such authority. In fact, international law recognizes different authorities for different causes and different contexts, allocated to different actors, who base their authority on different characteristics (state legitimacy, representativity, military power, control). After disaggregating the concept of authority and outlining some of the consequences that follow from each type, this article highlights a number of different actors and describes the various authorities each has under international law. For instance, under jus in bello, nonstate actors can create a state of armed conflict in which they can often continue to use military means without legal sanction. While jus ad bellum may still in principle require legitimacy (in the formal sense of being a state), current jus in bello covers a range of non-state actors. Thus, from a practical point of view, the jus in bello regulations undermine any jus ad bellum requirement of legitimate authority.

What would international law look like in a world without states — or with states being non-dominant? How would it be formed and who would be its protagonists? And would that world be a better place? To think about international law without states might seem like a ludicrous idea. After all, inter-national is often interpreted to mean “inter-state”, and for many people, any law without the state seems impossible to think. However, the state has been around for only a few hundred years, and yet there have been norms between political communities — whether we call that international “law” or not – for much longer. International law without the state could mean de facto anarchy and even perennial war. But it could also mean inter-communal law between communities that are not states, if we assume that people without states would spontaneously form political communities, albeit of a different nature. Or it could be mainly transnational law, formed between apolitical bodies, like corporations. Or, perhaps, a bit of all of that.

The collective security system of the UN Charter has, since its inception, been fraught with political and practical problems. Such problems can all be associated with conceptual contradictions and it is very difficult to imagine a truly effective collective security system. These conceptual difficulties do not necessarily mean that collective security to maintain international peace and security is not possible, but they do mean that both the architecture of the system and its application in concrete cases will suffer from tragic dilemmas, in which any solution will entail costs. This chapter contains a critical analysis of conceptual problems related to collective security, with the focus on three basic issues: 1. Protection against which acts—war, physical violence, structural violence or something else? 2. Protection against which sources—threats from states, from groups, from individuals, etc.? 3. What is the object of protection—the state, societies, groups, or individuals?

In two recent cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the General Court (at first instance), the High Court of Justice of England and Wales and the Grand Chamber of the CJEU found that a trade agreement and a fisheries agreement between Morocco and the European Union cannot be applied to occupied Western Sahara without the consent of its people. In spite of the fact that it is the general view that Western Sahara is under belligerent occupation, none of the three courts invoked the law of occupation but based themselves instead on the principle of self-determination and the law governing the administration of non-self-governing territories, including the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources. A possible implication of these judgments is that that law and the law of occupation are converging in certain respects, in particular as regards long-term occupation. This pertains not only to the substantive rules on the exercise of authority, which seem to require that the people are heard, but also to the basis for the establishment of that authority, namely bare control.