 Well, hello and good evening My name is Dan Plesch and for the last decade now, I've had the great pleasure to be Director of the Center for International Studies and Diplomacy here at SOAS And I'm pleased to say we now have some six different postgraduate programs and some of which you can study online Without ever coming to London I Got a leaflets so I will spare you any further Direct publicity for the Center, but one of the great treats Over the years has been this annual law lecture, which I inherited from my predecessor Dr. Slin of the law school and Which is organized by Civil Society incarnate some of us study civil society David Wardrock the the gentleman in the middle here on the platform is civil society, and I'll say a word or two about him in a moment This event which is very much his inspiration and creation brings together not just SOAS and The Bar Council and the Westminster branch of the United Nations Association, but within SOAS both The CISD and and the law school So in that sense, it's a multi-agency Operation and for that coordination alone David should be should be thanked and we've had a distinguished Gallery of speakers over the decade or so that I've been in post I'm not going to talk about our speakers and the running order that stats David's job is my job to embarrass David And I'll set out to do it There was a 60th anniversary of the United Nations in 2005 or thereabouts if I've it right and The United Nations Association the government the UN itself wasn't much interested in a 60th anniversary David had other ideas He booked in polls He invited Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second Her Majesty accepted St. Paul's was filled The anniversary was March. Thanks to David David and his team in Westminster UN a all of whom are volunteers and operate alongside The main UN a in Whitehall organize film shows study trips cooperation with organizations in Egypt I lose track All of this comes out of voluntary Energy and you may think that David as an Auguste individual as such of this is that was just short of being a peer of the realm and a retiree of The Foreign Service and not a bit of it In the finest traditions of British civil society David Wardrop is a retired used car salesman So as we study the civil society and so I said have all of our preconceptions about the sort of people who Support civil society and are interested and when we discuss and are told about the Westminster village and the chattering classes Just remember what is achieved by retired use car salesman when all these stereotypes are fed to us so Hopefully his ears are burning and his cheeks are red It's not my great pleasure to hand over to David who will introduce our speakers and the running order I'm sure given his background He won't forget, but I will say if you stay the course through to the vote of thanks There is a wine reception outside afterwards I just perhaps the second most important thing to say to you this evening without you or David Wardrop So I come to the most important part of Tonight's activities. It is to plug Dan's new book I must admit Having known Dan for a long time in the early days before the internet before So much information became on online. He was the person worldwide Who discovered the early days of the united nations those early years and the late forties the early forties and what happened It was his work was A labor of love and very few of us believed he would actually conquer it, but as so much more information became online I guess it became easier and his three or four books now The latest one human rights after hitler I think his titles have always been fantastic Um is going to hit the shelves in a month's time Uh, I congratulate you Dan on On behalf of so many people who are in the united nations and work for what the united nations tries to do You have made sense out of what Many of us had seen was the fog of its earliest years. Congratulations um It was 14 years ago When we in my colleagues and I who are many of here Had to decide how we would remember a most remarkable woman ruth steincraus kohen after whom This lecture is named And who whose forceful personality had led to amongst other things the real formation of the united nations association in the united states And twinned her connecticut chapter with our branch in westminster We benefited in her legacy How should we remember her? The year 2003 The answer lay all around us Today is march the 7th a couple of weeks ago 14 years ago 8 million people had marched against the impending war in iraq The most in history It seemed that the united nations was being brushed aside by Nations deciding not to go to the security council and test the validity of their case And that is what happened Ruth had two driving forces in her life one was The united nations and the second was the work of huger grosius the father of international law and That was obvious for us But still how could we raise the awareness of what the united nations was there for and what it could do Now with troops in iraq So he called the un legal council hans karel in new york and said there's one place In this country which is doubting the future of the united nations Which is the un that's the international maritime organization and the south bank And said you come over here and tell the british people exactly the role of the united nations And that was inaugural lecture and now we're 14 years later We've been very lucky right from the start the bar council Supported us in that very first year at the international maritime organization And i'm so pleased that the chairman of the bar the chairman of the international committee and colleagues are with us here Lawly supporting our annual event. Thank you very much before I introduce our Speaker and i'm not going to dwell too much on her background because all of you who have registered Chose to attend because you saw the important role she plays But last year i was foolish enough foolish enough to say That this annual law lecture was one of three flagship events we hold in the year That the second is to mark the international day of united nations peacekeepers Thousands of peacekeepers have died around the world They come from 120 countries But not one of the 194 countries in the world Actually marks the death Of peacekeepers on un peacekeepers day the 29th of may I think that's remarkable So 13 years ago we started our conference and a ceremony at the cenotaph Initially with traffic passing either side But now all that whitehall is blocked off for us And this last year we had 100 embassies laying wreaths Marking dead peacekeepers from other people's countries That's the remarkable thing But I have to say the more remarkable thing is not a single government in the world does that It's deplorable The third thing we do Is our film festival Which this last year had screenings in 14 countries our Just see a promo of next year's Program and all of you who have registered Will have information about our film festival Well, it's they've got an incredibly important message. It's been well constructed Well plans and organized So lovely evening Very informative and educational for me This is a great platform where we can talk about what's happening in countries like just congo, syria And also to discuss about a solution. What are we actually doing in order to to play a part? So yeah, it's really really important. So as I say each of you who have registered first of all when it happens in november Now I have the great pleasure of introducing our speaker tonight france was hampton I've known france was for a long time. She spoke has spoken at our meetings in in parliament several times And i'm struck by the clarity with which she With with with she handles the issues in which she's spoken about And is one she's one of the few speakers when I make reports of what She has written I go back to the hyperlinks and make sure that everyone knows exactly the source of her information She's a remarkable speaker. I won't say anything more about france was because each of you have read her cv On the event write documents france was Welcome to the podium David and the una so asked in the bar council For the honor of asking me to deliver the ruth steincross cohen lecture I think you've already seen that everything dan said about david was completely correct If the rest of the una throughout the world Was as active as the westminster branch. I think we'd be living in a very different world I suspect that the subject of today's discussion would have been of great interest To ruth steincross cohen even though she might Not have been all that pleased about the actual content My topic is is international law in crisis That's not principally about the content of international law It's about international law as a legal system And about the role it plays It's important to remember that international law is law But that it does not function in the way that domestic law functions In particular Litigation plays a less significant role than at the national level This means that governments acting in the name of states Are expected to behave in conformity with international law They're not expected to push their luck as it were with the courts left to determine whether they can get away with it I think the evidence given by jack straw to the chilcott inquiries suggests that he did not understand the nature of international law And indeed that was elizabeth wilmshurst's comment on his evidence So with this title i am expected to cover I've chosen to cover 70 years Worth of international law i'm not going back to hugo grocers In about 30 minutes which is one reason why you're not getting power points because i think that would just distract So is international law in crisis implies i think some kind of change It's suggesting That international law used to have one role or used to have some characteristics And now has different ones It also implies that any change there is is not for the better And it's those two elements that i would like to consider this evening Limitations of time mean that i'm going to have to proceed by way of sweeping generalizations And this of course is somewhat uncomfortable for a lawyer In that i won't have time for qualifying phrases or caveats which may be refreshing for all the non-lawyers I shall look briefly at international law at five periods 1945 1975 1990 2000 and now And all being well this will enable us to get some idea of whether there's been a change In the direction of travel of international law With regard to various elements in it first the form of international agreements has that changed The implementation and the respect of such commitments And also whether there's been a change in the general sense of Commitment to the rule of law between states the lawness of international law So starting with 1945 and i recognize here that i'm being a historical Those who were practicing in 1945 would naturally have looked back to possibly Before 1913 1918 1939 they wouldn't have seen themselves as the start of a process I readily admit i'm looking back from now So i've got all the instincts of someone looking at it from 2017 And that means that the things that i highlight Might have come as a bit of a surprise to those practicing at that time But i think it's legitimate when looking at the evolution to cast 2017 eyes on 1945 So as compared to today for a start there were very few states Much of the world was still painted a variety of colonial colors in the case of the united kingdom pink There were also as compared to today Limited areas of activity in need of regulation We tend to forget the change there has been in the areas subject to regulation in the past 70 years International trade law and international environmental law for example barely existed There were only a very limited number of regional or international intergovernmental institutions Whereas now as a plethora of them Customary law still played a really important role Which was much easier when there was only a limited number of states making it And the rate of change at least a scene from here was very gradual There were both bilateral and multilateral treaties But the key hallmark of such treaties was that they depended on reciprocity The norms in the treaties were not seen as giving rise to absolute standards or a bottom line If another party broke the rules The victim of the breach was entitled to regard the treaty as suspended So that means even though you've agreed to do one thing if one side breaks the rules you act as if the treaty wasn't there I have the impression that most if not all states regarded compliance with international law as something to be taken seriously But strong national interests might be seen as in some sense Justifying a breach of the rules But obviously not in the eyes of the law itself But as far as states were concerned if the national interest was sufficiently important Then yes, even though it breached international law you'd do the thing in question I suspect that even in 1945 there was a difference between european states and the united states In how seriously international law requirements were to be treated And therefore how important the countervailing national interests had to be to justify a breach I think you needed more national interest in the case of european states and I suspect was the case in the us But in terms of how they spoke about international law I think broadly speaking european states and the us took a similar position Turning to 1975 Between 1945 and 1975 so a 30-year period a range of developments took place Some had an immediate impact But others were more in the nature of a slow acting fuse In other words the change happened between 45 and 75 But the significance of the change emerged later The first thing to note is that by 1975 most colonies had gained their independence In other words there were far more states than there had been in 1945 Which of course is going to have implications for the making of international law Furthermore there's a much greater diversity amongst these states At least in relation to things like development than was the case in 45 So it's not just as more of them, but they're much more varied than they had been In this 30-year period a very considerable number of regional and international intergovernmental organizations have been created So there's a lot of people doing stuff that hadn't previously been doing it Some of these organizations had dispute settlement mechanisms That meant there was the possibility of authoritative determination of violation So it was no longer just left to the states themselves to say oh I think you've violated the rules Or very occasionally the international court of justice In this 30-year period new areas of international law had emerged or were beginning to emerge The general agreement on tariffs and trade GATT which was the forerunner of the world trade organization Was in a position to promote international trade law Most obviously between 1945 and 1975 we saw the emergence of international human rights law Even though what international human rights law was about Was traditionally the antithesis of international law It was about what states did in their territory That historically had been excluded from international law because it was purely domestic law So it's not just that this is a new area, but it's a new kind of area 1945 saw the creation of the first of what became known as UN special procedures in the human rights field The two UN covenants and the American Convention on Human Rights had not yet entered into force But were to do so the following year in the case of the covenants and in 1978 for the American Convention And of course a regional mechanism to which I will refer later existed in Europe In the case of this human rights machinery we have an example of the slow acting fuse The international covenant on civil and political rights the American Convention and the European Convention Provided for a right of individual petition That was to come into its own fully approximately 20 years later In this period there were a significant number of standard setting international agreements that were concluded The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties made significant changes in the treaty regime First it provided that in the case of a limited category of treaties A state was not free to suspend the provisions of a treaty just because the other side had violated an obligation In other words there was a bottom line that represents a significant change Another significant departure was the approach taken in the Vienna Convention to reservations As of 1945 a state that wanted to ratify a treaty with the reservation could only do so if every other state accepted the reservation That meant a lot of states ended up not joining in treaties because they couldn't get universal acceptance of the reservation In the Vienna Convention it turned that on its head You were free to make reservations unless they were expressly excluded or they were inconsistent with the objects and purposes So that promoted inclusion into treaty regimes So you can see there's a significant impact there on how treaties are going to work which is the principle instrument in international law In 1975 a very interesting treaty was in the process of being negotiated and that's unclosed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea And the first thing to note about that is it's really rather odd that they needed to negotiate it at all In 1958 there had been agreement on four separate treaties dealing with four separate areas of the law of the sea But that actually turned out to be a problem Because states would ratify the bits they liked or the treaties they liked and not the ones they didn't like So you ended up with a complete patchwork of obligation and it was very difficult to see when looking at two states and the obligations they owed one another What on earth they were They had therefore decided that this area the law of the sea needed to be subject to comprehensive regulation Not just something on territorial sea something on fishes something on exclusive economic zone Everything needed to bed out with together Now the logic of that Is since you're dealing with it as a package you can't have any reservations because in that case you'd fragment the treaty So this unclosed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was negotiated as a package They always knew it was going to be a package deal And it duly prohibited the making of reservations So what we can see with these new areas of international law including new kinds of areas Special treaties making significant changes in how international law works You can see a significant degree of creativity and flexibility The tools of international law were being adapted to suit the particular needs of different subject areas This very adaptability Was ensuring that either international law was more useful or at least that it was useful There was no homogeneity of approach. You didn't say all treaties must be like this All international organizations must be like that Having said that because this looks like good news We need to remember that in some areas there had been virtually no progress In 1975 the UN Security Council was in full Cold War deadlock At a regional level there was one Development that makes all the others pale into insignificance It was radically innovative and that was in Europe The EC and I mean the EC not the EU the European Economic Community Which absorbed the European Coal and Steel Community and your atom Was the first and to date the only supranational organization Most into governmental institutions if they come up with a decision that only binds states It doesn't have a direct effect in the domestic legal order of states If you want to change the domestic law of states Through something that has been decided by an intergovernmental organization It's necessary for the legislature to pass national legislation As a result of the provisions of the Treaty of Rome and the role given to the European Court of Justice That's not the case with regard to certain forms of decision making notably regulations in the EC That gives rise to an interesting chicken and egg problem Were European states willing to accept such a development the creation of supranationality Because they already had a different attitude to international law Or did the acceptance of supranationality speed up the development of what had originally only been a slight difference of attitude I don't know the answer to that question By 1975 it was fairly clear that European states had a different attitude to international law than other states They generally recognized the sheer lawness of it That this was not simply one of the elements to be taken into account when deciding what the old national policy was going to be It actually was there as a constraining element as law Within Europe some states were further advanced than others But generally speaking all European states were much further advanced in this direction than say the European Court of Justice The USA or the Soviet Union or India or any other state The next stopping off point is 1990 In the period between 1975 and 1989 It might be argued there were few radical new developments in international law I don't mean it to go on backwards There was a consolidation of the kinds of things we saw between 1945 and 1975 So it's not that there were no changes But that the changes tended to be in the same direction of travel and at the same speed of travel Important agreements were concluded and or entered into force Between 75 and 90 including more human rights treaties The rules on the conduct of hostilities Which essentially had not been updated in treaty form Since 1907 Were comprehensively updated in 1977 not withstanding the Cold War Many topic specific not feel specific even narrow than that many topic specific agreements Were concluded under the aegis of intergovernmental organizations I think that raises an interesting question for possibly someone's masters dissertation or even a thesis Once an organization is created does it tend to mean you get more law being created? Again, I don't know the answer to that. I think it would be an interesting question But the really big change between 1975 and 1990 was a political one It was a political one which had significant implications for the operation of international law I am of course referring to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and then the Soviet Union First newly independent states Cued up to ratify an incredible number of international treaties that they had not previously ratified They did so without reservation and I must confess that I've often wondered whether they did so without reading them They seem to want these Eastern European states and some of the stands seem to want to subscribe to the rule of law At the international level even if they weren't very sure what it meant They thought that by ratifying treaties you were joining the club. You were showing that you were responsible The previous doctrinaire rejection of custom as a source of international law as part of Marx's doctrine disappeared But above all The political change removed the deadlock in the security council So as far as the evolution of international law is concerned Some interesting things of a similar type to what had happened before occurred But a change happened at the end of this period That might lead to something dramatically different afterwards And at this point I turn to 2000 So as of 2000 you're looking back on a 10 year period 1990 to 2000 As we entered the new millennium We could look back on a quite remarkable decade for international law First in 1990 the security council acted pretty well as envisaged in the UN Charter That must have been something that Ruth Steincross Cohen Attached particular significance to The security council agreed that iraq and invading Kuwait had committed an act of aggression It imposed universally applicable and universally applied Sanctions even switzerland went along with the sanctions and at the time it wasn't a member of the UN They did take three days so that all the banking stuff could pass through switzerland first, but they then went along with them A coalition under u.s authority was put together and expelled iraq from kuwait There was no regime change One can see why this looked like a new world order, which was the phrase used by president bouche pair A new world order based on law However, this did not mean the end of war The end of crimes against humanity or genocide Because this remarkable decade Saw the conflicts in the former ughurslavia and genocide in rwanda What was different was the response to these things Those calamities were not prevented They weren't stopped rapidly once they begun But international criminal law which had been on ice since the nuremberg trials Was reborn and developed rapidly By the end of the decade we had the rome statute creating an international criminal court I submit that we could not Have had that statute That could not have happened before what i'll call the magic decade It wouldn't have happened before and it wouldn't have happened since But it's not the only treaty in that category There is a lesser known treaty of which the same exactly the same thing could be said and that's the chemical weapons convention It's really quite difficult because of the nature of chemical weapons Controlling getting an effective system of implementation So they knew to make this thing work you had to have a really good system of implementation The system in the convention Is the most detailed The most intrusive And the most costly in purely economic terms of any implementation system i've ever come across Again, i don't think we would have got it before that decade and i don't think we'd have got it afterwards Alongside those two pretty cosmic developments and the functioning of the security council Earlier initiatives came into their own most notably the right of individual petition Judgments were rendered particularly by the european court of human rights and the american court of human rights That had significant implications for the respondent governments So the first thing was that judgments were rendered But they generally accepted them If you want an example think of the case of mccann the jupy de brolder killings case That was a very close decision all the way through the national courts and the commission and the european court of human rights And yet the uk accepted the finding That in the planning of the operation in jupy de brolder not enough had been done to protect the right to life So that decade the 1990s also showed human rights law being used in situations of conflict That has developed much more since then but it was a striking feature of some of the litigation As a member of the un sub-commission on the promotion and protection of human rights from 1998 I was really struck by what seemed to be a change in the attitude of states And this wasn't just that I was wearing a un hat and previously. I'd worn an NGO activist hat I was used to states refusing to engage in any meaningful sense if you attempted to raise human rights concerns with them They seemed to assume that this was all a political ploy by the west So you might be talking law, but you meant politics That began to change And I think that what made a difference Was partly the end of the cold war But also the fact that Non-european states could see european states who were beating them about the head about their human rights record Were themselves accepting judgments against them They weren't just talking the talk They were walking the walk When they said you're not allowed to do this they might well themselves have already been found to have violated that And recognizing That the language of international law was not simply a political tool But had an autonomous way in and of itself Began to change the attitude of other states I think that was reinforced by the fact that all these newly independent eastern european states enthusiastically ratifying every human rights treaty in sight Tended to reinforce the western european position And it was also reinforced by the political changes in central and latin america Where you'd got the overthrow of military regimes and the institute and the installation Of democratic regimes that were very concerned to transition from their previous attitude to the rule of law So a range of things led to it but it does seem to me that Non-european states were beginning to see that International law might simply might not simply be one of the elements you take into account, but it was significant as law They're not yet convinced But they're open to the argument I think you can see that as some states Accepted at least in some fields Intrusions international sovereignty that i think they wouldn't previously have accepted One example there i think is the ratification by so many african states of the rome statute Maybe they thought that this was part of being a responsible citizen of the international community In this period between 1990 and 2000 european states continued to take international law ever more seriously If you said something was in breach of international law and If that was not really arguable then that was an end of a discussion why that meant you didn't do it Within europe the gap between those in the lead and those a bit further behind narrowed In particular france at long last discovered international law But that's only since the late 1990s. I speak as a dual national so i'm allowed to criticize them I think this Increasing sensible lawness of international law went hand in hand with an ever greater reliance on multilateralism Not merely in the negotiation of treaties, but in how you set about addressing problems You didn't attempt simply to sort them out bilaterally And this new focus on multilateralism included russia The end of this decade between 1990 and 2000 Was marked by one negative development the intervention in kosovo It was generally seen as understandable Possibly morally right but as unlawful which is a weird combination Nevertheless whilst it could hardly be said that the rule of international law reigned triumphant bearing in mind the genocide in rwanda At the end of the 1990s International lawyers could look back on a more positive decade than any of them had known in their professional lifetimes Compliance and respect still still pose significant problems But a lot of progress had been made in taking law seriously as law Turning now to 2017 The first two shocks to the system were consequences of 9 11, but not actually 9 11 itself At first things carried on as normal The security council accepted that the usa had been the victim of an armed attack by non-state actors Enabling it to invoke the right of self defense in relation to afghanistan Note in relation to afghanistan The invasion of iraq was another matter In the view of the overwhelming majority of states And the overwhelming majority of international lawyers The invasion of iraq was an act of aggression and was unlawful It should be emphasized that the norm that was being violated the prohibition of aggression Was seen as particularly important I know that all law is law and all law is equal But in terms of criminal law by analogy It's as if you were talking about murder and not an assault to occasioning actual bodily harm You're in that you're in the murder category The prohibition of aggression and the need to take that seriously was a prerequisite for any sense of the rule of law Now it was not that there had never been any violations of the prohibition of aggression since 1945 But the point was this was occurring after the magic decade This was occurring after the end of the cold war This was occurring after a decade in which international law Seemed to be beginning to be taken seriously as law and I think one can Argue that it may have had an impact on other states. I don't think you can prove it I wonder whether Russia would have annexed Crimea and wandered into eastern Ukraine But for that Would China have rejected the finding of an arbitral tribunal with regard to artificial islands in the south china seas It's impossible to say what they would have done if those things had occurred in the late 1990s But I think one can at the very least raise a question as to whether it's had a knock-on effect The violation of the rules on the resort to force was followed by the us response to human rights concerns It's not just that torture happened because torture actually happens arguably in the majority of states globally But the shock to the system was the us response It tried to define torture out of existence Waterboarding is just fine. It's what you do on a nice day out with the kids They wanted to redefine it out of existence so they could claim it was not happening the us Brought in others to share their guilt They put pressure on various states including states bound by the european convention on human rights Either to do their torturing for them Or to allow the operation of us run places secret places of detention Torture and enforced disappearances involve non-derigable human rights obligations And are amongst the most serious human rights violations that can occur Now this change in the legal climate the change in the Relative ease with which you can get agreements the change in the status of international law was also found in other areas I'm not suggesting this was all a product of The reaction to 9 11. I think there were other elements But the doha round of negotiations of the world trade organization That was unsuccessful When states trying to do for biological weapons what they've done for chemical weapons just a decade earlier That was unsuccessful Now to be fair That's not just the result of changes in the legal climate The nature of biological weapons means it's extremely difficult to come up with a practical way of Implementing rules that you can rely on so there were other elements, but it's striking that it was unsuccessful So it looks as though since 2001 There has been a very significant change To the status of international law to the seriousness with which international law is viewed But It would be Wrong to present a totally black picture There is one agreement that has been concluded that is really innovative innovative And actually most commentators were surprised that it was possible to reach consensus I am of course speaking of the paris agreement on climate change It's innovative in a range of ways, but one of the most important is the idea of common but differentiated responsibilities Now that was first found in the Kyoto agreement, but it's not the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a treaty You assume you're all taking the same obligation to recognize That for a range of reasons states need to have Shared but different responsibilities is really a significant step The paris agreement was a high point in effective multilateralism And it occurred in this black decade Since then and lastly in this historical survey, there is the rhetoric of president trump It's too early to determine what he's actually going to do In some areas his actions to date, but of course, this is only a couple of months Have been more cautious than the statements he made during the campaign He's declared himself to be in favor of torture even though his most senior military advisor says it doesn't work He said he favors developing the coal industry and wants to abandon the paris agreement He hasn't done it yet, but the people he's put in environmental positions in the us make one concerned Rather than president reagan's approach of speaking softly whilst carrying a big stick President trump seems to want to screen What we don't know is whether he's threatening a big stick or not So whilst we can't say what he's going to do In nothing that he's said or done so far has he shown any awareness of the existence or importance of international law Or even us constitutional law for that matter He seems unused to the concept of law as a constraining element as opposed to law as something to be got round So what's going to be the effect of this on the strong European sense that are developed from 45 through 2000 That international law was important In fact, I think it's other developments that seem to be making inroads into this European consensus The economic crisis which started in 1998 has led to the cutting of budgets and austerity with all sorts of knock-on implications in western european states And that's focused a lot of attention on those making claims on welfare budgets The refugee and migrant crisis has been handled with a near total disregard for the distinction between refugees and migrants And the non-respect of obligations owned to refugees The rise of populist and nationalist politicians in europe seems to pose a challenge to consensus-based Compromise-based multilateralism and to the respect of international legal obligations however inconvenient there might be The focus now is on national not communal interests on sovereignty not consensus On transactionalism not consensus-based multilateralism That suggests some form of change going on in the attitude to international law So what's my conclusion is international law in crisis? I think the first point to note is that To an extent international lawyers may be reacting at the moment to the fact that there's been a check On what had been a long period of forward momentum That immediately prior to the check you'd had the best decade ever for international law So there's a bigger contrast for them and it may be in part that that's what they're reacting to the amount of difference between the 1990s and the era after 2001 rather than simply the What there is post-2001 The second point is even if you're looking at the time since 2001 We must remember that there are Still some positive elements there were exceptions to generalizations that this were in a period of crisis I think the paris agreement is one such exception And we also need to remember that any check to the progress of international law has most definitely not taken us back to 1945 We are not back at square one The institutions that have been created still exist The norms are still there So even if there's a reduced experience of respect of at least some of the norms We can still say you're violating a norm Which you couldn't say until the norm was elaborated So there's a danger that we're going to overreact When there are some gains that are still in existence On the other hand when the direction of travel has all been one way You end up expecting to carry on in that direction You don't expect to move backwards. There was no period between 45 and 2001 There'd been different speeds of progress, but at no point had one gone backwards So it's not altogether a surprise that people react with shock Another thing we need to consider is that the world In which we have this new approach to international law is a different world from the world in 1945 It's To use the Almost a euphemism. It's a global village We've got dramatic expansion in trade Dramatic expansion in transfers of capital a transformation in the speed of communication All those things Make a multilateral rule respecting environment more and more necessary It therefore makes the impact of any going back in the status of international law all the more serious It might have mattered less in the world as it was in 1945 It's going to matter more in the world as it is now because we have a greater need For international law to play its proper role as law So where does this leave us? If there's a shift from multilateralism to bilateralism, that's likely to be of long-term significance If members of the western group in un terms, that's to say western europe, the us and canada Regarding international law as simply one of the things that need to be taken into account when deciding on national policy As opposed to a decisive element then that would be of long-term significance Whilst there are tendencies among some of the nationalist populist movements in europe in that direction. I don't think where they're yet European states and canada still seem to treat international law more seriously than that There has been a change And it's been a negative one But it's too early to call it a crisis There is a real danger that we will talk ourselves into the very thing that we want to avoid But having said that we can't afford to be polyannourish. We can't assume that everything is wonderful What is necessary is that in this situation we fight to maintain what we've got to prevent further slippage So I don't think there is a crisis I think there have been negative developments and it's important to stop them going further back But don't let's talk ourselves into a situation. We wouldn't know how to deal with thank you So everybody there are two microphones. I'm not sure if they're being handled. They are good Just one gosh, you're gonna be working hard So questions to our speaker Just behind you with the microphone. Good evening. And thanks for the presentation Two questions were rapidly First you mentioned about iraq as an act of aggression I was surprised that your dual nationality doesn't recognize that one country tried to prevent it from happening The same one I wasn't recognizing the international laws At a late stage. What happened then afterwards? So you recognize it was an act of aggression. What are the consequences? That would be my first questions Second is was Libya also an act of aggression? And the third question is just to group them. I'm very glad you mentioned about international law of the seas Who is responsible for governing it and Who is an acting for example if a state decide to build islands as you mentioned earlier into the international seas or if A private venture decide to drill in the Arctic for example Who is responsible then for enforcing these international laws or at least You know giving an agreement to go ahead with drilling for instance. Thank you. Thank you Do you want me to do each question as it goes? I think would that's about Take this as a bundle First of all the consequences of the act of aggression This is one of the areas where international law is not like domestic law, but it doesn't mean there aren't any consequences Straight away. You thought well, we can't trust the americans and the Brits In other words, it was seen as a dramatic departure from the expectation people would have had I think Then I was arguing that it meant that other states thought well I might otherwise have thought I couldn't do this because it's unlawful But if they can get away with it, maybe I can and one of the changes with the end of the cold war Was that the security council behaved a bit more responsibly Generally speaking if you've got a friend with a veto power in the security council, everything's hunky dory The problem for salam Hussein is he didn't have a p5 power in his pocket The certain states have had the benefit of that since 1945 So it's not just the p5 themselves. It's their friends who get the benefit Well, we'll have the sense between 1990 and 2000 that whilst if you really went against an ally Of one of the p5 then you'd be in trouble But that they were there was discussion for example that happened over Kosovo The reason I think that there was no attempt to get a security council resolution Is that states have learned what I learned aged about two that it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission They knew they couldn't ask a security council because russia would say look I mean we're supposed to be friends of the Serbs who are willing to turn a blind eye to it But don't actually ask us to say it's lawful Whereas what happened over iraq was so flagrant That this was a complete shock to the system So I think there have been consequences and we're still seeing them and it's the consequences are The suspicion with which any it's now assumed that when the uk and the united states claim Start using legal arguments that is actually all political Was libya an act of aggression? No, but there was a pause a you've noticed they intervening states Got the authorization of the security council resolution The problem was a different one It was that the way in which they chose to interpret it as it evolved over time Was more expansive Than some of the states who voted for that authorization had envisaged That is not the same as an act of aggression But it has meant that since then you can say goodbye to responsibility to protect in any resolution looking like that Russia and china will not You know, they don't they're not going to trust anybody with that kind of power On the case in the case of onclos onclos is It's not sufficiently known and that's really bizarre in a nation that used to have a maritime heritage You'd have thought we'd know about law of the sea. It's got a full-time permanent tribunal sitting in hamburg And actually there's a bright on it. So you thought we might know it because of that So on for many issues The onclos tribunal can actually deal with matters The icj is trusted with boundary disputes because that's one of the few things that states are willing to ask the icj about And that includes maritime boundaries But it was interesting that two recent Disputes for want of a better word that involve maritime questions have gone to arbitration and not the onclos tribunal I have in mind there the um reaction of the maritions to the declaration of a bad faith Fishing zone around Diego Garcia, which was used as a pretext for keeping out the chagos islanders And also china over the artificial islands In the the case of maritius another reason why they had to find something peculiar They could use was they couldn't go to the icj Because the uk what we modified our 36 to acceptance of icj to say if you are a commonwealth state you are required to exhaust other remedies first And that was put there because they feared that maritius might do something with regard to the chagos islands um It's striking. I don't quite understand why china if they agreed to the arbitration should then simply reject it um Whether it's because the arbitration took quite a long period of time and so there's been a change in their attitude between them Whether they assumed they'd win. I don't think the chinese are Naive like that. So i'm a bit I'm puzzled at that but what's striking Is the frequency with which States with maritime disputes will take them to some judicial or quasi judicial form of dispute settlement And most of that we we don't read about in the press So thank you for raising the issue of encloss Thank you questions In the middle If the two of you could make short questions I know you're beside each other Oh, mine is a very short question In view of what is it 300 000 dead in syria and how many refugees they're numbered in millions. I think Um, I can't see how You can fudge the answer to the question posed by your title Implementation of international law is in crisis. It didn't solve this ghastly problem And I I mentioned ukraine as well. I mean it's not quite as bad, but syria is appalling Surely a crisis This is about Sri Lanka This is This is an intrastate conflict This has been going on from the time of independence in 1948 till today This UNHR session there is going to be a resolution on Sri Lanka That is by the uk, you know The oppressed people have no representation at the u.m for 70 years There is no voice for them What can we do? What can the oppressed people do without a voice at the u.m Okay, thank you. Should we take those two? Oh, sorry, the third one. Yeah, okay. Mine is a short question. I just want to know how old is the world How old is the world? Which walls the world the walls Are ld how old the world we live in how old is the world? I'd like to I'll start with that last one in relation to international law Because I think for you know, we only began to get international law in the 23rd hour 59th minute In that sense international law is a bit like domestic law at say the time of Henry II If you're looking at where the equivalent is It's somewhere in the is definitely the medieval period whether it's Henry II or a bit later. I don't know so It's unreasonable to have expectations of international law that you'd have at the domestic level At least in those states that have got an effective rule of law many states don't even have that at the domestic level When you're looking at whether international law is in crisis You can't simply say is it ever violated because in that case you'd say Let's scrap international law because it doesn't work because there's always violations going on In newspapers you don't read of the number of people who haven't been murdered You read of those where who have been murdered in other words violations There is no coverage of those areas of international law that routinely day in day out are respected in a quiet kind of way So I think the view we have of violations of international law is a distorted one Having said that and as an expert in the law of arm conflict I am particularly conscious of violations in the law of arm conflict and in that regard Mankind because this isn't so much states its individuals has gone backwards since 1945 Let me give you a striking example that comes from a lecture. I attended about 20 years ago in Bickel and British Institute of international comparative law A British military medic showed a photograph on the screen It was a road heading into the distance on the left There were some of those terribly erect continental trees poplars I imagine And on the right there was the edge of a building a brick building It was a photograph of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Arnhem Control over that stretch of road changed three times in 10 days in 1944 And at no time was the activity of that hospital interfered with at all The forces controlling it changed It changed from German to British to German But it functioned as a hospital treating patients irrespective of nationality Now in 2017 we see organized arm groups using hospitals Using the roof of hospitals to mount anti-aircraft guns Using facilities in hospitals to actually store weapons and states do this as well And you get all parties targeting hospitals That is a movement back not merely by states But by people like you and me The people who find themselves in a conflict area and don't say there's a bottom line And it's something that particularly bothers the international committee of the Red Cross They're concerned about the whole wide issue of the diminishing respect For intentional targets on civilians You deliberately starve civilian population even though that's a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions In that area the conduct of people in war Is definitely going backwards and has been going backwards for at least 30 to 40 years although it speeded up quite a bit in the past 20 years And it's not just states that are responsible for a time It was mainly non-state actors but now they're joining in So I don't think you can say that international law across the board Is necessarily failing because it fails in some places In particular where you are dealing with a state that has a friend who's a P5 in the Security Council That means the Security Council is incapable of dealing with the situation And whilst Russia wasn't prepared to go to war over Kosovo They've made it clear they are not going to accept any resolutions in the Security Council So the most effective tool, the one with most clout, is disabled It hasn't been helped by the European reaction which has I mean The US was completely inept in how they handled the issue But Europe wasn't any better for a very specific reason We panicked about refugees And for that reason the only prism through which the conflict in Syria is seen is refugee flows And that means for example because so many of them come via Turkey That we then turn a blind eye to human rights developments in Turkey Because we want Turkey to keep hold of the Syrians So I think when you're looking at this international law and crisis You've got to look at something other than simply a list of violations I think the kind of violations matter But when you're talking about ongoing situations of conflict That are seen as involving really important state security issues Then if the Security Council can't act it's going to be very difficult to deal with But what matters more is looking at the attitude to law that's being manifested And there in the Syrian conflict but it's not unique in this We have seen a degree of violation of the rules on all sides Including the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons Which had been assumed until Saddam Hussein It had been thought that that was a prohibition that worked So we have seen particularly serious violations there In relation to Sri Lanka I can imagine a different world A world in which there were three UN bodies Something like the Security Council A General Assembly for all states and then an Assembly of Nations But there is no way that we are going to be able Significantly to change the UN machinery The problem is Turkey's don't vote for Christmas So the reason why we can't get changed in the composition The Security Council is because that has implications for the veto power And none of the existing veto powers particularly the UK and France Want to open that question So you're in a situation I mean the only time you change these Omni-competent intergovernmental organizations is after world war And I would rather keep the UN than have a world war But it means it's extremely difficult to get significant changes And bearing in mind the changes in the world in which the UN is operating I think it is institutionally not fit for purpose So we've got to do the best we can with it But personally I think if there had been a forum for nations as well as states I would have welcomed it Okay if some questions right at the back there Take the couple first to you and then the gentleman behind you This is regarding refugees I've spent kind of like the last two years going to Calais and Dunkerque And actually the only I mean I've witnessed them being tear gassed and shy out with Robert Billetts but you know the only the only way I see this country is actually taking its Responsibility for refugee law introduced in 1946 is by actually article 50 And they're not being a border in France anymore So I mean that I find just being in that situation says that it's not only in crisis It's verging or non-existent really as far as our government seem to be you know Using using it to create legislation Okay and the gentleman in front of you While mentioning the golden period of international law you said that the non-European states Accepted it because European states were subjecting themselves to the international law But now with the populist rise in Europe and election of Donald Trump you have complete disregard Of international law for example during the campaign Donald Trump went as far as to say that For terror to curb terrorism you have to take their families out or Torture for that matter and we see that uprising happening against the international Criminal court where countries like Gambia Burundi and South Africa are trying to remove Themselves from the ICC so don't you think this is indeed a step back in international law Whereas they are taking a cue from the european and western states that they are not respecting International law we'll take one more from okay right down the front on the Thank you. Thank you for your talk. Given what you've said regarding the state of the world And the p5 in particular where the veto power is being used for their own benefit Rather than international justice And also the fact that a lot of countries are disregarding international law and going their own way How How close do you think the world is to a world war? Given the fact that there's so many different conflicts going on that can very easily escalate And the fact that the p5 is basically toothless And it was created for that very specific purpose to prevent another world war How likely do you think a world war is Not sure ruth stein cross go would have approved of that one. Um first the issue of refugees part of the problem there is that European states Treated the refugee convention as part of the european ackee When they weren't having to deal with too many refugees because it was so difficult for people actually to reach And it means that when they are confronted with significant numbers, and I'm not including here migrant workers I'm talking refugees And also those who under EU law might be given exceptional leave to remain because they're fleeing a conflict zone So I will include those but I'm not talking about economic migrants the UK because it's an island is In a position in which it can Make itself inaccessible And it has chosen to do so That makes it extremely difficult to challenge legally what it's doing If you've got people who make it to the uk and then they attempt to expel them Then it might be possible if you could get a very self sacrificing law firm that was prepared to disregard things like legal fees You might be able to challenge it under the human rights act, but the problem is if they can't get here In many cases, it's really difficult to find a way of challenging the british position as a matter of fact in relation to EU law the Assumption is that you are supposed to seek asylum in the first european state that you reach so one wonders What on earth these people are doing in france? Because they've come from somewhere else anyway Um, they don't have a right recognized in law to say where they feel safe The right that they have in international law is to seek not necessarily to get to seek asylum And the state that is being asked to give them asylum Is not allowed to send them to a place where their lives would be in danger But not where they would feel unsafe, but where objectively their lives would be in danger I think I think you've made a point. Please listen to the answer. So I think in Part that the problem is the uk is in Even worse violation of the obligations to refugees than other states But I would like here to put in a plug for a group that aren't sufficiently applauded ordinary greeks who in a situation of Extraordinary difficulty domestically have opened their hearts and their homes to incredible numbers. They they accept Really significant risks to actually go out in heavy seas to bring them in And I think more needs to be made of that they at an individual level rather than a state level Really should be getting a pat on the back by europeans. So I it is a huge problem area I don't think on its own. It's a sign that international law is useless It's that international law is not being sufficiently used and there are some cases that could be brought that aren't Being brought in sufficient numbers those who've already got members of their families here The the families who are here should be bringing legal cases on the issue of The question of whether how states have changed third states have seen the change in europe I think that's in I mean it my experience was in the late 1990s States like India Mexico You were able to negotiate with them. It didn't mean they agreed with you But when you were raising a human rights argument, they actually listened. This was progress. They engaged They assumed you were talking law and they would argue law with you Not simply assuming it was a political ploy Now with the changes that have happened Particularly the fact that it was those western states that were violating Particularly serious prohibitions. I think it has made a very big difference in that they now assume that actually Even if at the time western states meant it once push comes to shove once the chips are down Then like everybody else, they're going to treat it like politics. So it's gone Back a step to seeing all these legal arguments as politics in another guise but There is one bit of possible good news The reaction of china to the rubbish that trump was spouting on the paris agreement was in that case, we'll take the lead Because people had thought that there was a real risk the whole agreement would collapse if the us pulled out China because for internal domestic reasons not least their dramatic pollution problem They want to address some of the issues that are relevant to climate change And if they do take it upon themselves to take the lead then that is going to make at least some of trump's advisors If not trump himself think So we've got to wait and see Whether other states are willing to pick up certain battens it won't be across the board It won't be china suddenly saying international law is the greatest things in sliced bread But in certain areas you may get some initiatives like that. Are we heading towards um a new world war I think the first thing we've got to be very cautious about is the element I raised at the end We've got to be really careful. We don't talk ourselves into the precisely the thing that we are objecting to there are A range of concerns And they include the fact that in some areas we don't have the tools of international law that we need to address the problem NATO keeps talking about Something that I think is a political science term, but I wish they wouldn't use it in the presence of lawyers They speak about hybrid warfare to cover a situation that is by definition not war Well, I do have a bit of a difficulty with that as a lawyer They're talking about the situation where one state exploits the situation in an adjacent usually smaller state They may exploit alleged or actual grievances of a minority population that share their ethnicity They hollow out That state So that they can Bring about a situation in which then perhaps they're going to support their compatriots or they might not even need to go to war now There the problem is that in relation to the prohibition on the use or threat of force What's a what they're engaging in isn't actually at this stage force We don't have the tools in international law, but this is a much earlier stage than war So stop calling it hybrid war. I think we do need to look at the tools available that enable us to identify Activities by states which are not merely Unfriendly but which have carry with them an eventual risk of something very much worse But one of the difficulties in that area is something that's going to happen more and more often in international law It's the problem of attribution Knowing who's doing it Because just because someone is in the territory of state a doesn't mean that state a is implicated Now that's clearly true with anything involving cyber But I think it more widely it's going to be regarded. It's going to become a problem If you've got organized armed groups knowing in what circumstances they're actually under the control of the state And when they're not is going to affect what you can do about them So I think we haven't adapted the tools of international law Sufficiently to the chained world in which they're operating particularly with regard to communications But not just communications I would hope I mean generally speaking It seems to me that the history of Russian and Soviet leadership is they're not idiots I wouldn't have had that confidence in Gaddafi and I don't have that confidence in North Korea but Whilst you may end up with a mess that could have been prevented. I don't think they are seeking it I think the west could not have handled worse the security implications since 1990 Of the end of the Warsaw Pact you needed to overhaul the role of NATO It needed to become a security organization Of pan-European reach in other words, it needed to be able to absorb within it Russia And that would have meant to change in the nature of its activities Russia has always felt threatened and it is not alone in this if adjacent states Are not under its control If you'd suffered invasion as often as russia had suffered invasion It's where the brits need a bit of humility about those countries that have been invaded It does me and am being occupied. It makes the difference to how they see the world Leaving aside issues of zones of influence I think it was we could possibly have got away with admitting poland and possibly for historic reasons the Baltic states But some of the expansion of NATO has been really in your face as far as the russians are concerned So it's not a surprise that they are reacting in the way in which they're reacting And we're going to have to be careful because they are running the risk of very significant economic crises because of the decline in the price of oil And everybody knows that if you've got a significant crisis at home, the best thing is a nice little bit of foreign war So one's got to be careful, but I don't think the russians are the key problem I think north korea looks as if it's even Less under control than it used to be unless china pulls its finger out I think china is in a position to prevent that going All the way but I would not like to be living in south korea or even japan at the moment right So before the war we must make sure we have a drink Even during the war But before then i'm asking amanda pinto chairman of the international committee of the bar council to give the vote of thanks Thank you very much. Thank you It's it's a huge honor for us for the bar council of england and wales to be associated with this Event which we are thrilled to be involved with and have been for many years and to support the una westminster As you may know the bar councils international committee has a number of different functions one of them Is to promote the bar and english law slightly more worried about that latter thing after this evening, but Secondly to work with lawyers and law associations internationally to Join together What's important and and thirdly to promote and support the rule of law internationally And this sort of event is such a great opportunity for us to engage in those things Well this evening Professor hampson has given us war crimes against humanity human rights abuses torture chemical weapons climate change the law of the sea uh a positive for john l trump because he's not as bad as Yet yet as south career and indeed henry the second all in 70 years It's such an impressive feat What i have found so interesting um and want to thank you for is the knock-on effect of violations by which the actions of one state Enables or changes the paradigm in which other states Then act and you've been looking at it rather sadly mainly negatively But i'm hopeful that that there's also a positive cycle that we've that you've identified in the past and that may Hopefully be available again in the future Um, it's so bring to note that our own country acts so poorly at the moment in in international law terms But what a fascinating evening dan. Thank you so much for hosting it david. Thank you so much for your Enthusiasm and support and professor hampson. Thank you for your talk and your generosity and answering What was frankly the most fascinating global range of questions? Thank you very much