By Maarten den Heijer
Anyone who regularly follows the activities of the Council of Europe will sooner or later stumble upon the name of Dick Marty. Dick Marty is a Swiss representative in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe who is one of Europe’s frontrunners in the fight against counterterrorism strategies which compromise human rights. Although not all his reports and statements remain unchallenged, he always manages to touch the sore spot. Continue reading
By Maarten den Heijer
Last week, the ICJ launched its new website, which now features the Court’s entire jurisprudence since 1946, as well as that of its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice.
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By Otto Spijkers
Around this time (end of April) is the launch of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) at the United Nations. Such an assembly, if established, would be the first parliamentary body directly representing the world’s citizens in the United Nations. The campaigners, led by the Committee for a Democratic United Nations, write that the UNPA "is envisaged as first practical step towards the long-term goal of a world parliament." Some big names, including Václav Havel and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, have subscribed to this idea, and so has the European Parliament (see para. 39 of this document). Why is this new Assembly necessary?
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By Maarten den Heijer
Summer is on Europe’s doorstep and so is a new wave of migrants who will try to cross the Mediterranean and Atlantic in the coming months. Illegal immigration into Europe is in part a seasonal phenomenon. Due to increased border surveillance and border guard cooperation between Spain and Morocco, the traditional routes across the Strait of Gibraltar and to the Spanish enclaves in Morocco have now effectively been blocked. This has caused a diversion of migratory flows, through which migrants are increasingly forced to embark upon far longer and more perilous journeys.
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Maarten den Heijer
This is a response to Otto’s question whether the Security Council should label climate change a threat to international peace and security, allowing it to make use of its special powers under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. In discussing that post, Nick and Otto seemed to agree that the Security Council should stick to its traditional task of responding to imminent security crises and only deal with issues like AIDS and climate change when they directly and demonstrably spur a threat to international peace. I very much liked the idea however and I would, without hesitation, answer the question with a twofold yes. Yes, climate change is a threat to international peace and security. And yes, the Security Council should therefore label it such a threat.
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By Otto Spijkers
The United Nations Security Council has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security (Article 24/25 of the UN Charter). It can decide for itself what constitutes a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression (Article 39). Is climate change such a threat? Continue reading
By Otto Spijkers
Instead of talking about animal rights, as a response to the article of co-blogger Richard Norman, I would like to write about robot rights. Next week, a group of experts will come together in Rome to discuss Roboethics (for an overview of some of their ideas, see here). Here is a starter to the robot rights debate.
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By Maarten den Heijer
Thanks Otto, Richard, Nicholas and Jason, for inviting me to join the blog. I could not help noticing a slight geographical bias in earlier posts, so please allow me to turn our attention to Russia. Or rather, to Russia’s attempt to hijack the European Court of Human Rights, the widely praised guarantor of human rights in Europe. Continue reading
By Otto Spijkers
European nations are bound within by history, by language, by culture, sometimes by skin color. The idea of Europe is to lift above all of that, to abstract from all the qualities that caused hate and war. It is very similar to the American identity, whose achievement is to unify all the disparate parts: people with different backgrounds, ideas, races and religions.
By Otto Spijkers
On the 25th of March, 1957, only twelve years after the end of the Second World War, the Treaty of Rome was signed, the constitutive treaty of the European Economic Community. For videos, pictures etc. of the history of the European Community, click here. The European Community may initially have been established with the realist aim of ensuring better economic cooperation, mainly in order to prevent a Third World War. But it has slowly evolved into a community based not on common interests alone, but also on common values. A big question is whether Europe should promote these values world-wide, and act on them world-wide, or whether it should remain a somewhat exclusive club of rich and like-minded nations.
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