Lauterpacht Centre for International Law

This lecture is a hybrid event. There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome. Register here if attending online Lecture summary: Grand corruption – the abuse of public office for private gain by a nation's leaders (kleptocrats) - has devastating consequences. As then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, the amount lost to corruption each year is enough to feed the world's hungry 80 times over. Grand corruption contributes to climate change and is a major impediment to ameliorating it. The refugees creating humanitarian and political crises around the world are largely fleeing failed states ruled by kleptocrats. Grand corruption is antithetical to democracy. Indignation at grand corruption has prompted uprisings in many countries and created grave dangers for international peace and security. Grand corruption does not thrive and endure in many countries because of a lack of laws. 186 UN member states are parties to the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Virtually all of them have the laws required by the UNCAC criminalizing corrupt conduct, and international obligations to enforce them against their corrupt leaders. However, kleptocrats have impunity in the countries they rule because they control the police, the prosecutors, and the courts. Therefore, the proposed International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC) is urgently needed. It will be a court of last resort, to prosecute kleptocrats and their private conspirators, for violating treaty counterparts of the laws of countries that are unwilling or unable to do so themselves. Successful prosecutions, and civil suits, in the IACC will result in the recovery and repatriation of stolen assets. The imprisonment of kleptocrats, who are among the worst abusers of human rights, will create opportunities for the democratic process to replace them with leaders dedicated to serving their citizens rather than enriching themselves. It will also deter others tempted to emulate their example. The effort to establish the IACC is rapidly progressing. It has been publicly endorsed by: more than 350 world leaders, including 55 former Presidents and Prime Ministers; the European Parliament; the Netherlands, Canada, Ecuador, Nigeria, Moldova, and the UK Labour Party before it recently took office. Many other countries have privately expressed support for the IACC or strong interest in seriously considering the treaty being drafted to establish it that will be ready to be reviewed in early 2025. Mark L. Wolf, the Chair of Integrity Initiatives International, is a Senior United States District Judge and the former Chief Judge of the District of Massachusetts.

This lecture is a hybrid event. There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome. Register here if attending online Lecture summary: Part 1 of the Lecture focuses on the development of the right to self-determination as a rule of customary international law and its application to the Chagos Archipelago, Africa and the Commonwealth Caribbean. The adoption of Resolution 1514 by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 14, 1960 was a decisive element in the development of the customary character of the right to self-determination. After that transformational development it was colonial peoples, not colonial powers, who determined their independence and its form e.g. whether based on a republican system or a UK parliamentary system. Thus, after that time the colonial powers were under an obligation to respect the right of colonial peoples to ‘freely determine their political status’, and any breach of that obligation would entail their international responsibility. Part 11 addresses the status of the right to self-determination as a norm of jus cogens, and concludes that on the basis of the relevant evidentiary material, the right to self-determination is a peremptory norm of general international law. Part 111 focuses on the right to self-determination in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Disappointment is expressed at the lack of clarity in the ICJ’s treatment in its recent Advisory Opinion of the jus cogens character of the right to self-determination in cases of foreign occupation. Speaker: Judge Patrick Robinson

Lecture summary: In this talk Sharifah Sekalala examines this critical moment in the making of Global Health Law, with two treaty making processes: the newly finalised revisions of the International Health Regulations and ongoing negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiation Body for a possible pandemic Accord or Instrument, as we well as soft-law proposals for the World Health Organization proposal for a medical countermeasures platform. The lecture will illustrate that despite the laudable objectives of creating a new system of international law that attempts to redress previous inequalities in accessing vaccines and countermeasures, they are unlikely to meet these broader objectives. The lecture will argue that this is because, despite being a public good, Global Health Law has always been underpinned by capitalist and post-colonial rationales which privilege trade. In order to make lasting changes, the current system of Global Health Law must focus on broader questions of ‘reparations’ that will achieve greater equity. Sharifah is a Professor of Global Health Law at the University of Warwick and the Director of the Warwick Global Health Centre. This lecture is a hybrid event. There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome.

in partnership with the LUISS Centre of International and Strategic Studies, Amsterdam Centre for International Law The dockets of international courts and tribunals are remarkably busy with cases concerning some of the most politicised and divisive international crises. From traditional disputes about territorial and/or maritime delimitation, immunities or diplomatic law, to allegations of international crimes in Ukraine, Gaza, Darfur, Syria and Myanmar, to the civilisational threat of climate change, the disputes brought to international adjudication differ greatly in nature and scale. While adjudication is actively sought, it is sometimes also fundamentally contested in its very principle, as illustrated by the international tensions arising from the activity of the International Criminal Court. What is noteworthy is the increasing resort to formal judicial processes, rather than less formal or more political options, even in those cases where the political situation makes the implementation of a judicial decision highly unlikely. Underlying this increasing resort is an effort to secure an outcome which gives legal legitimacy to a certain political position. At a time where the rule of law seems challenged in its core, the active resort to international adjudication thus suggests a much more nuanced engagement with international law. The 2nd LCIL Conference on International Dispute Settlement will seek to flesh out these nuances, with particular attention to the practice of international law. Conference attendance is free of charge but subject to prior registration.