The right to life stands at the heart of human rights protection. Individuals cannot enjoy any of the rights guaranteed to them unless their physical existence is ensured. All human rights instrument list the right to life as the first one of their safeguards. Nonetheless, in many situations human life finds itself under structural threat. Although obligated by law to protect the right to life, State authorities time and again engage in deliberate acts of killing. Fortunately, international review bodies have devised many imaginative counter-strategies. Another one of those structural threats is global warming. Obviously, armed conflict puts human life inevitably at risk; the limits of the ‘license to kill’ given by the laws of war must be scrupulously observed.
By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, this volume provides a multidimensional overview of human rights. After examining briefly the history of human rights, the author analyses the intellectual framework that forms the basis of their legitimacy.
Textbooks on international law, dicta of the International Court of Justice and the International Law Commission's 'Guiding Principles applicable to unilateral declarations of states capable of creating legal obligations' of 2006, all reflect the fact that in international law a state's unilateral declaration can create a legally binding obligation. Unilateral declarations are common, as a look at the weekly headlines of any major newspaper will reveal. Many of the declarations made at the highest level are, of course, vaguely expressed and carry no tangible legal commitment. But others deliver a very clear message: for instance the US's April 2010 declaration on its future use of nuclear weapons or Kosovo's declaration of independence and pledge to follow the Ahtisaari Plan, are two recent and prominent examples of unilateral declarations at the international level. The same sources, however, also reveal that while state promises are accepted as a means for states to create full blown legal commitments, the law governing such declarations is far from clear. This monograph fills a gap in international legal scholarship by raising and answering the question of the precise legal value of such pledges in the realm of public international law. After a brief introduction state promises in international law are defined and contrasted with other unilateral acts of states, and the history of promises in state practice and court decisions is delineated, together with scholarly opinion. The book then provides a detailed picture of the international legal framework governing promises of states, and ends with a brief assessment of the raison d'être for promises as a binding mechanism in international law, along with their advantages and disadvantages in comparison with the classical mechanism for assuming international obligations - the international treaty. This is currently the only book to present a comprehensive overview of the legal effect of promises by states in international law.
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