State responsibility is the doctrine that regulates international enforcement actions. Among international lawyers, there is a shared sense of mystery about State responsibility. While the doctrine clearly guarantees the enforceability of international law, its practice consistently languishes from a lack of international policemen. History is one lens through which to view this paradox. In this study, I describe the three most influential efforts to establish a legal standard for international enforcement actions: U.S. diplomatic practice, German legal theory and U.N. codification. In the late nineteenth century, lawyers in the U.S. State Department turned to international tribunals to redress alien injuries. These lawyers relied on international law to justify their legal intervention. Latin Americans, who were frequently the respondents of such claims, disputed the relevance of international law to its treatment of aliens; to them, alien protection was essentially a domestic affair. However, by the twentieth century, a U.S. practice of arbitration had established that States could be held responsible for breaching their international duties to protect aliens. The resulting awards were professional but haphazard. States were ordered to pay reparations for alien injuries, but why and how much they had to pay remained largely unarticulated. The first systematic treatment of State responsibility surfaced in late-nineteenth century Germany. These early writings were extrapolations from domestic principles of law rather than inductions of international awards. German lawyers viewed the U.S. practice of international arbitration as ad hoc settlements of private disputes rather than as the adjudication of public disputes. Thus, the German approach to State responsibility was not restricted to the field of alien protection in particular; it provide for the preconditions of international liability in general. When the U.N. undertook to codify the field, it chose to base its efforts on German theory rather than on the U.S. practice. This strategy divided State responsibility into general and specific parts. Generally, enforcement actions were subject to the U.N. doctrine. Exceptionally, a specific practice (e.g., alien protection) was permitted to continue as lex specialis. Contrary to many commentators, I see no crisis in this result. No singular doctrine has ever encapsulated the practice of international enforcement. Since the 1870s, international lawyers have employed State responsibility as a pliable concept to suit particular ends. By providing these perspectives, I hope to illustrate how three groups of lawyers practitioners, theorists and doctrinalists have been able to cope with the enduring mystery of State responsibility.

One of the most important cases in the jurisprudence of international law – Chorzów Factory – has a hidden secret, so much so that, even when in plain sight, legal post-mortems of the case fail to mention this well-kept secret. Chorzów Factory was about intellectual property rights, specifically patents and trade secrets, and this narrative has never been fully addressed. When the developments in international investment law and arbitration are fully considered it is worth looking back at Chorzów Factory to associate it with new streams of contemporary investor-state disputes that include issues such as intellectual property rights. Because Chorzów Factory has established the full reparation standard for unlawful expropriation, the standard has enabled a continuity of international law and underscores its importance for contemporary investment arbitration. However, the intellectual property narrative of Chorzów Factory has been neglected, and, in this article, I want to develop the intellectual property narrative of Chorzów Factory and to demonstrate the nexus between fair compensation, intellectual property rights and the continuity of international law.

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to analyse state-sponsored terrorism from the perspective of the doctrine of state responsibility. The aim of this work is to assess whether it is possible to hold a state responsible for the acts of non-state terrorist actors which originate from its territory. The term “state-sponsored terrorism” is used in this work to refer to situations where a state provides support to a terrorist organisation for the purpose of carrying out acts of international terrorism. State terrorism, which can be understood as terrorism practiced by states, falls outside the scope of this study. The methodology followed in this thesis is doctrinal research. As such, this thesis utilises international conventions, custom, academic literature and case law as sources. Particular attention is given to the International Law Commission’s 2001 Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts which are utilised to conceptualise international responsibility and highlight some of the shortcomings of the existing state responsibility rules in the context of state-sponsored terrorism. The starting point of this research has been the view expressed in academic literature that the rules of state responsibility are unable to respond to challenges posed by state-sponsored terrorism. Thus, this thesis also considers the customary obligation of states to refrain from activities that may cause harm to the territory of other states as an alternative to state responsibility. The use of terrorist organisations as proxies has become more attractive for states seeking to avoid the increasing costs of traditional warfare and the risk of nuclear war. States support terrorist groups to evade international responsibility and deny their role in terrorist activities. Attributing responsibility for terrorist acts is imperative if states are to prevent international terrorism. State sponsorship of terrorism therefore poses a significant challenge to the international community. This study finds that establishing responsibility for state sponsorship of international terrorist organisations is often difficult, if not impossible, because the evidence linking the wrongful act to the actions or omissions of the state is lacking. Even if an injured state can show that another state has provided some logistical support, financing or sanctuary to the terrorist organisation that committed a terrorist act this is not enough to hold the state sponsor responsible for the consequences of wrongful private conduct that it has helped bring about in many cases.

In this Master’s thesis, “International Courts: Challenges New and Old - A Deconstruction on the Work of International Courts”, the aim is to critically appraise some characteristics of international courts that seem to hinder their impact and be problematic to their legitimacy. It presupposes that these features are hidden by the conventional legend-building narratives on international courts. To deconstruct this framework in which they operate, the thesis focuses on three features it argues are connected: the type of justice international courts provide; the democratic legitimacy vacuum in which they operate and the effect of fragmentation and the proliferation of international courts. The inspirations for the thesis notably stem from the remarks that other institutions have raised in popularity in tackling issues of international justice, and from the observation that the issues faced by international courts have, to some extent, remained similar for over a century. The thesis also accepts as a starting point that legal theory on the international field lags behind reality and has struggled to provide a comprehensive theoretical framework under which international courts operate. In order to locate the questions to be asked and to provide an explanation of their need and perceived benefits, the thesis first lays out the historical context of the emergence of international courts on the international stage. This historical context is argued to be closely connected to the legend-building narratives on international courts. Next, in chapter three, inspired by the notion of micro and macro justice, the thesis then makes observations on the kind of justice international courts actually can and should aim for and the results they can achieve. It argues that international courts are limited in the type of justice they can provide, and thus unable to alone reach the goals they were created to fulfil. In chapter four, the thesis then notes that the democratic legitimacy of international courts has been considered questionable from their very appearance, an issue argued to be of relevance still today, not least to the glaring lack of a global demos. It is thus observed that due to the reality of the international field, international courts have had to take the role of a norm-creator. The thesis argues that none of the traditional counter-arguments to this problematic feature can be held satisfactory. Further, it is asserted that the absence of a legislative causes problems to international courts both as an interpreter and as a norm-creator. Finally, the thesis then moves on to a more recent development in chapter five, namely legal fragmentation and the proliferation of international courts. While these make the international legal field more complex, create overlapping systems and thus potential power struggles, it is argued that this phenomenon also further affects the issue of democratic legitimacy and the justice provided by international courts. This happens notably because they lessen the control of states on the newly established norms and institutions. Further, while fragmentation might aid international courts in focusing on micro justice, it complicates their norm-creating process. As a conclusion, the thesis summarises the problems it claims are caused by the framework in which international courts operate and how they differ from the legend-building narrative. Additionally, it restates a few possible modest paths of development to tackle each of the noted problems, although it is argued that to truly solve the encountered issues, the establishment of an international legislative would be required. Due to the research question and the multiplicity of issues treated, the methods used in the thesis are a combination of critical analysis with theoretical and historical approaches, with an end-goal to provide a critical legal study on the impact of international courts.

The weight of neoconservative ideology in world politics is generally identified and acknowledged. In spite of this more profound studies are found wanting. I attempt to make the ideology more understandable and approach it from a distinct point of view, examining neoconservatism's attitude to torture in the United States' 'Global War on Terror'. In so doing, my aim is also to clarify the thus far somewhat vague distinction between the current U.S. administration and neoconservatism in political and academic writing. I have utilized the theory of cognitive dissonance created by Leon Festinger to study the mechanisms in play concerning the different attitudes toward the use of torture. The theory has so far found very few applications in the study of international relations, but I believe there to be significant potential in its future use. On a more concrete level, I undertake to examine whether the core values of neoconservatism (human rights, liberal democracy, 'American values' and 'moral use of power') on the one hand, and condoning attitudes toward the use of torture on the other, give rise to an intolerable inner conflict that could be called cognitive dissonance. The use of torture is absolutely prohibited in international law, standards and norms. The most central internationally binding legal obligation prohibiting the use of torture is the Convention against Torture from 1984. The convention prohibits the use of torture in all cases and without exception. My study examines the question of torture in the context of the 'War on Terror' and the relation of torture to the individual. The individual rises in fact to be one of the most salient levels of analysis in the paper: each of neoconservatism's core values can be said to be based on defending the rights of the individual while torture can simultaneously be defined as being the ultimate denial of the individual worth and dignity. I conclude my study by asserting that neoconservatism's attitude toward torture has led to severe conflicts with its own core values. Although accurate definitions of the mechanisms used in alleviating the dissonance are impossible to find, the study gives evidence indicating that denial of responsibility and a rearranging of the hierarchy of internal values can have been included in the reduction of dissonance. I consider the notion that attempts to reduce dissonance typically 'spill over' to other seemingly unattached areas of decision-making very important. This means that in addition to core values or the fundamental level of ideology, past decisions also influence future decisions.

This contribution addresses the role of national yearbooks of international law in the formation and maintenance of national academic communities (“imagined communities”, if you will), and their potential role in the education of aspiring international lawyers. It takes personal reflections as its starting point, and eventually suggests that such yearbooks are well worth cherishing—they fill a void in the academic industrial process, a void left by the predominance attached to research monographs and journal articles.

The objective of this dissertation is to contribute to our understanding of global governance, using the concepts of hard law and soft law to analyze international agreements that are developed as tools of global governance. They can be placed on a continuum from ideal hard law treaties to the vaguest and voluntary soft law. This dissertation presents an analytical framework for comparing legal arrangements on different positions along the continuum. The framework focuses on two overarching evaluative criteria; effectiveness and legitimacy. Both are further divided into sub-components that can be evaluated contextually. To complement the general theoretical discussion, the dissertation includes three focused empirical case studies on the relationships between hard law and soft law in global climate governance. In order to gain further understanding of international agreements, the thesis makes three central and overarching claims. I argue that the legalization continuum offers an academically solid and policy-relevant approach to international agreements, contrary to some other suggested categorizations. I also call for both a comprehensive and practice-oriented analytical approach for further research into whether and how the characteristics of law in global governance matter. Comprehensiveness means that the analysis should take into account both rationalist and constructivist insights, keeping in mind that the key evaluative criteria, effectiveness and legitimacy, are deeply intertwined. The related claim of practice-orientation is that in order to have relevance, this analysis must be firmly embedded in the political context, most notably North-South politics. Applying the comprehensive and practice-oriented research approach, the dissertation presents three empirical case studies. First, the study elaborates how the soft-hard law dynamics are crucially important in the domestic/foreign policy interface of major developing countries, through a case study of Indian climate politics. Second, the results indicate that non-UN soft law being used to exert influence on the negotiations within the UN context. Lastly, the thesis argues that while the developing country interests are both converging and diverging, the increasingly conflicting interests, as well as the very slowly eroding common identity, are leading to increased challenges to South unity.

The alarming state of the environment has led to a sobering realisation by the global community of the need to act promptly for environmental protection. International environmental law is a fairly new field of law addressing the challenges that the global environment faces in an ever-increasing extent. The current study focuses on questions related to the application of state responsibility in the context of international environmental law, and difficulties involved in this respect. Additionally, the thesis will examine inherent ambiguities of international environmental law in respect of the preventive approach to environmental harm. The traditional response of international law to transboundary damage in general has been to impose responsibility on a state that has caused the damage. Accordingly, the state in question has been required to desist from the harmful conduct and to provide accurate reparation to the injured state for the damage that has been caused. In other words, the sovereign rights of states have been diminished for the benefit of the environment and issues regarding environmental harm have been addressed with a focus on reparation. The state responsibility regime is quite well established in international law and customary rules have been codified to provide a clear framework of preconditions in order for state responsibility to be invoked. The compatibility of the state responsibility regime with matters related to the environment can, however, be questioned. This is because state responsibility rests on a reparative approach in regard to harm caused to neighbouring states. The nature of irreversible and irreparable environmental harm, however, is such that requires prior attention rather than counting on a reactive approach to harm that has occurred. The challenges faced by state responsibility in the context of international environmental law include, for instance, difficulties in identifying the source of environmental harm, the establishment of a causal link between a suspected harmful activity and damage as well as the attribution of such harmful conduct to a state. The difficulties mentioned above have not gone unnoticed by the international community which has realised that the reparative no-harm rationale behind state responsibility is ill-adapted to address environmental concerns. The core objective of the rules of international law governing the environment is the prevention of environmental harm rather than just providing a state that suffers environmental damage an opportunity to seek reparation. Hence, a paradigm shift from a reparatory approach to a preventive approach has occurred. Essentially, the principle of prevention, which has become a foundational principle in the field of international environmental law, entails a duty for states to prevent, reduce or control significant transboundary environmental harm resulting from activities within their jurisdiction or control. However, while preventive action is preferable in regards of environmental protection, the regime of preventive measures is not without its ambiguities. Unclarities can be discovered, for instance, in the objective of the obligation to prevent harm as well as its core elements of due diligence and the threshold of significant harm. Despite its ambiguities, the principle of prevention remains as the governing norm in respect of addressing transboundary environmental harm. What needs to be acknowledged is that international environmental law finds itself in a state of development, whereby its rules and principles have yet to deploy their full legal effects. Notwithstanding the incompatibility of a reparative approach with environmental protection, the study arrives at the conclusion that state responsibility, while in principle not an ideal approach, at least for the time being has a significant role in addressing transboundary environmental harm – in ensemble with prevention.

This study examines the EU-US sanctions dispute over the Helms-Burton and D’Amato Acts from 1996 to 1998. In this study the focus is on analysing whether during the santions dispute the US was hastening the end of its favourable unipolar position in the international system due to its own foreign policy choices or whether the dispute qualifies as a balancing attempt by the EU. The systemic level theoretical framework consists of neorealism and sanction studies. Unit level factors are used as explanatory factors without a theory. The general EU-US relationship is used to reflect tendencies stated in the research question. Earlier sanctions and sanctioning patterns are reviewed. The study concludes that the US made a dual error in its decision to impose extraterritorial sanction laws against the EU. Firstly, the US confused the targets of the sanctions laws. Secondly, the US confused its foreign and economic policy strategies. This meant using confrontational economic strategy towards a foreign policy objective. Taken together, the US succumbed to arrogance of power and ended up possibly deteriorating its future systemic position. The EU's response was a twofold implicit balancing. The EU's first reaction was to shield itself against the US sanctions with Blocking Statue and Joint Action and so to protect its sovereignty and retain independent capacity to act. The EU's second implicit balancing reaction was meant to discipline the US against its arrogance of power by initiating a dispute settlement procedure in the WTO. The conclusion is that the sanctions dispute had both the effects of deteriorating the US future position as well as possibly increasing the position of the EU in the future. Yet, the US as an initiator of the sanctions dispute gives more explanatory power to the former. The source material of this study consists of neorealist theories. The most important source has been the edited book of Ethan Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno 'Unipolar Politics'(1999) Also sanction studies have been used. An important source has been 'Feeling Good or Doing Good with Sanctions – Unilateral Economic Sanctions and the US National Interest' (1999) by Ernst Preeg.

The UN peacekeeping missions have constituted a substantial part of international attempts for maintaining and restoring international peace and security. The missions have been deployed in almost every part of the world to control conflict situations and keep the adversaries apart. In some cases the operations held all the hallmarks of an enforcement action and did not observe the three pillars of the UN peacekeeping action. The deployment of forces in "peace enforcement", dominantly after the Cold War with questionable legal basis led to unfortunate outcomes. Furthermore, non-stop reports of alleged crimes committed by military, and civil peacekeeping personnel tarnished the image of the organization as a peace-broker. It seems that the organization is unable to solve the problems attached to the deployment and conduct of the operations. Having said that one has to acknowledge that during last seven decades the organization has set up many panels, committees, commissions which led to the publication of lengthy reports with different titles for overcoming those problems, but the recommendations fell on deaf ears, and the member states did not comply with them, because it was not legally binding. The best example was the Zied report, which was published after the widespread alleged atrocities of the peace personnel in Congo in the early 1990s. Since these political attempts did not yield any tangible results, the legal approach to remove the problems so as to have successful missions seems inevitable. According to paragraph 1(a) of article 13 of the UN Charter, The General Assembly is entrusted to encourage "…the progressive development of international law and its codification…" The organization has been successful in this field and sponsored the adoption of many legal instruments such as the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Moreover, the UN General Assembly established a permanent subsidiary organ, namely; the International Law Commission to enhance the process of law-making, but all the attempts have been for bringing law and order only among member states. The organization itself is not a party to those legal instruments, and this situation caused many difficulties for the international community, specifically as far as legal successful conduct and command of UN peace operations are concerned. Since the UN peace operations under any title are the only mechanism at the service of the international community, revisiting the causes of the failure of the missions in number of cases is indispensable. Therefore, this dissertation presents a thorough research of the organization's record of observing international law in terms of establishing, conducting, commanding and financing the peace missions. The main question of this research is how to make the UN peacekeeping operation more successful while the rules of international law could be observed in every step of establishing a mission. In this research the connection between the major problems that the organization has experienced and the absence of UN conventional obligation is scrutinized to the point of conclusion that each problem could be overcome if the international community adopts a comprehensive legal convention on peacekeeping. To the author of this thesis, the suggested convention would comprise existing legal instruments such as the four Geneva Conventions, and adaptation of them to the status of the UN as an international organization. However, new codifications are necessary where there are no legal international instruments for removing the ever-lasting problems of deploying a peace operation. The main areas which require new codification are as follows: giving the peace enforcement action a proper legal basis; determining the effective command and control of forces by the organization, or establishing dual responsibility of force-contributing states; establishing an effective, and authentic accountability mechanism for the prosecution of the alleged criminal acts of peace personnel by either national states, or an international tribunal; setting up a proper mechanism for monitoring justifiable financial contribution of all member states to the cause in a way that no state, large or small could withhold their assessed share of contribution; and finally observing well-functioning of the Secretariat which has played a defining role in the outcome of every peace operation. The proposal in this dissertation may be materialized if some countries take the initiative and put it on the Agenda of the General Assembly for discussion. Let's hope there will be enough volunteers who consider the lawful and orderly manner of deploying peacekeeping missions as an urgent and vital step for having a peaceful world which would be beneficial for all member states. .