The Alien Tort Statute is a short, thirty-two word section of the United States Code enacted in 1789 as part of the Judiciary Act. The Alien Tort Statute, or ATS, has an uncertain and controversial beginning and remains controversial in current jurisprudence. The ATS reads as follows: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." It is my intent for this thesis to be an academic discussion of the mysterious history, intent, and court cases that have evolved the ATS; and the way in which the evolution took place. Having lain dormant for almost two decades, it is important to understand how the ATS was finally utilized and how this affected the statutes ability to become a tool for human rights persecution abroad; until the decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. Examining the language of two opinions by the District Court of the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court in Kiobel we will be able to understand, but reject, the arguments of both these courts.

This thesis examines important aspects of Canada and Britain’s participation in the Korean War of 1950-53 and the Afghanistan Conflict of 2001-present with a view to better understanding how international law influenced this participation, and whether key leaders and officials understood said law as a binding and distinct phenomenon. It draws on constructivist International Relations (IR) theory and “interactional” International Law (IL) theory, and employs a method of historical reconstruction and process tracing. I argue that, contrary to what realism might predict, international law helped define and shape each state’s possible course of action in the wars, and the justifications that could be made for their behaviour. More specifically, Canada and Britain’s involvement in the conflicts suggests that, when states use force, international law can play four broad roles: 1) it helps constitute the identities of the actors at issue; 2) it helps regulate the political and military practice of the actors at issue; 3) it permits and legitimates certain political and military practices that otherwise might not be permitted; and 4) it helps structure the process by which agents seek to develop and promote new legal rules and legitimate practice. However, I also contend that, contrary to what IL scholars might predict, the discourse and actions of Canadian and British leaders and officials during the Korean War and Afghanistan Conflict offer mixed support for the hypothesis that, when states use force, policy-makers understand international law as a binding and distinct set of legal rules, and the legal status of these rules impacts their decision-making. In sum, my findings suggest that international law can play important roles in world politics and the use of force by states, but it is unclear whether these effects are attributable to an obligatory quality in law.

1 Abstract Spread of International Law into Decision-Making Practice of Domestic Authorities In principle international law does not impose its subjects how to achieve compliance with its international legal obligations within their jurisdiction. However, for the effectiveness of international law in each country it is the approach of legislative, executive and judiciary authorities to international obligations that is vital. The thesis focuses mainly on the judiciary, while the issues of international law application by the domestic courts have not yet been at full length described. Part One is an introduction which describes the subject of the work methodology and terminology used in its processing. The first main aim of the thesis was to examine in detail legal rules for the application of international law as they result from both constitutional and ordinary law. These rules constitute a framework within which institutions applying international law deal with it. The third part of the thesis is mainly dedicated to fulfilment of the first main aim, it is entitled The Current Application of International Law by National Authorities of the Independent Czech Republic and the Development of this Legislation. But partially also the second part, entitled Historical Development of Binding Force of International...

The significance of the margin of appreciation doctrine has been underscored recently with the adoption of Protocol No 15 which calls for the inclusion of the terms 'margin of appreciation' and 'subsidiarity' in the Preamble of the European Convention on Human Rights. This development reflects the disquiet amongst member States to the Convention that the doctrine is not being given enough weight by the European Court of Human Rights in the determination of cases before it. One of the interpretive tools that is perceived to be having a negative effect on the margin of appreciation is the living instrument doctrine which has been blamed for narrowing the margin of appreciation afforded to States. This thesis brings an original contribution to the literature in this area by considering the interaction between the margin of appreciation and living instrument doctrines in the case law of the Court. The contribution is achieved in two ways: (a) methodologically: through the methodology adopted which is a combination of the quantitative method of descriptive statistics and the qualitative method of doctrinal textual analysis; (b) substantively: through the systematic examination of the case law of the Court from January 1979 to December 2016 in which both the margin of appreciation and living instrument doctrines are present. The lens of the relationship between rights and duties is applied to the case analysis. The case analysis is used to draw conclusions on the nature of the relationship and whether living instrument arguments are superseding the margin of appreciation doctrine where there is conflict. The results of the case analysis also shows distinctions in the interpretive approaches of the Court at the admissibility and compliance stages. The overall results of the study show that there are a variety of ways in which interaction takes place between both doctrines and the nature of both doctrines will continue to require a close interaction between the Court and the State parties in their compliance with obligations under the Convention.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: p. 377-421.

Chapter one offers an introduction and a general outline of argument. Chapter two lays out the current scholarship on human rights and the environment and presents rejoinders to three prominent lines of objection to linking human rights and environmental interests: conceptual, those arising from issues of recognition, vagueness and conflicts between human rights, ecological, especially from those seeking protections for the environment regardless of its utility to humans, and those wishing to expand human rights beyond human interests, and adjudication concerns, namely from those sceptical that the polycentric nature of environmental issues create an insurmountable barrier to any significant improvements through judicially enforced human rights. Chapter three introduces and defends the environmental minimum as a normative framework for systematically conceptualizing the relationship between human rights and the environment. As such, it is chiefly concerned with ensuring a good faith regulatory engagement with environmental pollution: specific risks to recognised human rights trigger the environmental minimum, which then provides minimum standards (legal, established and emerging) that set the standard of review for determining whether a violation of human rights has occurred. Chapter four deals with the crucial empirical argument, outlining how the framework can systematically account for and consistently guide the further development of the case law under the European Convention on Human Rights. This conclusion rests on a comprehensive analysis of the environmental case law since 1950 using quantitative methods to expose doctrinal patterns previously not recognized in legal scholarship. Finally, chapter five explores and evaluates the potential benefits of the environmental minimum framework beyond human rights adjudication. Specifically, it investigates benefits to the varied fields of public law, regulatory policy, International Environmental Law, constitutionalism, and other international human rights treaties.