No, it proves that you don’t know what you’re talking about. The report was non-binding because reports of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights are never binding, in accordance with its implementing treaty. The IACHR is essentially a form of alternative dispute resolution, not a court of law.
Petitions submitted to the IACHR can be forwarded to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights if the IACHR submits recommendations in their favor. The Court’s rulings are binding. Domingues did not have to do so, for obvious reasons.
What “obvious reasons”? The IACHR non-binding decision was 2002. The SC decision was 2005. Was Domingues clairvoyant?
Also - the Court’s rulings are only binding if US considers them binding. Example: ICJ’s decision in 1984 against the US. US didn’t consider it binding. So it wasn’t.
My bet was more about “Will Ecuador be able to successfully bitch-punk both the UK and the USA in front of the entire world?” rather than anything specific to Julian Assange.
Do countries not often ignore international law and rulings on smaller matters (or even larger ones) if they especially want to and don’t consider the repercussions threatening enough? If the international community decides the UK broke international law by arresting Assange, does it even matter? These aren’t the same situation of course, but Iraq was invaded illegally, there are still illegal Israeli settlements, on a smaller scale France illegally banned British beef for a while. No one is going to destroy their relations with these countries by imposing sanctions or forcibly trying to stop them, even if they invade and occupy other countries. International law seems to be binding only as long as anyone feels like being bound by it.
There were six constitutional challenges pending in district appeals courts at the time, so it was pretty clear that SCOTUS was going to hear the issue again.
The ICJ decision wasn’t binding because the ICJ is a court of limited jurisdiction. It can only hear cases in which the state parties agree to be bound by its decisions, or are parties to a treaty which under which the ICJ is authorized to hear disputes between the state parties.
The Inter-American Court is not a court of limited jurisdiction, so it doesn’t matter whether the parties agree to be bound by its rulings. If they are parties to its enacting treaty, they are automatically bound.
In all probability, he’s going to Sweden, where he’s actually been charged.
However, in theory, “so far as the parties to the case are concerned, a judgment of the Court is binding, final and without appeal,” and “by signing the Charter, a State Member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with any decision of the International Court of Justice in a case to which it is a party.”
For example, the United States had previously accepted the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction upon its creation in 1946, but in Nicaragua v. United States withdrew its acceptance following the Court’s judgment in 1984
And if they are not parties to its enacting treaty (like UK is not party to the OAS treaty) they are not bound. As I was saying…
I’m not sure what you think the wikipedia quote proves. As to the latter, the OAS convention is not an “enacting treaty”. It doesn’t create a court. Jus cogens does not establish jurisdiction of a tribunal over a non-party which is not a signatory to its statute.
As clearly laid out in the Wikipedia article, jus cogens applies rules of law the states. It doesn’t “apply courts” to states.
Sure. And it is still the same principle. If a country doesn’t consider some rule binding on itself, it isn’t. It’s a simple consequence of the lack of enforcing authority. You can pretend that if Assange is granted asylum, steps out of the Ecuadorean embassy and is arrested by UK police, the world will shame UK into compliance with the OAS treaty you cited that UK is not a party to, but you’d be lying to yourself.
That’s not a principle. It’s a basic misunderstanding of a principle.
In the past, I have exceeded the speed limit; I was not cited for doing so. In light of The Law According to Terr, I am not bound by the speed limit. Right?
People (as well as drugs, weapons, and even a toilet pump for the ISS space station) have apparently been moved via diplomatic bag before. There is no size limit on a diplomatic bag.
Check out the Unusual Shipments section at the Wiki link
Are you seriously suggesting that RTNAB and I have just made up this area of international law out of whole cloth? That we just happen to come up with a fancy Latin name for a concept that does not exist?
Aside from that being a far-fetched argument, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties specifically states in Article 53 that if a treaty is in violation of jus cogens, then the treaty is void. That’s right, no country has the ability to enter into a treaty that violates the norms of international behavior. Cite. 111 countries are party to that convention, and another 13 are signatories.
The United States did not argue that jus cogens does not exist, as you do. The United States argued that the matter of executions is not covered under the principle: “Furthermore, there is no customary international law or jus cogens principle that prohibits the execution of offenders by the United States at the federal or state level.”
Tell that to the Nazis executed for war crimes. Or was there a treaty that Germany signed that outlawed genocide?
At that point, the Nazis weren’t in charge of Germany anymore. I suspect that if they were running Germany in 1946, the trials would have been rather different.
Terr has a point, if a country decides to ignore jus cogens, they can. They’ll just have to deal with the international fallout, namely having other countries being angry at them for not following the rules. If GB decided that they didn’t want the stinking Ecuadorians around anymore, they can line up 20 bulldozers to level the place, and arrest Assagne at their leisure. Is Ecuador going to invade London to stop them?
International relations is like a schoolyard. It’s generally in everyone’s best interest to play nice, but there’s nobody actually “in charge”, it’s a balance of what you want vs what the other kids will let you get away with. Be too much of a dick, and you won’t get to play kickball anymore.
However, in high school I was in my school’s Model UN club and presented a brief on the law of the sea to the model Hague. So, yeah, pretty heady credentials.
First of all, there’s no question that there is something called international law, and something called peremptory norms, and they have an effect.
I do not agree with RNATB, however, that the OAS’s provisions have attained that status, and I don’t agree that there is a general right of diplomatic asylum.
I think Assange can stay safely in the Eucadorian embassy without the UK being able to reach in and grab him. However, I think that if the Brits demand him, the Ecuadorians have to surrender him, under the general provisions of the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.
I just asked my wife this question, who has two post-graduate degrees, one in diplomacy, and she says, and I quote: “I’m not sure.”
That’s beside the point. The fact that you can ignore something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Terr is having a philosophical argument, when the thread specifically asked about a legal issue.