Yugoslavia violated convention on genocide according to UN Court
By Lawyer Help | February 26, 2007
The United Nations genocide convention was violated during the 1992-1995 war in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled the International Court of Justice on Monday.
The court ruled that it had violated the obligation to prevent genocide and was in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
This is the first case of a state being charged with genocide.
Topics: International Law, European Law, UK Law, Law in General | No Comments »
Saddam‘s lawyer says he‘ll publish book
By Lawyer Help | February 26, 2007
Saddam Hussein ‘s former chief lawyer has said he plans to publish a book about Saddam Hussein’s Trial. The book will contain alleged secret information regarding the case leading up to his execution. “I will write everything about the court, the Americans, and the way they used to treat him.” Al-Dulaimi has said in a telephone interview.
Topics: International Law, American Law | No Comments »
Tort - A definition
By Lawyer Help | February 26, 2007
Torts, sometimes called delicts, are civil wrongs. To have acted tortiously, one must have breached a duty to another person, or infringed some pre-existing legal right. A simple example might be accidentally hitting someone with a cricket ball. Under negligence law, the most common form of tort, the injured party can make a claim against the party responsible for the injury. The principles of negligence are illustrated by Donoghue v. Stevenson. Mrs Donoghue ordered an opaque bottle of ginger beer in a cafe in Paisley. Having consumed half of it, she poured the remainder into a tumbler. The decomposing remains of a dead snail floated out. She fell ill and sued the manufacturer for carelessly allowing the drink to be contaminated. The House of Lords decided that the manufacturer was liable for Mrs Donoghue’s illness. Lord Atkin took a distinctly moral approach, and said,
“The liability for negligence… is no doubt based upon a general public sentiment of moral wrongdoing for which the offender must pay… The rule that you are to love your neighbour becomes in law, you must not injure your neighbour; and the lawyer’s question, Who is my neighbour? receives a restricted reply. You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour.”
This became the basis for the four principles of negligence; Mr Stevenson owed Mrs Donoghue a duty of care to provide safe drinks he breached his duty of care the harm would not have occurred but for his breach and his act was the proximate cause, or not too remote a consequence, of her harm. Another example of tort might be a neighbour making excessively loud noises with machinery on his property. Under a nuisance claim the noise could be stopped. Torts can also involve intentional acts, such as assault, battery or trespass. A better known tort is defamation, which occurs, for example, when a newspaper makes unsupportable allegations that damage a politician’s reputation. More infamous are economic torts, which form the basis of labour law in some countries by making trade unions liable for strikes,when statute does not provide immunity.
Topics: Law Defined | No Comments »
International law – A definition
By Lawyer Help | February 26, 2007
In a global economy, law is globalising too. International law can refer to three things; public international law, private international law or conflict of laws and the law of supranational organisations.
- Public international law concerns the relationships between sovereign nations. It has a special status as law because there is no international police force, and courts lack the capacity to penalise disobedience. The sources for public international law to develop are custom, practice and treaties between sovereign nations. The United Nations, founded under the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the most important international organisation, established after the failure of the Versailles Treaty and World War II. Other international agreements, like the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, and international bodies such as the International Labour Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, or the International Monetary Fund also form a growing part of public international law.
- Conflict of Laws (or "private international law" in civil law countries) concerns which jurisdiction a legal dispute between private parties should be heard in and which jurisdiction’s law should be applied. Today businesses are increasingly capable of shifting capital and labour supply chains across borders, as well as trading with overseas businesses. This increases the number of disputes outside a unified legal framework and the enforceability of standard practices. Increasing numbers of businesses opt for commercial arbitration under the New York Convention 1958.
- European Union law is the first and only example of a supranational legal framework. However, given increasing global economic integration many regional agreements, especially the South American Community of Nations, are on track to follow the same model. In the EU, sovereign nations have pooled their authority through a system of courts and political institutions. They have the ability to enforce legal norms against and for member states and citizens, in a way that public international law does not. As the European Court of Justice said in 1962, European Union law constitutes "a new legal order of international law" for the mutual social and economic benefit of the member states.
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