Browsing by Subject "international law"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    The use of nuclear weapons under the doctrine of self-defence
    (2019) Laing, Jessica; Powell, Cathleen
    The lawful use of nuclear weapons in self-defence sits in a precarious and fraught position amongst lawyers, states and scholars, primarily due to their indiscriminate destructive nature. The use of nuclear weapons is the biggest threat to peace and security yet they exist under obscurity in International Law. The purpose of this paper is to examine at what point, and under what circumstances, a State is lawfully permitted to use nuclear weapons in self-defence. The right to self-defence is a basic normative right codified in the United Nations Charter (UN Charter). The inherent right to self-defence is the primary justification for the use of nuclear weapons according to the International Court of Justice in the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion). Even so, nuclear weapons would still have to meet the threshold of self-defence and the cardinal principals of ‘imminence’, ‘necessity’ and ‘proportionality’ which regulate the lawfulness of a state’s actions in self-defence. Since there has only been two situations where nuclear weapons have been used- in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945- it is necessary to examine three hypothetical situations in which nuclear weapons are used in self-defence to determine if, under any, exceptional circumstances such action could be lawful.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Metadata only
    Whether the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) agreement satisfies the requirements for ‘legality' under the applicable WTO law governing regional trade agreements (RTAS)
    (2024) Nyamangirazi, Nadine; Lehmann, Karin
    The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement is a potentially transformative regional trade agreement (RTA) which aims to stimulate intra-African trade. It exists alongside other RTAs, and alongside the World Trade Organisation (the WTO), which is the umbrella body for international trade. The WTO allows for the creation of RTAs; however, this is subject to certain conditions which are enshrined in the WTO legal framework. These conditions are contained in Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs in Trade (GATT); The Decision on Differential and More Favourable Treatment, Reciprocity and Fuller Participation of Developing Countries, (the so-called Enabling Clause); and Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This dissertation therefore discusses the AfCFTA and whether it satisfies the criteria for legality under the WTO rules. With the AfCFTA still being in its preliminary implementation phase, most research on the AfCFTA focuses on what the AfCFTA is, its prospects of success, and the prospective challenges which may be faced on the road to full implementation. However, there is limited research on issues such as the legality of the AfCFTA under the WTO rules. This is a significant gap in the literature which the dissertation aims to fill. In achieving this goal, an analysis is made on the WTO substantive and procedural rules for legality which are found under the relevant WTO provisions. The analysis will show that to a great extent, the AfCFTA Agreement is consistent with the substantive WTO rules found under Article XXIV of the GATT, the Enabling Clause, and Article V of the GATS. However, the AfCFTA does not meet the procedural requirement to do with notification of RTAs under the WTO rules. The research methods utilised include the review of literature covering the WTO and regional integration, as well as legal and policy documents discussing the AfCFTA Agreement and the WTO itself.