Highest Courts News
News in the broadest sense on the topic of Highest Courts and International Courts will be posted here.
→ Book announcement: New book from Andre Nollkaemper: "National Courts and the International Rule of Law"
May 2011
About this book:
- Draws on a hugely innovative, and until now untapped, pool of new empirical data on the application of international law in domestic courts contained in Oxford's new online service ILDC
- Examines one of the most pressing concerns of international legal theory today
- Provides an analysis of key cases involving judicial control of the exercise of public powers by states; including the Hamdan, Adalah, and Narmada cases
This book explores how domestic courts contribute to the maintenance of the rule of international law by providing judicial control over the exercises of public powers that may conflict with international law. The main focus of the book will be on judicial control of exercise of public powers by states. Key cases that will be reviewed in this book, and that will provide empirical material for the main propositions, include Hamdan, in which the US Supreme Court reviewed detention by the United States of suspected terrorists against the 1949 Geneva Conventions; Adalah, in which the Supreme Court of Israel held that the use of local residents by Israeli soldiers in arresting a wanted terrorist is unlawful under international law, and the Narmada case, in which the Indian Supreme Court reviewed the legality of displacement of people in connection with the building of a dam in the river Narmada under the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention 1957 (nr 107).
For more information go to: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com
→ HiiL meets Venice Commission in respect to Highest Courts
5 April 2011
On 4 April 2011, Sam Muller, director of HiiL together with Michiel Scheltema, chairman of the HiiL Programmatic Steering Board, and Andrea Lolini, Theme Coordinator Highest Courts had an informal meeting with Rudolf Schnutz Dürr, Head of the Constitutional Justice Division of the of the Venice Commission in Strasbourg, France.
With the first phase of its Highest Courts Research Project nearing its end, HiiL is currently reflecting on how to continue in this field. HiiL presented its work in the field of highest courts and learned about the activities of the Venice Commission in respect to Courts.
'The exchange was very fruitful and gave us valuable insights into the work of the Venice Commission as a mechanism in facilitating dialogue between national courts. It is all quite impressive, if not always visible.', said Michiel Scheltema.
'We see more and more fora in which national courts meet. HiiL was able to follow at close hand the efforts of the Venice Commission to establish a regular forum for exchange between constitutional courts.', added Andrea Lolini. 'This has been very enriching for our work.'
HiiL was present at the first World Conference on Constitutional Justice in Cape Town in 2009 and at the second World Conference in Rio de Janeiro, January 2011. Both events have succeded in bringing together more than 100 constitutional courts.
In July 2011, HiiL will publish the outcome of the first phase of the work of the Highest Courts Research Group in a special issue of the Utrecht Law Review.
See also
→ Book announcement: New book from Andrea Lollini
Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice in South Africa
Translated by Alexandra Tatiana Pollard
With a Foreword by Roberto Toniatti, Università di Trento
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For more information, go to: www.berghahnbooks.com