Thesis The role of national courts in applying international humanitarian law: from apology to judicial activism WEILL, Sharon Abstract My PhD aims to set a method of analysis evaluating the manner in which national courts enforce international humanitarian law in light of the core principles of the international rule of law (which require courts to be independent, impartial, accessible and effective). This methodology offers a useful tool for understanding the function of national courts and provides a mapping of courts' rulings, within which each category can then be legally (and politically) justified or delegitimized in light of the principles of the rule of law. The scale according to which the court's function is assessed varies from apology to judicial activism, and it identifies four functional roles: (1) the apologist role of courts, in which they serve as a legitimating agency of the state's actions; (2) the avoiding role of courts, in which they, for policy considerations, avoid exercising jurisdiction over a case; (3) the normative application role of courts, in which they apply international humanitarian law as required by the rule of law. In that category, a deferral technique is identified – courts may defer back to the other branches of [...] Reference WEILL, Sharon. The role of national courts in applying international humanitarian law: from apology to judicial activism. Thèse de doctorat : Univ. Genève, 2012, no. D. 852 URN : urn:nbn:ch:unige-235753 DOI : 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:23575 Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:23575 Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version. 1 / 1 Geneva University Faculty of Law Doctoral Thesis The Role of National Courts in Applying International Humanitarian Law – From Apology to Judicial Activism by Sharon WEILL Supervisor: Professor Marco SASSÒLI Imprimatur number 852 - 2012 - 1 Acknowledgments Many thanks to Prof. Sassoli for his supervision, support and dedication. It was during Professor’s Sassoli classes that I encountered for the first time deconstruction exercises of international humanitarian law courts’ ruling, owing to his pedagogy based on a critical learning of case studies. Prof. Sassoli provided me with all the legal tools to analyse legal decisions and, not less important, with a critical prism for understanding the international legal order. Putting the decision into their political context was made possible also due to my personal working experience with NGOs and international organisations, field researches in different conflict zones, which allowed me to study the rulings in a contextual manner, taking into account the broader political interests than the particular ones of the litigating parties. In this context I owe special thanks to Mr. Ivan Jovanovic, head of the war crimes unit of the OSCE in Serbia, who introduced me to the war crimes trials in Serbia, and adv. Nery Ramati, who shared with me his experience of litigating before Israeli military courts in the OPT. I am also very much grateful for the availability of Prof. Benvenisti from Tel Aviv University to host me as a visiting researcher and for the interest he had in my work, which in many aspects has followed his analysis on the role of courts. This research could not have been done without the generous support of the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research (FNS) . My PhD is dedicated to my girls Zoe and Maayane, who were born during this research, with the hope that the international legal system, which they will live, will be a legal system whose norms are judicially enforced against those who violate them. Finally, my warmest thanks go to Bartolomeo Conti, my partner and love. 2 The idea of law, in spite of everything, seems still to be stronger than any ideology of power. 1 H. Kelsen 1H. Kelsen, Das Problem der Souveränität und die Theorie des Völkerrechts. Beitrag zu einer Reinen Rechtslehre (1920). 3 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...…….9 Chapter I: The international rule of law and international humanitarian law…………..17 1. The international rule of law………………………………………………………………..17 1.1 The (domestic) rule of law…………………………………………………………….17 1.2 Externalising the elements of the formal rule of law………………………………….22 1.3 The core elements of the international rule of law…………………………………….25 1.4 The growing reference to the rule of law by international institutions…………..........29 2. International humanitarian law and the international rule of law…….……………............35 2.1 The existence of a normative framework…………….…………….………..………...36 2.1.1 The normative framework: Sources of international humanitarian law………...37 2.1.2 The rules should be known, perspective, clear, and stable…………….…….....39 2.1.3 The obligation to enact implementing domestic legislation…………………....42 2.1.4 The special role of the International Committee of the Red Cross……….…....44 2.2 Equal application of international humanitarian law………………….……..………..46 2.2.1 Universality…………….………………….…………………………………..46 2.2.2 Equal applicability……………………………………………………….........47 2.3 Effective and equal enforcement by an independent, impartial and accessible judiciary………………………………………………………………………………51 2.3.1 Independency and impartiality ……………………………………………….52 2.3.2 Effective enforcement of the law and accessibility…………………………..58 3. The methodology………………...…………………………….…………………...………63 3.1 The functional role of domestic courts in democratic states…………………...………63 3.2 Assessing the functional role of national courts: from Apology to Judicial Activism...64 3.3 The theoretical definition of the roles of the court: The scholarship of Professor Benvenisti …………………………………………………….…………………..……….67 3.4 The deconstruction of judicial decisions: Exposing the role of national courts……....70 Chapter II: The apologist role of national courts: legitimizing state policy………………76 1. The role of courts as legitimizing agency……………..………………………………..…...76 2. Case study no. 1: The Israeli High Court of Justice…………………….…………………..79 4 2.1 The jurisdiction of the Israeli High Court of Justice over the Occupied Palestinian Territories and its policy of justicibility……..…..…………………………………...79 2.2 Art. 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations: A normative analysis.…………………….81 2.2.1 The law of military occupation – a background……………………………….82 2.2.2 Art. 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations……….………………………………86 2.2.3 Prolonged military occupation………………………………………………..93 2.3 The role of the Israeli High Court of Justice in applying Art. 43 of the Hague Regulations: Deconstructing the legal argument………………...……………...…...96 2.3.1 Interpretation…………………………………………………………………96 i. “Prolonged military occupation” ……………………………………….…….97 ii. The two axes of Art. 43: Security and humanitarian considerations………..102 2.3.2 Fact finding: The “dominant factor” test…………………………………..…107 2.3.3 Legal assessment: Introducing the proportionality test……………………...110 2.3.4 Political de-contextualization………………………………………………..117 2.3.5 Policy outcome in the long term: From Occupation to Apartheid…………..118 3. Case study no. 2: The Serbian War Crimes Chamber.…….………………………............127 3.1 Background on the court…………………………………………....……………....127 3.2 The role of the Serbian War Crimes Chamber in prosecuting war crimes………....132 3.2.1 The case of Anton Lekaj………………………………………………….…132 3.2.2 The Scorpions case…………………………………………...…..……….…137 3.3 Patterns and trends…………………………………………………….………..…..144 3.3.1 The ability of the WCC to enforce international law………………………..144 3.3.2 The willingness of the WCC to apply international law………………….....146 4. Concluding observations……………………………………………………………….…147 Chapter III: Avoiding the application of the law…..………………………....………..…148 1. The construction of avoidance doctrines…...…………………………………………..….150 1.1 The US act of state doctrine …………………………………………………….…150 1.2 The US political question doctrine……………………………………………..…..157 1.3 The UK non-justiciability principle.……………………………………………..…162 1.4 Concluding observations…………………………………………………………....167 2. A contextual analysis of case studies……………………………………………..............168 2.1 Case study no. 1: The use of avoidance doctrines in Alien Tort Statute cases….....169 2.1.1 Background………………………………………………………………....169 5 2.1.2 Alien Tort Statute cases against US officials……………………………....177 2.1.3 Alien Tort Statute cases against US allies……………………………….…188 2.1.4 Alien Tort Statute cases against other third States’ officials…………….....191 2.1.5 Concluding observations……………………………………………………193 2.2 Case study no. 2: The US and Israeli targeted killing cases…….………………....194 2.2.1 The targeted killing case (US Court) ………………………………………194 2.2.2 The targeted killing case (Israeli High Court of Justice) ……………..……198 2.2.3 Concluding observations ………………………………………………...…200 2.3 Case study no. 3: The legality of Israeli settlements in the OPT….……….…….....201 2.3.1 The Israeli High Court of Justice……………………………….…………..201 2.3.2 The Quebec Superior Court, Canada ………………………..……………..205 2.3.3 Concluding observations……………………………………..……………..214 Chapter IV: The normative application of international humanitarian law……………216 1. The role of national courts in limiting the political branches in judicial review cases…….217 1.1 The deference technique: from avoidance to normative application………………..217 1.2 Preliminary issues…………………………………………………………………..220 1.2.1 The duration of the conflict and the timing of the review………………….220 1.2.2 The type of violation under review…………………………………………220 1.2.3 The application international humanitarian