Obligations – HABIB REHMAN

In a Homeowners Association? Know Your Insurance Obligations – Go Health Pro

March 25, 2025 by admin

When you buy a house that has a homeowners association (HOA), you access many benefits. One area of HOA living homeowners need to have a solid grasp on, however, is their insurance obligations. Many residents may often ask how HOA insurance differs from individual homeowners insurance and what is covered under each policy. We break down each of these … Read more

Illegality, Third States Obligations and the ICJ’s 2024 Advisory Opinion – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

March 1, 2025 by admin

In the last few years, despite such prohibition, Israeli officials have announced their plans and intention to annex the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) in whole or part. In a recent statement, on 11 November 2024, Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich announced a plan to impose Israel’s sovereignty to and annex the occupied West Bank in 2025. He also confirmed that the groundwork is already being put into place (see here and here). His plans also include annexation of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime is conducting mass forcible transfer of Palestinians and building military bases (see here and here). The announcement of the US President to forcibly transfer Gaza’s population of over two million to Jordan and Egypt and take over the Strip, which was embraced by the Israeli far-right government (see here and here), emboldens Israel’s long-visioned plan to freely annex the occupied Palestinian territory. It has, in fact, encouraged further Israeli settlements expansion and land confiscation in the West Bank (see here and here).

This comes to no surprise as the Israeli government, led by Natanyahu, has long been in support of annexation and confiscation of Palestinian land in favour of illegal settlements (see here). At the factual level, Israel has been i) maintaining and expanding illegal settlements and outposts and their associated infrastructure, ii) expropriating Palestinian land and exploiting its natural resources, iii) proclaiming Jerusalem as its capital, iv) maintaining a restrictive and discriminatory planning and building regime for Palestinians, and v) applying extensive Israeli domestic law to East Jerusalem and extending Israeli law extraterritorially to Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Time and Temporality before the ICJ in the Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

February 14, 2025 by admin

The ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change is one of a string of recent cases which has brought the ICJ to the centre of public discussions of international law (see coverage of proceedings on the BBC, the Guardian, and Forbes), and academic commentators have already noted the significance of the case for procedural rules on the participation of small island developing states and amicus curiae from NGOs, the establishing of obligations erga omnes, and the Court’s use of experts fantômes. In this short post, I want to focus on a different aspect of the Advisory Opinion: namely, its temporal significance, as a decision over when climate change began, how it manifests in our present, and how it will develop in the future.

Time may seem a marginal issue for understanding climate change. Yet across the submissions of the 96 states and 11 international organisations participating in the case, different histories, presents, and future expectations are again and again put before the ICJ to guide its decision. For some states, climate change has a long history, its origins stretching back decades to the emergence of scientific consensus on climate change in the 1960s, or even further back to colonial possession of natural resources and the Industrial Revolution (see, for example, Kenya’s submissions that carbon dioxide emissions should be measured from 1850). This creates a differentiated present: while some states have historically made the largest contributions to climate change, it is others that have been forced to bare its brunt. Accordingly, the history of climate change alters expectations about its future regulation. With the pollution of some states already threatening the existence of others, the ICJ must recognise legal obligations between these states which can halt and rectify the existing damage caused by climate change and restore the right of those states to self-determination over their future (see, among many passing citations by other states, the detailed submissions on self-determination by the Melanesian Spearhead Group, the Republic of Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Micronesia, Namibia, Nauru, Palau, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, and Tuvalu).

Ghandhi Research Seminar Series; CfS ASIL Interest Group; CfA Nordic Symposium on the Law of Armed Conflict; CfP Causal Inquiry for Finding Breaches of Human Rights Obligations ECHR; CfP ILA Committee on ADR in International Law; Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Seminar & Book Launch; CfP Polish Review of International & European Law; Research Methods in Fundamental Rights Workshop – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

January 12, 2025 by admin

1. Ghandhi Research Seminar Series 2024- 2025. Global Law at Reading (GLAR) is Reading’s research hub for public international law, EU law and human rights law, and it has a proud international reputation for research excellence in these areas. The Ghandhi Research Seminar Series was launched in 2015, named in honour of Professor Sandy Ghandhi, who taught at the School of Law from 1978 to 2013 and remains an emeritus professor at Reading. Anyone is welcome to attend these seminars, and attendance is free. Seminars as follows: 11 February, 13-13.00 – Professor Gregory Fox (Wayne State University), Civil War Peace Agreements: Inside or Outside International Law? – Palmer Building 107 or via Teams; 24 February, 12 – 13.00 -Dr Justina Uriburu (University of Manchester), Missing Pieces of Peace: A History of International Dispute Settlement – Palmer Building 106 or via Teams; 5 March, 11 – 12.00 – Katherine Reece-Thomas (City, University of London) The Commercial Activity Exception to State Immunity – Henley Business School G13 or via Teams; 19 March, 12 – 13.00 – Professor Nazila Ghanea (University of Oxford), Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Parsing out Religion from Politics in the Work of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief – Palmer Building 103 or via Teams; and, 12 May 12-13.00 -Professor Frédéric Mégret (McGill University), What is International Human Rights Law For? – Palmer Building 111 or via Teams.

2. Call for Submissions: The American Society of International Law Interest Group on International Legal Theory. The American Society of International Law (ASIL) Interest Group on International Legal Theory has issued its annual call for submissions for its International Refugee Law Student Writing Prize. More details about the award criteria and submission process are available in the attached call for submissions. The winner will be recognized at the ASIL Annual Meeting in April 2025, as well as receiving a free one-year ASIL student membership, free admission to the ASIL Annual Meeting, assistance with travel expenses, and a credit to purchase books from Oxford University Press.

Romania’s Election Annulment, Disinformation, and ECHR Positive Obligations to Combat Election Irregularities – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

January 6, 2025 by admin

In a historical year for global democratic elections, Romania’s presidential election is the latest European election to have elicited controversy. Days prior to the scheduled second round of voting, the country’s constitutional court annulled the results of the first round voting results. The constitutional court’s decision, which will necessitate a fresh vote, arose in response to the unforeseen success of far-right candidate Calin Georgescu and the potential Russian interference which may have accounted for this success. Specifically, the annulment stems from (now declassified) reports from the Romanian Supreme Council of National Defense (CSAT) and the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT). Both bodies suggested that the first round of voting had been tainted by an extensive network of automated online accounts (bots) on TikTok, which sought to influence the election in Georgescu’s favour. Georgescu, a NATO sceptic and recipient of praise from Vladimir Putin, has labelled the Constitutional Court’s decision as a ‘formalised coup d’etat’ and attack on Romania’s democratic order. Conversely, outgoing Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu praised the court for adopting ‘the only correct solution after the declassification of the documents’, which he claims demonstrated a distortion of votes ‘as a result of Russia’s intervention.’