This regular lecture is named in memory of Pamela Thomas who was closely involved with the Society for over thirty years and served as its Secretary for twenty. Pamela gave unstintingly of her time and energy and contributed significantly to making the Society the vibrant organisation that it is today.
The Society was honoured that Sir Christopher Greenwood GBE CMG KC agreed to give the 2024 Pamela Thomas Lecture on the subject of Public international law, a threat or a blessing? It was a very timely opportunity to hear from one of our foremost public international lawyers in the context of global events which have highlighted the challenges to the rule-based international order.
Let me just without more Ado introduce s Christopher green be delighted s Christoper that sure here um GB CMG KC not a bad set set of in and it be speaks of course of a an immensely distinguished career um Christopher is going to be lecturing on a public
International law a threat or a blessing we’re not going to take a vote on that after his dat but I think tamler would have approved of that it’s a it’s a very timely opportunity to hear from one of our foremost public International lawyers uh at a time when the very
Concept is very much topical and in the news in all manner of ways as some of us will attest to but uh Christopher’s career of course is is well distinguished but let’s just recite it for the record um elected a judge of the international court of justice from 2009
To 2008 18 a member of the panel of arbitrators uh for the law of the sea treaty uh International Center for settlement of investment disputes and the United Kingdom National Group permanent Court of arbitration also a judge of the Iran United States claims tribunal and of course now master of
Molding College Cambridge he was professor of international law at the London School of Economics got to give a plug for my old almaa and as a barrister his courting appearances included the pinet case in in the Lords cases about the locker bombing the covo conflict in the international court of justice and
Numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights court of justice of the EU and the English courts and he is as all the best people are a benra middle Temple Christopher welcome delighted to have you here a greatly [Applause] honor [Applause] well my lords ladies Lord ad at Madame
Attorney general Lord Advocate ladies and gentlemen getting difficult to know how many one can leave out in an introduction like that so thank you very much for that kind introduction it’s a great pleasure and honor to be invited here to give the Pamela Thomas lecture this evening um I never had the Good
Fortune of meeting Pamela Thomas something I very much regret but I did know Sir Nicholas Lyle when he was attorney general he led me in one of my first big cases which was proceedings in the international court of justice for an advisory opinion on whether or not
The use of nuclear weapons could ever be lawful to which the court gave the resounding answer possibly not and possibly so it’s also an opportunity uh for me to pay a small tribute to my late now long late grandfather father who was the conservative agent for the constituency
Of Welling BR uh for some 40 years at a time when it was a very strongly labor leaning seat uh and he only succeeded in getting his candidate in in 1931 which is not surprising 1935 by the skin of his teeth and 1959 by an even closer
Skin of the teeth um he would I supect be turning in his grave at what’s happening in Welling BR at the moment but be that is it may now I picked in the end as my topic for tonight public international law threat or blessing I had originally thought of can
International law make a difference but the evening after I thought of that I was watching a replay on britbox of that wonderful series Yes Prime Minister which was were of course no relation at all to what actually happens in British politics and it was the episode about the appointment
Uh the appointment of a bishop I think but at one point in that the private secretary has made an unfortunate comment to a journalist and when the Prime Minister asks him well why did you say that so well he asked me the question oh really burner just because a
Journalist asks you a question doesn’t mean to say you have to answer it well what do you do prime minister you say I don’t think that’s the real question the real question is and then you give them the state you wanted to give them and I remembered watching that program in 1985
I think it was and then the next morning listening to radio 4S today program where Brian redhead was interviewing Margaret Thatcher and at one point Margaret Thatcher said I don’t think that’s the real question Bernard Brian rather I think the real question is she must have been watching the program the
Previous evening can international law make a difference perhaps the real question is should intern national law make a difference but anyway threat or blessing gives me the opportunity to look at both sides of that there’s certainly plenty in the Press today which suggests that international law is
A threat to this country to the West in general to civilized values laws we had no hand in making which are useless at the times when it really matters enforced by Foreign judges preventing Parliament from adopting Common Sense Solutions that’s the way international law is often presented in the press or
At least in certain sections of the press now I’ve spent the last 45 years as an international lawyer I’ve taught the subject at University both at Cambridge and at the lsse and I was glad to get a plug for the lsse in this evening um I practiced it as a barrister
Mostly appearing for the government of this country both internationally and in case in the judicial revieww cases in the English courts I think the nicest compliment I’ve ever been paid was by somebody who was a cause lawyer attacking the government at the time who said she was always glad when she saw me
In court because she knew they’ got the government rattled they wouldn’t pay my fees otherwise sadly she had misunderstood how government fee uh rates were set and then I was a judge at the international court of justice for 9 years and I’m so grateful s Bob that you
Passed over uh discreetly the fact that I lost my seat when I stood for reelection in 2018 my departure was not entirely voluntary um managed to get me on the front page of the Guardian for the only time in my career um not in a favorable reference either um I noticed
By the way that they didn’t make anything of the fact that the Russian judge who was vice president of the Court lost his seat in similar circumstances last term by a much larger margin than I did um and then the international court of justice gave way to an opportunity to go back to
University but also to do some work as an arbitrator in various capacities uh where I claim to be the only judge of an international court appointed by Donald Trump during his presidency though I don’t think the matter crossed the great man’s desk at any stage so it would be a surprise wouldn’t
It if I broke my own Rice Bowl this evening by saying that international law was a threat and not a blessing and I’m not going to do so but I do think that the criticism of international law is something which is far too readily and glibly brushed off by International
Lawyers and I think it’s time to address those criticisms squarely and see how far there is some force in them because if we are honest there is always force in any criticism of anything that we do as lawyers now a word briefly about public international law and where it comes
From that criticism these are laws we had no hand in making I have to say is nonsense international law consists to an a very large extent of two things treaties concluded voluntarily between states and no state is obliged to become a party to a treaty if it chooses not to
Despite some of the ludicrous articles you see in different quarters of the press the fact the United States is not a party to the climate change conventions or that the United Kingdom is not a party to certain treaties is entirely reasonable there is no reason
On God’s Earth why a state has to become a party to a treaty if it chooses not to so treaties are very much laws that we have had a hand in making whether we made them well is another matter altogether some of you may be familiar with the fact that the foreign office
Definition of a treaty is a disagree mement reduced to writing um and I have seen a good many of those um some of them remind me some of the drafting at times reminds me of a tattoo parlor I used to drive past on my way to the M11
In the days when I drove from my flat in London back to our home in Cambridge um which had the remarkable slogan in its window ears pierced while you wait one shuds to think what the alternative might have been and the rest of international law what is not treaty based is so-called
Customary international law but customary international law is based on what states do and whether they do it out of a sense that that is either a legal obligation or the assertion of a legal right and Britain has been an active party in the making and shaping of customary international law for over
200 years so the the idea that this is law we had no hand in making simply doesn’t hold water the real issue is not that we didn’t have a hand in making it but that we can’t alter it when it suits us to do
So and we of course are used to a legal system in which Parliament has always considered itself free to change the law of the United Kingdom if that law no longer seits we cannot do that with international law but that’s hardly surprising if you are
A party to a contract you do not have the power unilaterally to alter the terms of that contract although occasionally my mobile phone provider seems to think otherwise if we had the power to remake custom law or treaty whenever it suited us to do so so by definition must every
Other state in the world would that be to our advantage I very much doubt it there is a passage in a 1960s case in which Lord justice diplock as he then was said The Sovereign power of the queen and Parliament extends to Breaking international law well for the purposes of English law
That’s right if there is a conflict between a rule of international law and a rule of in an act of parliament then the act of parliament prevails but as a matter of international law that is not and cannot be the case States cannot legislate their way out of obligations they have undertaken towards
Other states and it would be quite wrong to imagine that they could the other issue about law that we did not make is perhaps a more sensitive one and that is the interpretation placed by International courts on rules that we signed up to may not be what we
Thought we were accepting at the time now that’s a criticism that I think has a certain amount of force in it my own approach as a lawyer as a professor and as a judge was always to take a rather conservative approach towards interpretation which I think is particularly important when the law that
You apply is law that has been crafted by agreement Express agreement in the case of a treaty and if you like an implied agreement through cohesive coherent practice in the case of customary international law so to the annoyance of some of my colleagues on the international court and occasionally
On arbitration tribunals I always tended to take a rather conservative approach to interpreting the texts we had in front of us and I think it’s fair to say that for the most part the international court of justice has been faithful to that principle if you look at the
Judgments it has given it has always emphasized that what matters is what states actually do not what professors say about what they do and as a former Professor I would endorse that sentiment very strongly it’s easy to write an article in the law review which pleases your contempories and your colleagues it’s a
Great deal more difficult to take the decisions which governments have to take but if you look at a lot of the decisions that are supposedly controversial they don’t in fact change life very much or in a very surprising way that the various human rights tribunals have interpreted a Prohibition
On torture as including a Prohibition on handing somebody over to be tortured by someone else is hardly groundbreaking how that is applied is the issue how you interpret and apply the principle in cases where there is a question mark about how someone is to be treated in another state
Rather than a near certainty or a high likelihood or just a possibility that’s where the real difficulty lies it’s also worth keeping in mind that many of the decisions of what is probably the least popular of the international courts in this country the European Court of Human Rights many of
Those decisions have done enormous good in this country when I first qualified as a barrister it was possible for somebody to be sectioned under mental health legislation and then basically shut away for the rest of their life without any recourse whatever to any form of scrutiny by a court or a
Tribunal it was possible for in the case of one man in my own part of the world Cambridge uh he had been in rampton the local medical uh detention center for 35 years after having been caught and convicted of stealing a bicycle if if you put everyone in prison
For 35 years in Cambridge who’d stolen a bicycle the prisons would be so full you wouldn’t have room for the rapists the murderers and the terrorists it was a ridiculous um system but it was one of those rules that wasn’t terribly interesting to people in Britain and therefore it had escaped our
Attention or the right of prisoners to correspond with their lawyers without the prison Governor censoring what they wrote something we would take for granted today but was bitterly opposed at the time although I later discovered I say bitterly opposed I later discovered from the Memoirs of a foreign secretary that although Britain had
Opposed that particular U argument at the European Court of Human Rights they were very glad in government when it was adopted because it was a way of getting what the government wanted without a strike from the prison Officers Association one of the more recalcitrant
Of trade unions so I think if we look on the whole all the interpretation of international law by the different courts and tribunals that apply it it’s not actually got a bad record it’s certainly done produced more blessings than it has threats I’ll come to one of
The more difficult ones which is interim measures particularly by the European Court of human rights in a moment and then there’s the criticism that it’s useless when it matters and that’s a criticism which is well Worth International loyal is facing up to and not just dismissing out of
Hand look at what is happening in Ukraine look at what is happening in Gaza and Israel and let me add to that as I get a large pray a large number of letters and emails at I curse email sometimes at uh College about what was the college’s position on those two
Crises I haven’t had any about the civil war in Syria the fighting in Sudan what’s happening in uh to the rohinga minority in Burma uh we are I think I think rather selective in what we insist public institutions should take a strong position about my own position is a
Simple one the college doesn’t make statements about International Affairs and to be honest I don’t think that the leaders of Hamas or the cabinet of Israel or the generals in Myanmar are quaking in their boots to find out what the master of mlin has to say about what they’re
Doing now that criticism that it’s useless when it matters sits rather oddly with the criticism that it’s too damn defective by half in other areas but let’s see it in proportion international law has got an enormous number of things to its credit we would not have said even at the worst
Time in the Northern Ireland troubles and I came of age just as that was starting I can remember watching with horror Northern Ireland disintegrate into a form of Anarchy in many respects and yet nobody would have suggested that Northern Irish law had become completely ineffectual people married and divorced
Under it contracts were enforced under it Road accidents were tried under it medical negligence cases were tried under it land land was conveyed under it that in many respects that legal system was extraordinary in that it kept working even though every judge had to have a bodyguard wherever he or she went
And some of the most senior judges were murdered during the course of the troubles well look at international law the law on diplomatic relations probably the oldest area of international or you can trace back to the rules the laws of the Greeks and the Romans the mes and the Persians Works extraordinarily well
With the Striking exception of the hostage taking in Teran in 1979 to 1981 Most states have applied almost all of the rules of the VI a convention on diplomatic relations all of the time despite enormous pressure domestically not to do so in the cases that happened to attract
Interest and in every country there is always a Lobby that will want to say of course this Diplomat should not Escape Justice Just because they’ve got diplomatic immunity and were drunk at the time they were driving when it’s one of our own diplomats who is arrested for something
In another country we tend to feel slight differently about it and people don’t always put two and two together that the these are two sides of the same coin or the law on Air Services nobody can travel by air from one country to another without the legal framework
Created by the Chicago Convention of 1944 and the thousands of Air Services agreements between states that give effect to it shipping is perhaps a little less obvious but the law is definitely there and without it International shipping or getting the Eurostar from here to Paris or Brussels would simply not be
Possible and not just in those routine areas the bits of law that people never really notice has international law been effective take the law on boundaries between states there have been Wars by the Thousand over boundaries on land yet I took part in several cases as an
International lawyer and as a judge in which boundary disputes that had flared up into violence were resolved peacefully by a decision of an international court or an international arbitration tribute and in some respects even more remarkable is the law on Maritime boundaries as a result of a
Process that began in the late 60s and culminated with the law of the sea convention in 1982 we changed completely the approach towards sovereignty over Maritime space we went from a law which basically allowed sovereignty over your territorial Waters out to 3 6 or 12 miles depending on which school of
Thought you belong to and where in the world you came from the three mile rule in stantly was originally how far a cannon could fire um with the world of cruise missiles and icbms um that was never going to be very effective any longer but that that
Change in the law on Maritime space which meant for example that there is not a square millimeter of the Mediterranean that isn’t claimed by at least one state and most of them are claimed by two or three could easily have resulted in a modern day equivalent of the Scramble
For Africa that it didn’t do so is not because of the treaty the terms of which are amongst the most ambiguous I’ve ever come across it’s because of a dis a series of decisions by the international court of justice arbitration tribunals and L ly the international Tribunal for
The law of the sea in Hamburg which hammered out a way to make sense of the principles in the treaty and which have enabled almost all of the maritime boundary disputes in the world to be settled peacefully either through litigation or through negotiation now of course you’re entitled to say yes but
What about the South China Seas China’s ignored the arbitration award against it there well two things about that first first it’s the outlier virtually every other dispute has been settled without anything like that and secondly whatever China has done it hasn’t ignored that award I have yet to speak to a Chinese
International lawyer who didn’t bring the subject up within five minutes of the conversation starting even if we Beg by talking about something completely different and China has spent a small fortune in persuading academics throughout the West to write sponsored articles in journals attacking the award
The award W is not a masterpiece but it is there and China is very well aware that it’s there and it curtails even China’s Ambitions in the South China Sea so there is I think an answer to the argument that international law is ineffective see it in proportion and
Large parts of it have been very effective indeed but where does that leave us with Ukraine or the Middle East or the rohinga or sdan the answer is that no legal system is better or more effective than the society that it sits in the society whose values it
Embodies and international Society is a weak and incoherent Society however rich and Powerful you may be in Britain in the United States in France in any other country you are very unlikely to dispose of greater power than the central institutions of the state virtually every big country in the world
Disposes of a greater power and a greater wealth than the central institutions of international Society the UN is a largely toothless body unless the five permanent members of the security Council are agreed on something there was a brief period when they could agree during the 1990s on the first Iraq
War as an example of the effectiveness that could be brought to bear then the sad reality is that on matters of of National Security the stakes are high for states the power of compulsion against them is weak that’s a criticism not just of international law but a
Criticism of all of us of the society that we are part of but even there it’s worth noticing that the world hasn’t completely given up on international law and international values let me give you two examples that are dear to me first of all the law on the you whether it’s
Legitimate to go to war at all the law that regulates using Force if you like Latin the Yad Bellum which I remember being told in the pinet case we weren’t allowed to use Latin any longer and Lord Lloyd Jones now in the Supreme Court who was there as Amicus curi said I know
That my Lord and I’m very worried because I’m not sure where it leaves me as Amicus curier death definitely the best line of the case I have to say I’ve always regretted not having had the courage to site to the House of Lords one of my favorite little known cases United
States ex-real Gerald Mayo against Satan and his staff on Earth in which a US district judge decided that Satan as Prince of Darkness was a foreign Sovereign entitled to immunity from the jurisdiction of the United States courts I think the Judge had had a lot
To put up with from a litigant in person during the course of that hearing um but to revert to the Yus ad Bellum would we be better off with the world of the 19th and very early 20th century when States took for granted that war was a perfectly legitimate
Means of ensuring their foreign policy objectives that no excuse for it was needed Abe Chase who was the legal adviser to the state department at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis wrote a very incisive article in which he said this area of law works like a speed
Limit people always exceed the speed limit but if the speed limit is 70 they tend to drive at 80 or 90 rather than 100 it has a restraining influence even if it is nowhere near fully affected that I think is under serious challenge today but the very fact that it is being
Challenged shows that the states in question know that there is something to rub against and it is for all of us to ensure that the rub is a very hard one indeed and one which they feel the second is the law that applies once a war has started humanitarian law or if
You prefer the laws of war the Yus in Bellow now that’s designed to introduce a basic level of humanity into any fighting however horrific you only have to look at what has been happening in the Middle East and in Ukraine to realize how often those rules are disregarded but again the disregard for
Them is widely criticized and sanctioned and that can only be a good thing and even in the most vicious of conflicts they still have a certain restraining effect in the Iran Iraq war which is one of the most vicious convention conflicts of my lifetime the international Committee of
The Red Cross enforcing the prisoners of War convention still managed to exchange over a million messages between prisoners of war and their families and it is very clear from looking at the figures that your chances of survival as a prisoner of war were vastly enhanced
Once you’d got your name on an icrc list it’s not something which is wholly disregarded something which is violated far too often I wouldn’t pretend otherwise but again I think the blessing element is greater than the threat let me turn to the third criticism it’s all enforced by Foreign
Judges well that’s of course going to be the case with an international Court a large number of the members of it are likely to come from outside any one country that’s what the word International has always meant to me so the international court of justice the European Court of Human Rights the un
Human rights committee the European court of justice will always have a majority of Judges who are not from this country sadly as I know to my own cost the icj doesn’t have a British judge at the moment but first of all if the UK is involved in a case there we have the
Right to nominate an ad hoc judge for the purpose of those proceedings that comes as a surprise to many people um you’re not stuck without somebody who can explain what your own law what your own rules are are and how they work secondly have a look at the sort of
Decisions that have come out of those courts I’ve said a little bit about the icj its interpretation of law is not something which on the whole is going to cause great alarm I hope that the Attorney General isn’t going to tell me I’m badly off off Mark with that or the
Lord advocate for that matter um but the the fact is that the icj’s judgments have generally been pretty much what we would expect and what we would live with occasionally they’re not but you could say the same about any other court including any Court in this country I’ve
Got a long list of the cases I’ve lost of ought to have won sometimes it wasn’t my fault um it’s also worth remembering at the same time as we look at the the judgments we don’t like terribly that Lord hailam when I was an undergraduate was writing a book saying that the
European convention on human rights was a Bastion of our liberties in this country against a possible left-wing government that wanted to get rid of Independent Schools seize private property without restraint and so on it depends very much on which end of the telescope you happen to be looking
Down at any given moment whether you see the European Court of Human Rights was on the danger side or the better side I do think however that it’s important to face up to three issues three problems about International courts that really are difficulties and that the courts need to
Address the first is there are frankly limits to what a court can do in practice now this is very difficult for the court take for example a case that I was involved in as a judge um I can’t break confidences about deliberations obviously but I will tell you a little
Bit about the background the Marshal Islands brought an action against nine states um known to have nuclear weapons arguing that their continued possession of nuclear weapons and in particular their decision to increase their nuclear Armament or to change and update their nuclear Armament was a violation of international law now
This was a catastrophic case in my view first of all it touched on a subject that no matter what the international court of justice might say the those states were never going to change their nuclear policy just because of a judgment and I think a bit more intelligent restraint could have been
Called for by the government of the martial Islands on this I can understand why the martial Islands took the view they did they were the testing ground for nuclear weapons in the early 1950s and their population suffered greatly as a result but if you ask yourself what can be achieved by this
Judgment you should never in my view embark on litigation just in order to score a point that’s Folly and it’s dangerous Folly in an area like this it was made worse by the fact that only three of the states India Pakistan and the United Kingdom could plausibly
Be said to be subject to the jurisdiction of the international court of justice on an issue like this now leave aside for the moment India and Pakistan where you could make an argument that in each case their interest in nuclear weapons is very much bound up with with the other states
Interest in nuclear weapons and just look for a minute at the United Kingdom we do not have nuclear weapons because of India or Pakistan we have nuclear weapons because of the Soviet Union as it then was and the Russian Federation today and because of China and the same is true of the
United States and France so a judgment against the United Kingdom to which these other states were not party would be a a waste of everybody’s time an exercise in uh hot air and nothing else and for that reason I’m very glad that the court threw the case out I think
It’s very dangerous to engage in that type of I don’t normally like the word but that type of lawfare which was basically what you had here and and for the same reason I think one should be cautious about assuming that requests for the court to express its view on something like climate
Change is terribly helpful climate change is somewhat different because what’s being sought there is an advisory opinion of the Court not a contentious judgment and it may be that the court will sharpen up the ideas about what the various treaties actually mean but I think it would be extremely
Dangerous to read too much into what is possible in circumstances like that so that’s the first problem it’s very difficult for a court to deal with because the icj has rightly taken the view that just because an issue has a political Dimension doesn’t mean it can’t deal with the legal Dimension if
It accepted the contrary proposition it would hardly give any judgments at all because the nature of international legal issues that go to the court is that they usually have a political Dimension as well it’s therefore very hard for the court to say we can’t deal
With this case but I think it would be right to say we cannot deal with it if what is going on involves other states that are not here and you cannot separate the obligations of one from the other there was a very interesting recent instance of that same problem in
The case that South Africa brought against Israel where the court gave its interim measures order last week because the principal relief that South Africa was seeking was an order for a ceasefire which would of course have been directed to one party in a conflict when the other party to that conflict wasn’t
Before the court wasn’t Bound By any decision that it gave um I cannot see myself how a ceasefire could possibly have been decreed in that case and the court didn’t do so and it’s interesting that it rejected that part of South Africa’s Case by an enormous majority then the second issue which I
Think courts International courts need to address is the length of time that they take um when I became reader of the middle Temple by the way it’s lovely to be here in the inner temple in this fabulous lecture room it’s wonderful to see what what resources and the LT waffer can do
Together um for the facilities that an in of court has got um we were perhaps luckier with the l waffer in Middle Temple and less fortunate with the resources but be that as it may um when I became reader of middle Temple I took as my motto for my coat of arms Jia
Nescit phes which I thought was rather clever Justice Knows No Boundaries No Limits um my closest friend who was a court of appeal judge who my best man many years ago said yes certainly doesn’t know any time limits does it and it’s true that the process of international Justice is exceedingly
Slow and if any of you here is waiting for an arbitration award from me I apologize for that um sometimes that is more the a reflection of what the parties want than anything else the different cases against Serbia and Montenegro over genocide allegedly committed in the war in Yugoslavia took
Forever because neither state was Keen to push them forward they were rather hoping I think for a political settlement in the meantime and it was right that the court should reflect that desire but the delay is a serious problem it’s worth looking at what it comes from in the case of the European
Court of Human Rights is because they simply do not have the resources to deal with what is currently a load of 70,000 cases awaiting judgment and if we want them to be swifter we are going to have to pay more and provide those resources but delay is a serious issue
And I’m not quite sure how we can best address it in the different tribunals and the third is interim measures I think on the whole all of the international courts have a good record about proper due process when they are giving judgments on the merits they are
Scrupulous they are careful in what they do and in the hearing that they give to both parties is provisional measures can be a different matter now anyone who practices in an English Court knows that an interlocutory injunction particularly one obtained X party can be a rather dangerous weapon it’s very easy to sit
Back and say ah yes but it’s only interlocutory it’ll only bind until the case is decided on the merits but that may be several years away even further in an international court now the international court of justice approach to interim measures of protection is first of all that they are legally
Binding a decision which surprised some because the English text of the statute of the international Court doesn’t quite fit that the French text does however and you have to look at both texts together and the court decided in a death penalty case appropriately enough um that the measure in question was
Binding but those measures are not granted ex party the only time they will be granted exp party is for a very short period of time in a case of real emergency either by the president requesting them which is not binding or in the one case of a
Death penalty uh which was to be the man was to be executed the following day the court gave an order which was binding only until they could hear both parties so you get your inter parties hearing afterwards now a problem in my my view with rule 39 measures in the European
Court of Human Rights is that you do not have that sometimes they are interpares but it is it has been possible to go to the court to go to a judge and get an interim order which may effectively put a stop to what the state was going to do
Permanently because the delay is such that it cannot in effect ever be put right at a later date if the measure should not have been granted now the court has done a lot to tighten up on rule 39 these latest reforms make it um something to be used only in exceptional
Circumstances but I think it would be better still if there were to be a procedural change which would ensure that where a measure was granted exp party the state always had the opportunity either to appeal it to a panel of Judges or to come back for an interp parties hearing with a complete
Clean sheet within a a very short period of time I do not think that decisions as important as this should be taken which are binding on a state where the state has not been heard in respect of it and that is one of the the reforms that I would like to
See and lastly something about preventing Common Sense we all know what needs to be done about and you can fill in the Gap with whatever you want migrant boats in the channel anything you wish we all know what needs to be done International decisions are stopping us doing
It well again the problem there is it depends very much on your standpoint other states may feel equally strongly about this I can remember listening to um John Bolton from the United States talking about us funding for the United Nations and saying at the beginning of his talk I think that the
Question whether there is a legal obligation for the United States to pay this money to the United Nations is the single least important question that we need to consider and I sat back and thought and I am sure that Saddam Hussein would agree entirely with what you’ve just said the question
Of whether there is a legal obligation for me to comply with those disarmament resolutions of the United Nations is the single least important question that we have to consider and I’d like to end with this thought law international law is a single edifice if you take a wrecking ball to
One bit of that edifice this do not be surprised if it damages bits that you feel you would like to keep as well let me give you one example for all of those people in this country who will say well the European convention on human rights is meant
Foreigners interfering with what we want to do I wonder how many of them ever think that exactly the same argument comes from the opposite end of the political Spectrum about matters like invest State protection I sit as an arbitrator in the IIT system as a result of that system up companies from the
West many of them British who have been shamefully treated by the states in which they have invested in good faith have been able to obtain a remedy been able to obtain compensation and that is criticized every day as a case of foreigners overriding The Sovereign will of a state
To expropriate or to change its economy to go back on its promises or whatever and the argument that they use is exactly the same as the argument used from the right about the European Court of Human Rights and to be blunt we have handed that argument to them the wrecking ball
That was swung at one bit of the edifice now hits another bit as well I may say I’d say exactly the same if I was talking to the Society of labor lawyers about the criticism of investor State arbitration hands an argument to those who criticize the European Court of
Human Rights and it goes even deeper than that I do not think that international law can be separated from National Law the rule of law is one and indivisible if you once start thinking it’s okay to break bits of it you will end up breaking it all you will end up
Not with a rule of law just a rule by law and that is something which I simply do not think we should contemplate let me leave it at that [Applause] um we’ve heard a wonderful lecture delivered with quiet Authority and Panache that you’d expect from a former president of the Cambridge Union
Professor of the London School of economics and judge of the icj as well as King’s Council it was a tour to force I think we’ll all agree and it was very helpful to be reminded of the place of international law to remind us that Britain has been active in making international law for
200 years and to remind us that if you have the power to make a treaty and once you have made a treaty it won’t be any good if anyone can just come along and say let’s change it and depart from it that isn’t how things work and to remind
Us that these are international contracts which govern civilized Behavior I was interested to hear that he believes that we should have a conservative approach to interpretation and to be reminded I think it was helpful of good decisions of the European Court of human rights for example not in uh the ending of the
Rule about prisoners correspondence with our lawyers at that time case of Goldman is it gold something gold something I sh had a room as a very Junior barister with Harry wolf who had to argue that um interesting that actually the Secretary of State presumably the home office um thought that was rather a
Beneficial decision even if he had had to argue against it because the prison Governors and prison officers felt so strongly it was very good for us I think also to be reminded of all those conventions which govern every day Commerce and international life the Vienna conventions to ensure diplomatic
Community the Chicago convention for Air Services um the rulings on International Maritime boundaries these are all things which we just take for granted that have perhaps um forgotten and we pick on individual bits which don’t suit us at the time what about dangerous challenges to the the principles governing
Justification for war at the present time with the G chief of the general staff I think it is calling for our army to be increased we should be all too worried or at least thoughtful about where we might be going and we need countries actually to stand by those
Principles as for enforcement by Foreign judges he said says and I have no reason to doubt him that the icj’s judgments are usually what we’d expect and it was interesting to be reminded that haam saw the or Lord ham saw the European Court of human rights
As a Bastion against um one might call uh majority governments seeking to impose their will and confiscate assets or otherwise abuse their power we have to remember that um particularly with some of the legislation which might yet come before Parliament finally um we heard about interim measures the crucial difference between the
Icj and the European Court of human rights that you get the opportunity to be heard at the um what we would call the return date ex party order made you get back the next day or the next week or whatever but you have a proper chance to
Argue it before it you get locked in instead of having to wait perhaps two years and it may then be too late as we saw with the flight to Rwanda so I agree we shouldn’t TR try and take a wrecking ball to part um hold on to nurse for fear of
Worse gosh what a tremendous evening this has been thank you very much [Applause] Christopher go many thanks for that boat of thanks we’re now finished um uh but if any of you by any reason are not yet members of the society don’t forget to on the website and you can join up
Online so the more that join us the better we can do to bang the lawyers cause within the conservative party and the conservative party’s cause amongst lawyers thanks for coming [Applause] tonight