Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T12:11:54.710Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Commissions of Inquiry and the Jus ad Bellum

from PART II - MECHANISMS FOR RESTRAINING THE UNLAWFUL USE OF FORCE AND ENHANCING ACCOUNTABILITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2018

Leila Nadya Sadat
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
Catherine Harwood
Affiliation:
PhD candidate and staff member at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University
Larissa van den Herik
Affiliation:
Vice Dean of Leiden Law School and Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre
Get access

Summary

Commissions of inquiry are not among the protagonists within the jus ad bellum architecture. Nonetheless, historically, several international commissions have been established in different institutional settings specifically to inquire into situations involving the use of force. These include theDogger Bank Inquiry into Russian firing at a U.K. trawler, the Lytton Inquiry regarding Japanese military action in Manchuria in 1931, and the 1961 Red Crusader Inquiry into a naval incident involving the United Kingdom and Denmark. A few contemporary commissions have also addressed jus ad bellum questions, even if not all were explicitlymandated to do so. These contemporary inquiries include international commissions established by the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General, and Human Rights Council (HRC); regional commissions and national commissions. The Human Rights Council in particular has been very active lately in establishing commissions of inquiry.Despite the identity of their parent body, the HRC commissions have generallymade reference to areas of law beyond human rights, particularly international humanitarian law and international criminal law.

Given their direct engagement with law, commissions of inquiry have loosely been characterized as a new form of adjudication offering some accountability prospects. As these commissions tend to operate in peace and security contexts, this Chapter assesses the current and potential role of commissions of inquiry in the overall legal framework regarding the use of force. The Chapter aims to locate commissions of inquiry within the greater jus ad bellum architecture. It portrays the diversity of the inquiry landscape and zeroes in on the Kosovo and Iraq Inquiries as concrete examples of inquiry practice operating in situations that evoked fundamental jus ad bellum questions. The Chapter also offers thoughts on the accountability potential of commissions of inquiry and on how they relate to other jus ad bellum actors.

Section II first presents the most relevant contemporary international, regional, and domestic commissions of inquiry and interrogates how they have construed a jus ad bellum dimension into their mandates. Given the Human Rights Council's activity in establishing commissions of inquiry, it is specifically examined whether, given the recent activation of the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, future HRC commissions of inquiry may be expected to become more active in the jus ad bellum domain.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×