Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T23:24:20.010Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Time and the Law: International Perspectives on an Old Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Rosalyn Higgins
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I begin by confessing a general fascination with the concept of time. I puzzle endlessly over the relationship between time and matter, and the insistence of scientists that before the Big Bang time did not exist. I grapple with the relationship between time and speed, and the fact that if we could travel at the speed of light time would not move. I seek to grasp Stephen Hawking's recent conversion to the view that, in the physical world, time may yet run in reverse. I am intrigued that our concepts of time came to Australia only with the First Fleet, for aboriginal time was cyclical rather than linear. Events could recur, dead people could live again. I find exhilarating the idea that we see at this moment, through our telescopes, stars that no longer exist. I love the objective reality of the equator and the total artificiality of the meridian, and the intention that this felicitous fiction is the place for us to see in the “real beginning” of the next century.

Type
Article
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , July 1997 , pp. 501 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 1997

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.)

References

1. Davidson, G., The Unforgiving Minute, p.8.Google Scholar

2. Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions (Greece v. United Kingdom), Judgment No.2, (Jurisdiction) (1924) P.C.I.J. Ser.A, No.2, p.6 at p.35Google Scholar; Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (United Kingdom v. Iran), Preliminary Objection, Judgment, I.C.J. Rep. 1952, 93, 106.Google Scholar

3. See Second Annual Report of the PCIJ, Ser.E, No.2, p.77.Google Scholar

4. See the excellent study by Alexandrov, S., Reservations in Unilateral Declarations Accepting the Compulsory Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (1995), Annex II, pp.142–143.Google Scholar

5. Idem, p.150.

6. See e.g. the dissenting opinions of Judges Winiarski and Badawi in Right of Passage over Indian Territory, Merits, Judgment, I.C.J. Rep. 1960, p.6 at p.73.Google Scholar

7. Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria, Judgment (1939) P.C.I.J. Ser.A/B, No.77, p.64 at p.81.Google Scholar

8. Right of Passage over Indian Territory, Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Rep. 1957, 125, 142Google Scholar; Merits, , supra n.6, at pp.35–36.Google Scholar See also the discussion in Rosenne, The Law and Practice of the International Court (2nd rev. edn), pp.483–489.Google Scholar

9. I.C.J. Rep. 1959, 21–30.Google Scholar

10. Harris, , Warbrick, and O'Boyle, , Law of the European Convention on Human Rights (1995), p.640.Google Scholar

11. X v. France, No.9587/81 (1982) 29 D.R. 228; and Art.26, European Convention on Human Rights.Google Scholar

12. P.C.I.J. Ser.A/B, No.74, p.10.Google Scholar

13. Ibrahima Gueye et al. v. France, No.196/1985 (views adopted 3 Apr. 1989), 35th Session, Human Rights Committee.Google Scholar

14. Submission under r.91,8 Apr. 1987, referring to the French declaration of 17 Feb. 1984.Google Scholar

15. No.516/1992, views adopted 31 July 1995, 54th Session of the Human Rights Committee.Google Scholar

16. (1995) 20 E.H.R.R. 505.Google Scholar

17. Idem, p.523.

18. Idem, p.524.

19. I.C.J. Rep. 1996, para. 34.Google Scholar

20. (1979–1980) 2 E.H.R.R. 330 at p.352.Google Scholar

21. Idem, para.58.

22. The common core of both provides: “No one shall be guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed.”

23. R. v. R. [1992] 1 A.C. 599.Google Scholar

24. SW v. United Kingdom, The Times, 5 Dec. 1995.Google Scholar

25. Report of the War Crimes Enquiry, Cm.744 (1989), para.6.44.Google Scholar See also Greenwood, , “The War Crimes Act 1991”, in Fox, and Meyer, (Eds), Effecting Compliance (1993), pp.221–225.Google Scholar

26. Dayton Peace Agreement, initialled at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, 21 Nov. 1995 and signed in Paris, 14 Dec. 1995: GA Doc.A/50/750 “General Framework for Peace in Bosnia and Herzogovina”.Google Scholar

27. Security Council Res.955 (1994) establishing the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.Google Scholar

28. See Parker, P., “The Politics of Indemnities, Truth Telling and Reconciliation in South Africa: Ending Apartheid without Forgetting” 17 H.R.L.J. (1996) 1.Google Scholar

29. The Treaty of Waitangi had provided for the ceding of sovereignty to the British Crown; a guarantee that Maoris could retain their lands and other material and cultural treasures for so long as they wished; and an assurance that Maoris would enjoy equal rights of citizenship with all other British subjects.

30. The Office of Treaty Settlements attached to the Ministry of Justice negotiates and implements claims settlements (including claims advanced through the Waitangi Tribunal).

31. In 1994 the government released a number of proposals for the global settlement of claims. These proved unacceptable to public opinion.

32. Precedent in the World Court (1996).Google Scholar

33. Emmott v. Minister for Social Welfare and the Attorney-General [1991] I.R.L.R. 387.Google Scholar See also the ECJ's reference to the principle of legal certainty in Gebroeders van Es Douane Agenten v. Inspecteur der Inroerrechten en Accijnzen (143/93, [1996] E.C.R. 1–431 at para.27)

34. Stubbings and Others v. United Kingdom, Case No.36–37/1995, Times Human Rights Law Report, 24 Oct 1996.Google Scholar

35. Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Rep. 1996.Google Scholar

36. I.C.J. Rep. 1992, 240.Google Scholar

37. Idem, p.254.

38. Idem, p.255.

39. Adopted by General Assembly Res.2391(XXIII), 26 Nov. 1968.Google Scholar

40. Council of Europe, European Conventions and Agreements, Vol.III, 1972–1974 (Strasbourg, 1975), pp.212–215.Google Scholar

41. For an excellent analysis, see F. Weiss, “Time Limits for the Prosecution of Crimes Against International Law” (1982) III B.Y.I.L. 162–195.Google Scholar

42. (1949) II U.N.R.I.A.A. p.829 at p.845.Google Scholar

43. Ibid.

44. The meaning and scope of the inter-temporal rule were the subject of contending pleadings, written and oral, in Case Concerning the Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahi-riya/Chad), but the Court's judgment turned on different issues and it thus never had need to pronounce upon these arguments.

45. I.C.J. Rep. 1966, 294.Google Scholar

46. Judgment of the Court, Tyrer case, 25 Apr. 1978, para.31, publ. Court A, Vol.26, pp.15, 16.Google Scholar

47. Supra n.8.

48. I.C.J. Rep. 1952, 176, 185–187.Google Scholar

49. Award of 14 Feb. 1985; English trans, in (1988) 25 I.L.M. 251.Google Scholar

50. I.C.J. Rep. 1978, 32, para.77.Google Scholar

51. Third Report, draft Art.56.

52. (1964) 1 Y.B.I.L.C. 34, para.10.Google Scholar

53. Legal Consequences for States of the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) I.C.J. Rep. 1971, 31.Google Scholar

54. Petroleum Development Ltd v. Sheikh of Abu Dhabi (1951) 18 I.L.R. 144.Google Scholar

55. Idem, p.152.

56. I.C.J. Rep. 1978, 32, para.77.Google Scholar

57. Annuaire de l'lnstitut de droit international (Vol.56), p.536.Google Scholar

58. T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.