Northern Jurist

Good day,

It has been a while since I have last posted (it seems to be a pattern), so I thought I would write a minor update.

I have had a busy start to the year with school work, doctoral research and personal life.

This was the first semester since I was admitted into a doctoral program. I have taken four courses, which ate up quite a bit of my time. I am still completing one. Along with the dissertation, doctoral students still need to earn other credits.

I continue to hone my research plan and methodology as I read a lot. I will not be taking courses this summer, so I will be full-time working on my research (I am on a grant). My plan is to share some of my research, or at least things I find interesting, here on this blog.

Hopefully, through more content, there will be more engagement on the website.

This week marks the return of the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction or BBNJ. The Fourth session of the conference is scheduled to take place between the 7th and 18th of this month in New York. There is pressure to reach an agreement on a new legally binding instrument under UNCLOS. I will follow the conference closely as any development from this will likely be included in my doctoral research.

In my last post, I stated that I would write a piece regarding Turkey closing off access to the Black Sea for warships. There has been a call for articles regarding maritime security, in which I will likely submit the piece to that, instead of on this blog. If selected, I may link to the article.

As all of you must be quite aware, these are some troubling times. After two years of a pandemic, we have now moved into the early stages of a potential global conflict. I live in one of the Nordic countries, and you can feel the tension. For instance, iodine tablets have been sold out at pharmacies due to nuclear accident/attack fear.

I thought to write a post regarding my opinion on the many legal aspects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The issues seem to grow by the day, war of aggression, self-defence, self-determination, war crimes, ICJ application, ICC investigations, and whether Russia can be removed from the UNSC (or are they even a legit USSR successor). I follow many intelligent international legal scholars who have varying opinions on the matter, and since my expertise is in Law of the Sea, I think I will back away from most of these topics. However, Turkey has flip-flopped on closing the Black Sea to Russian warships. I will do a post on that this weekend.

My Ph.D. research is still in the beginning stages. I am currently taking a swedish language class, research tools, and a research ethics class. These, especially swedish, take up a lot of my time. The spring and summer will be dedicated to my research and writing before taking courses in the fall. I plan on taking legal methods and legal theory courses.

Since my last post, I had a little book recommendation/review selected and posted to the International Law Reporter Blog. I was pretty happy with that. I have also received a funding grant from my University, which will hold me over until September.

Anyway, stay safe and healthy, everyone.

I have forgotten to make a post regarding some very exciting news in my life: I have been accepted into a doctoral program.

I am accepted into a Ph.D. in social sciences (Public International Law). Although it is not a legal doctorate, my proposal is heavily based on legal research methods. Apart from the preliminary research used in my proposal, I am very much at the beginning stages of this project and I plan on sharing different things from my research on this blog.

And yes, the topic of the dissertation is law of the sea/maritime law related.

There is a campaign underway to raise 30 million dollars to remove 30 million pounds of trach from our seas. It is being run by a couple of popular YouTubers, including MrBeast, who have previous experience in raising money to fund environmental projects (#TeamTrees).

Please check out their website at https://teamseas.org/.

Good day everyone! Here is my follow-up post to the last case I discussed.

The earlier judgment, in this case, had an interesting ruling that is worth discussion.

There was a Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) between the countries, which had provisions that the delimitation of the maritime boundary would take place after the outer limits of the continental shelf of both nations were decided. The Court dismissed this. But the more interesting question of law regards the settlement of disputes found under Part XV of UNCLOS. Both Somalia and Kenya are state parties to the ICJ and UNCLOS.

Kenya argued that based on article 287(5), the ICJ does not have jurisdiction, and the dispute must be handled by Annex VII arbitration. However, under article 36(2) of the ICJ Statute, there is a compulsory component.

UNCLOS article 287(5) – If the parties to a dispute have not accepted the same procedure for the settlement of the dispute, it may be submitted only to arbitration in accordance with Annex VII, unless the parties otherwise agree.

ICJ article 36(2) – The states parties to the present Statute may at any time declare that they recognize as compulsory ipso facto and without special agreement, in relation to any other state accepting the same obligation, the jurisdiction of the Court in all legal disputes concerning:

Therefore, any state party to the ICJ statute has agreed by default to the jurisdiction of the ICJ. This has the effect of making it rare for an Annex VII arbitration to be triggered since most of the state parties of UNCLOS are also state parties to the ICJ statute. However, Kenya made a reservation to article 36(2), which can be found here. As a Canadian, I found Kenya’s reservation to be of particular interest since it is very similar to Canada’s reservation, found here, starting on page 9.

The ICJ dismissed Kenya’s arguments regarding paragraph 1 of their reservation. Neither article 287(5) of UNCLOS nor the supposed MOU count as an agreement or a potential agreement (“shall agree”) that would bypass ICJ compulsory jurisdiction. Therefore, the reservation was not sufficient, and there must be evidence of an agreement or a likely agreement of another dispute resolution method, apart from the wording of UNCLOS.

Kenya raised two principles of law to support their claim that was also dismissed that is worth mentioning for educational purposes.

Lex posterior (derogat priori) – The principle that a later statute negates the effect of a prior one if the later statute expressly repeals, or is obviously repugnant to, the earlier law.[i]

Lex specialis (derogat legi generali) – The more specific rules will prevail over the more general rules.[ii]

I did not cite paragraphs of the judgment or go into the other aspects of it too heavily, but I think this judgment is worth reading if you are interested in jurisdiction issues. All countries with similar reservations, such as Canada, need to revisit them with the understanding of this ruling.

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[i] Bryan A Garner and Henry Campbell Black (eds), Black’s Law Dictionary (Eleventh edition, Thomson Reuters 2019) 1095.

[ii] ‘Lex Specialis | How Does Law Protect in War? – Online Casebook’ <https://casebook.icrc.org/glossary/lex-specialis> accessed 8 November 2021.

This week, the ICJ reached a judgment in the maritime boundary dispute between Somalia and Kenya. The case had some interesting aspects, such as potential agreements made when the countries were colonized.

The Judgment can be found here.

In paragraph 214, the Court found that:

• There was no past agreement between the two countries regarding the boundary;
• By a vote of 10 to 4 determined the boundary up until 200 nautical miles. See Judgment for exact boundry points;
• By a vote of 9 to 5, decided that the boundary would continue to the outer limits of the continental shelf. Both countries have submitted claims to have their continental shield extended past 200 nautical miles, as per the rules set out in UNCLOS;
• And rejected Somalia’s claim that Kenya violated its international obligations by its conduct in the disputed area.

Once again, the ICJ used their 3-stage method to determine the maritime boundary. It is important to note that this method is not in UNCLOS. The description of the method can be found on page 3 of the Judgment.

My interest in this case began with the question of jurisdiction. That Judgment can be found here, and I will break it down in my next post.

Well, the summer is over, and September is in full swing.

After June, I was a bit burnt out from the moot court competition, so I needed some time to unwind in July.  Next came August, and it was preparation time for Ph.D. applications. Many schools where I live had their rounds open in late August, and I spent most of the time searching for a supervisor. It was pretty challenging! I had a few rejections and a couple of non-replies, but the rejections were very positive. Nobody destroyed my proposal but had other reasons they could not be a supervisor, while still saying my idea seemed excellent. It is a 3-4 year commitment, so I understand. But now that this season’s rounds are over, I will be coming back to this blog… More like finally starting it.

There have been some interesting developments in the law of the sea world over the summer.

• I had made a post regarding the Kerch strait earlier in the year. Tensions have risen in that area.
• The oral rounds in The M/T “San Padre Pio” (No. 2) Case (Switzerland/Nigeria) before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea were postponed until further notice.
• The ILC recently released a report from their 2021 meeting. The discussion regarding the issues of the territorial limits changing due to the rising sea levels was of particular interest.

So, that is my update for now.

Thanks for reading,

NJ

The 2021 International Criminal Court Moot Competition is finally over. I was lucky enough to be selected to be a part of a team representing my university. This moot is one of the largest in the world, with over 95 teams making it to the international rounds this year.

I believe the case problem came out in late October or early November, and from there, a lot of time, energy, and effort was put into this event. I wrote and pleaded as the prosecution for our team.

Although we were eliminated after the preliminary rounds (in the international round), the experience was very enriching. I thought I had a firm grip of international criminal law prior, but this competition challenges you to apply the knowledge in novel ways. Also, this was my first moot; previously, I have never argued or debated in a formal setting. I applied for the competition to get the experience of being a trial lawyer. I have not gone into any detail yet on my circumstances, but the path I have gone on in law will leave me on the academic side of things vice a practicing lawyer. Though, I must say, this experience has left me wanting more and to find ways to practice law. It was thoroughly fun, and I found out a lot about myself and what I can do.

However, there were some drawbacks. It is very time-consuming. There is a reason that it is worth 15-credits while an ordinary university course is worth 5. You really need to have free time to participate fully, which means not taking other classes or, in my case, even working part-time. I was taking thesis seminars and also had to write my master’s thesis alongside the competition. I ended up dropping the language classes I had planned.

Another negative was participating during a pandemic. There was no trip to The Hague, which means no networking and experiencing the ICC in person. Hopefully, one day I get the opportunity to go there.

What’s up next?

As my previous post alluded to, I now have some free time to devote to writing here. So stay tuned.

Links:

Wiki Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_Moot

Good day to the small number of readers of this blog.

I have been absent lately due to a moot court competition. Once the event is over, I will be quite active through the summer with a few projects on here:

1) Videos – I will start to make videos on law/cases

2) More article style blog posts

3) Non-law items

Alongside this, I will be starting to research and write a paper I wish to submit for publication. I will keep that a little close to the chest. I also plan on preparing a research proposal for a Ph.D. program, which I might discuss from time to time.

Thanks for bearing with me.