The Iranian Review for UN Studies
Volume:3 Issue: 1, Winter and Spring 2020

According to Article 78 of the Rules of the International Court of Justice, the Court may request information from the parties on any matter connected with the implementation of any provisional measures it has indicated. While this provision makes it more likely that the provisional measures will be implemented, it is notable that it remains unexplored in the Court’s case-law. In the case relating to the “Alleged Violations of the Treaty of Amity”, the Court adopted an innovative approach and, contrary to its practice, exercised its power under Article 78 only a few months after it ordered the provisional measures. It thus requested the United States of America to notify the Court of any measures taken to execute the provisional measures within a maximum of 48 days. It is argued here that repetition and confirmation of this innovative approach in future cases will make it possible for the Court to act as a supervisory entity assuring the implementation of any provisional measures it has ordered.

In recent decades, the different aspects of environmental crisis have been depicted. Based on such a dangerous situation, some studies have been made from different perspectives and some solutions have been provided. One of these studies, as suggested by Michael Lynch on environmental issues and crimes against environment, concerns green criminology (“GC”). Additionally, two scholars, Nigel South and Avi Brisman, have proposed merging two theories with a view to offering better solutions in this area. Likewise, the United Nations, as its mission, has been involved in these kinds of environmental issues and based on that, some instruments have been approved. The present article employs descriptive analytical research approach to define green criminology. It also proposes some other analyses to justify merging these two theories. In addition, it provides suggestions to help the environment and the coming generation in light of some related UN documents. This article will examine some practical solutions based on both green cultural criminal theory and UN aims for solving environmental crisis.

On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization referred to the COVID-19 outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern. Since then, many governments have been trying to set rules to control the situation. However, it was clear from the outset that they would fail to tackle this problem if non-state actors such as businesses or companies did not take appropriate measures in that respect. Nevertheless, many businesses have either refused to comply with the relevant restrictions or sought to change them. If a company does not provide the facilities required for this situation or submits a false report concerning the essential measures, the world may face a chain of events impacts of which would be global. Therefore, the international community might consider specific responsibilities that should be shouldered by these actors. This challenge raises profound questions about the role that corporates, as non-state actors, may play in cooperating with states and international organizations. This article argues that, under these circumstances, these non-state actors bear responsibility for their failure to implement the required measures.

International courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ), have always played a crucial role in the process of identifying rules of customary international law (CIL). In this area, especially in recent decades, the approach that is employed as international jurisprudence has been modified because the principles of humanity and humanitarian law have evolved. Unlike the traditional approach that relies initially on the practice of states, this newly-emerged approach – which was also supported by the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (ILC) in its fifth report in 2018 – seeks to identify opinio juris in the first place. What we have discussed in the present article is the necessity of the introduction of a new approach to the identification of customary rules in international law. For this purpose, we attempted to collect and analyze the concurring opinions and arguments that exist in judicial jurisprudence of various international tribunals such as the ICJ, as well as those of the ILC as ubiquitous evidence to establish a change in the process of the identification of custom.

In the early hours of 3 January 2020, the United States military carried out a drone attack to assassinate General Ghassem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guard Corps-Quds Force, and his entourage at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. The attack, which was ordered by US President Donald Trump, also killed nine others, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, de facto leader of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces and founder of the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia.Unsurprisingly, the assassination of General Soleimani soon turned into a hotly-debated issue on a global scale. The crux of the debate among politicians, international law experts and international relations analysts revolved around whether the US drone strike was permissible according to the relevant rules of international law.