This note tries to determine the most appropriate way to position international administrative tribunals (established by a number of inter-governmental organizations) in the public international legal order, and identify the substance of the so-called international administrative law applied therein. There is an emerging group of laws arising from numerous international administrative tribunal decisions that form a substantive body of legal rules applicable therein: a law of international civil service. Judges in those tribunals, who look for an appropriate source whenever they face a non-liquet situation, use the concept of international administrative law to overcome such difficulties. Judges should not hide themselves behind an ambiguous notion of international administrative law or general principles, but apply the law of international civil service with confidence.

This article examines the approaches taken by the Asian Development Bank Administrative Tribunal and the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank Group in deciding discrimination claims. The article reviews the basic features of each tribunal before examining their jurisprudence on equality of treatment and issues of information disclosure in discrimination cases. Decisions to date have addressed claims of disparate treatment relating to various aspects of remuneration and benefits as well as allegations of arbitrary treatment vis-à-vis others similarly situated. A few cases have involved allegations of discrimination on the basis of sex/gender, one of several protected grounds in equality law. The number of judicial dissents in discrimination cases suggests that the tribunals have encountered some difficulty in handling them. The article points to a gradual but still incomplete approximation of the decisions of such tribunals to contemporary developments in discrimination law, and suggests a possible way forward.

The first international administrative tribunal was set up in 1927. Since the Second World War many worldwide and regional international organizations were set up. They either created their own tribunal or accepted the jurisdiction of another tribunal for the adjudication of employment disputes. Dozens of such tribunals are functioning at present. Recently a number of organizations have withdrawn from the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization (ILOAT), and either set up their own tribunal or accepted the jurisdiction of another tribunal, which amounts to forum shopping. However, the proliferation of tribunals entails the risk of diverging judgments. Some cases have indeed occurred over the years, which have often been followed by calls for the merging of tribunals, or for the creation of a common appellate court. Some studies were made, but no concrete action was ever undertaken. Generally, there has been some convergence; however, it is likely that the current proliferation will remain.

International organizations create independent administrative tribunals to decide employment disputes that jurisdictional immunities place beyond the reach of national courts. The Asian Development Bank Administrative Tribunal's express mandate is to enforce the terms of employment of staff members but, in discharging that function, it has not hesitated to review the validity of those terms and strike down those that contravene the Bank's basic legal documents and “general principles of law”. This paper reviews how this power of judicial review emerged in the case law of the Tribunal, and what it has meant for both the institutional autonomy of international organizations and the fair treatment of staff members.

Denied citizenship and persecuted in Myanmar, the Rohingya have fled to various countries, including Malaysia. However, Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. It also has weak domestic legal and regulatory mechanisms to protect refugees and asylum-seekers. In this paper, the authors study the treatment of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia and suggest how the Malaysian legal system can better protect them by adapting international legal practices.

President Rodrigo Duterte won on a law-and-order campaign promise to fatten the fish in Manila Bay with the corpses of criminals. By the time the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute, the body count stood at a reported 30,000, a fifth of whom were openly killed in Philippine National Police (PNP) anti-drug operations. Duterte has since been accused of Crimes Against Humanity, inter alia, as “a person effectively acting as a military commander” under Article 28(a) of the Rome Statute for failing to prevent, repress, and report the crimes of his police subordinates. This study tests the veracity of that claim. It seeks to determine whether Duterte, as the Chief Executive and overall superior of the PNP – statutorily, a civilian group – may be held liable as a military-like commander under the doctrine of command responsibility. At the core of this query lies a singular concern far from simple: the meaning of military-likeness.

This paper brings forward Justice Pal's dissenting opinion at the Tokyo Tribunal to add to Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) literature on international criminal law and the rules of evidence and procedure. It is part of a TWAIL effort to scrutinize the everyday practices of international prosecutions through procedural and evidentiary rules. By locating and situating Justice Pal's reasoning within the broader academic literature on dissents in international criminal law, it is possible to illustrate how and why Justice Pal's views were obscured as a relevant dissent. From this vantage point, this paper pursues Justice Pal's legacy as it relates to the rules of evidence and procedure in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. It traces the evolution of the judicial power to draft and amend these rules, and examines the impact of these decisions on the everyday functions of the tribunals and how truth is determined.

The first two decades of the twenty-first century saw the rapid rise of China in the global stage. During this period, China acquired valuable knowledge and expertise in International Economic Law (IEL), and expanded its trade and investments across the globe. The emergence of China has benefitted many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in terms of trade and investment; however, it is unclear whether IEL has contributed with the expansion of China's economic relations with LAC. This article aims to address this question by reviewing the strategies and mechanisms employed by China to promote trade, investment and development finance in the region. Its central argument is that China has opted to engage with LAC using an eclectic platform that combines hard law instruments and institutions as well as other soft law mechanisms.

While the Responsibility to Protect (“R2P”) doctrine synergizes modern international law against atrocities, its legal underpinnings formed in Europe much earlier. Scholarship thus attributes R2P's origin to the Just War traditions as early as the fourth century, which particularly endorsed external interventions against tyranny. The Ancient Chinese had championed similar ideas of Just War, encompassing jus ad bellum recognition of war against unworthy sovereigns and jus in bello. Nevertheless, the Chinese traditions charted a different course. While in Europe, Just War rationalized the interventionist protection of co-religionists during the Reformation and later of oppressed Christians ruled by the Ottomans; the Chinese humanitarian expedition was discontinued by the advent of the Qin Empire. As R2P literature largely ignores ancient Chinese doctrines and practice, this paper investigates how they veered away from the pre-Qin traditions. It particularly illustrates how “tyranny” was perceived differently, and why “atrocity” and “minority protection” appeared alien concepts.

International clean technology diffusion is essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, while fast and optimal diffusion can be prevented by the paywall of patents. This article explores the deficiency in clean technology diffusion caused by the legal fragmentation and rule complex of international environmental law and intellectual property law. It systematically examines three pathways to foster international clean technology diffusion through: restriction of intellectual property, including imposing external restraints in environmental law; striking internal balancing in maximizing TRIPS flexibilities; and keeping the status quo. It argues that treaty pathways may not work, and an operable pathway to promote clean technology diffusion is to maximize and consolidate TRIPS flexibilities in national laws. This option challenges the popular proposal of a “Doha-like” declaration on TRIPS and climate change due to the paralyzed multilateral trade mechanism, asymmetrical negotiation power of developing countries, prolonged negotiation process, and categorization problem in treaty negotiations.