The chapter discusses the position of victims in international criminal justice and the evolution of their status and modalities of their involvement in the administration of justice by international criminal jurisdictions, with a particular focus on the legal regime of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The chapter highlights the centrality of victims as the core constituency of international criminal law and the mismatch between this aspiration and the limited recognition of their agency and rights before the UN ad hoc tribunals. It then examines how the ICC’s architects have sought to bridge this gap in the Court’s Statute and Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The ICC’s legal framework is unprecedented in this respect. Over and above the protective measures necessary on account of their engagement in the proceedings, it granted victims extensive rights to participate and be legally represented at different stages the ICC proceedings as well as the autonomous right to obtain reparations. The chapter surveys the key challenges this ambitious scheme has raised, as far as the admission of victims to participate, the organisation of their legal representation, and the implementation of reparations are concerned, and solutions that have been developed in the Court’s practice to date.

This chapter will explore how the provisions governing best interests assessments ought to be reformed so as to better ensure that an agent’s authentic desires are being prioritised in decisions being taken about them. The starting point should be that the assessor ascertains ‘so far is reasonably practicable’ the individual’s wishes, feelings, beliefs, and values. This should then be supplemented by a presumption that the agent’s wishes and feelings will be determinative of what is in their best interests, except when giving effect to them will expose the person to a risk of significant harm. Even where the harms are significant, however, there will still be occasions where the agent’s wishes and feelings should nonetheless take precedence; where to do otherwise would involve frustrating their deeply and authentically held beliefs, values, or commitments. This chapter will highlight some of the potential considerations which ought to guide assessors in these circumstances. It will propose that assessors be provided with a list of factors that they must take into account when determining the degree of weight to be ascribed to the agent’s wishes, which reflect these considerations.

The foregoing discussion has highlighted the fundamental fragility of assessments of capacity, which hinge on a series of complex yet unavoidable clinical judgements about the person’s cognitive capacities and the origins of the beliefs or values that motivate their decision. This chapter will explore the implications of this for best interests assessments and, in particular, the extent to which due weight is currently being given to the person’s authentically held values and beliefs in the assessment of their best interests. Drawing on case law, interviews, and post-legislative scrutiny of the Mental Capacity Act, it will conclude that despite a number of empowering court decisions, the lack of direction contained in the Act on how to apply the MCA has still resulted in different weight being attributed to the agent’s wishes. Moreover, the trend towards greater empowerment has not yet trickled down to decisions being taken on the ground by doctors and care workers, which still remain characterised largely by paternalism and risk aversion. Those undertaking best interests assessments could therefore benefit from a more unified starting point and greater clarity on the factors which ought to influence the degree of weight accorded to the individual’s wishes.

This is a general introduction to the book, explaining that the purpose of the book is to provide a concise but detailed explanation of the core rules of international humanitarian law. The contents of each chapter are summarised. It explains that the book looks at the major areas of IHL, putting them in historical context, so as to better understand how the law has evolved. This book also examines the current challenges for and pressures on the existing law, as IHL rules adopted in the time of cavalry and bayonets must adapt to deal with issues like drones, cyber warfare and autonomous weaponry. It notes that the third edition has been updated to reflect new developments in the law of armed conflict up to May 2023.

This chapter deals with Occupational Health and how to protect healthcare workers from acquiring infections (e.g. HAV, HBV, HIV, HCV, VZV, influenza, Covid-19, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, TB, diphtheria, meningococcal infection and tetanus) while at work. It describes how healthcare workers can be protected by providing pre-exposure vaccinations and post-exposure treatments, as well as discussing responses to outbreaks and routes of infection.

This chapter critically examines the distinctive institutional and normative regime created by the UN for the Palestinian refugees in the immediate aftermath of the Nakba in the form of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. It juxtaposes that regime against the international institutional and normative regime applicable to all other refugees in the world, as administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The special regime for Palestinian refugees is widely regarded as reflective of the UN’s unique responsibility for their plight. Yet, a critical examination of the UN record on the early history, mandate, and regulatory framework underpinning this regime reveals that it was never intended to give effect to Palestinian refugee rights as established under prevailing international law, including as affirmed by the UN itself. The resulting ‘protection gap’ that has consequently emerged for Palestinian refugees, marked by uneven and confused state practice concerning their plight as well as ongoing gender discrimination against them by the UN, is demonstrative of the Organization’s role in the maintenance of Palestinian legal subalternity on the international plane.

This chapter provides an introduction to the evolution of IOM’s mandate and obligations from its founding in 1951 to 2022. In contrast to the tendency in some scholarly literature to portray IOM as a static actor devoid of normative obligations and available to unquestioningly advance state interests, however nefarious, this chapter paints a more complex picture. Focusing in particular on IOM as a “multi-mandated” organization, the chapter charts how IOM’s mandate and conceptions of its obligations have shifted over time, including in light of the development over the past two decades of a significant set of internal policies, frameworks and guidelines. Without minimizing the significant gaps and opacity that remain, the chapter explores changes in the organization’s perceived purpose and obligations, and explanations for these shifts, drawing on insights from international relations scholarship on international organizations’ legitimation efforts. Gradually, IOM has transformed from a logistics agency strapped to the interests of the United States, to a global organization with a still nascent but growing sense of its obligations not only to states but also to people on the move—changes that have ultimately advanced IOM’s efforts to secure its own position and power in the international system.

Essential public health functions (EPHF) are primary responsibility of the state and are fundamental for achieving public health goals through collective action. There are several EPHF frameworks that have core and enabling functions, which should be integrated within health systems. The preferred approach is to identify the framework that best suits the local context. International Health Regulation (IHR) are legally binding set of regulations meant to prevent international spread of diseases and are closely related to EPHF. EPHF focus on building capacity for public health nationally, while IHR respond to the obligations of public health globally. This Chapter makes a case for investing in public health as an obligation and an ethical and moral imperative of governments in every country by ensuring well performing EPHF and IHR.

The first power of the police is their ability to use force to protect and rescue third parties. This understanding departs in a critical way from the Weberian argument that the government has a monopoly on the use of force by observing that a police officer’s ability to use force to defend others is available to all people. It is not only provided for under laws that allow all people to defend others but also as a moral prerogative that exists prior to and outside of political arrangements, democratic or otherwise. The police are distinguished from their fellow citizens by embodying a role that discharges protection and rescue as a duty, rather than a prerogative. The discharge of this duty by what Nozick would call a “dominant protective association” is a necessary requirement to demarcate the state from nature, suggesting that the police role is integral to the definition of the state and a requirement of its initial formulation. From this duty follows the role responsibility to use this force as minimally and economically as possible, and as a backstop, the police role further sanctifies life by creating the citizen’s duty to retreat from interpersonal threats when they can safely do so.

The festal homilies of the middle Byzantine period are covered in this chapter, following the introduction of major Marian feasts between the sixth and early eighth century. These works provide a combination of Christological teaching, which is often presented by means of typological rather than discursive methods, along with narrative – some of which comes from apocryphal rather than canonical biblical texts. Although the Virgin remained important as the guarantor of Christ’s humanity and divinity in this period, growing interest in her own legendary story and personal holiness is reflected in the festal homilies. The homiletic category called ‘occasional’ meanwhile provides narrative concerning Mary’s intervention in human catastrophes such as the siege of the Avars and Persians on Constantinople in 626 CE. The homiletic genre, as practised by preachers of the middle Byzantine period, thus encompassed a range of didactic and panegyrical purposes.