Volume 10, Issue 4

For decades, international law has denied the right to secede even if it enshrines self-determination. Existing scholarship explains this contradiction by opposing the right to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity: self-determination itself does not justify a valid claim to the disputed territory. This article, against conventional wisdom, argues that the opposition is superficial. The real problem lies within the notion of self-determination itself. Self-determination contains within it two opposite faces: one breeds separatist movements; the other supports unification and territorial sovereignty. Historically, self-determination grounded both union and separation in the rise of the nation-state; secessionist self-determination only came into play when epochal wars had weakened the sovereignty of the parent state. Conceptually, the ambiguity of self-determination makes defining the ‘self’ a daunting task for the law, especially when both the parent state and the seceding group make national claims.

This article comprehensively examines the 1999 recommendation of the Tunisian government to create an International Constitutional Court that is designed to enhance the principles of democracy and human rights and to strengthen the constitutional doctrine which states that the people are the source of authority in a given country. This proposal, which was strongly advocated by former Tunisian President Mohamed Moncef Marzouki during his term in office, aims to underscore the importance of establishing an international judicial entity and analysing its bylaws with respect to its terms and conditions, formation, jurisdiction and selection of judges. The article traces the trajectory of the movement, from the proposal stage to the latest developments in formally establishing the international judicial entity. Finally, the article identifies various possible difficulties and challenges that are likely to stand in the way of implementing the proposal.

On 28 December 2015, Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida held a meeting at the Korean Foreign Ministry in Seoul and announced that they had reached an agreement to resolve the so-called ’comfort women’ issue, who were forcibly drafted into sexual slavery by the Japanese imperial army in World War II. But the agreement’s binding effect and constitutionality are highly controversial. This agreement violates not only the principle of the statutory or parliamentary reservation by the restriction of the basic rights and the power of the National Assembly to consent to the treaty pursuant to Article 60 (1) of the Constitution, but also infringes the constitutional rights of the ‘comfort women’ victims, such as the right to human dignity, the right to know, and the right to property. This article provides a review of current and potential constitutional litigation regarding the agreement, including the claim that has already been brought by the comfort women survivors, and potential suits concerning the competence dispute and impeachment by the National Assembly.

Equal suffrage is a basic principle of democratic elections which is included in most constitutions and international human rights documents. It applies to the design of the boundaries of the political community, electoral system and electoral procedure. However, there are special cases where the effectiveness of this principle is questionable. This paper deals with two different aspects of the Hungarian regulation concerning the voting rights of Hungarian citizens living abroad. The paper gives an overview of the regulation and presents the recent constitutional disputes and relevant case law of Hungarian and European fundamental rights protection mechanisms. Finally, it opens the debate by posing some key questions on the future of the Hungarian situation and more generally, on the level of protection of voting rights before the national and international institutions.