Essay Writing 1

International Law LAW 257X

2021-2022 Coursework Titles Explained
For Students Submitting in March
Word Court and Deadlines

Submission is electronic to the LAW 257x Moodle site.

The length of the course essay is a maximum of 2,500 words.

The deadline for essays is Friday 25th March 2022 at 12.00.

Essay Titles – Choose one

1. Critically discuss the UN General Assembly as a

potential legislator.

2. Critically discuss the UN Security Council as a

potential legislator.
1. Critically discuss the UN General Assembly as a potential
legislator.

The GA was not intended as a legislature and its resolutions

are not binding, but it can act as a focal point in custom.
How does the GA contribute to state practice and opinio juris?
The ICJ has limited its contribution to opinio juris – why?
How can resolutions contribute to opinio juris:
Nuclear Weapons (1996); also Chagos (2019)
What would be the implications for states if this contribution
was expanded?
Some Reading

B. Sloan, ‘General Assembly Resolutions Revisited (Forty Years Later)’

(1987) 58 British Yearbook of International Law 39-150.

Marko Öberg, ‘The Legal Effects of Resolutions of the UN Security

Council and General Assembly in the Jurisprudence of the ICJ’ (2006)
16 European Journal of International Law 879-906.

Anthea Roberts, ‘Traditional and Modern Approaches to Customary

International Law’ (2001) 95 American Journal of International Law
757-791.

Maurice Mendelson, ‘The Subjective Element in Customary

International Law’ (1995) 66 British Yearbook of International Law 177-
208.
2. Critically discuss the UN Security Council as a potential
legislator.

Central Tension: The Security Council was not intended as a

legislator. It has legally-binding authority but its scope is
limited to individual situations.
The question of under which circumstances it could expand its
competence. Some resolutions have been seen as
‘legislative’, framed as general obligations.
Issues like climate change can be approached as a peace and
security issue, though there has been resistance here.
This fits into a wider debate on the Council as representing
15/193 states, within the organisation.
Some Reading

Paul Szasz, ‘The Security Council starts Legislating’ (2002) 96

American Journal of International Law 901-905.

Stefan Talmon, ‘The Security Council as World Legislature’ (2005) 99

American Journal of International Law 175-193.

Luis Martinez, ‘The Legislative Role of the Security Council in Its Fight
against Terrorism’ (2008) 57 International and Comparative Law
Quarterly 333-359.

SC meeting on climate change, 5663rd Meeting, 17 April 2007, UN Doc.

S/PV.5663.

B. Conforti, The Law and Practice of the United Nations (3rd edn, Brill
2004).