Antonios Tzanakopoulos:
Status: D Phil candidate (status confirmed)

Supervisor: Professor Stefan Talmon
College: St Anne’s College

Start Date: October (MT) 2005
End Date (projected): January (HT) 2009

Email: antonios.tzanakopoulos@law.ox.ac.uk

D Phil topic and short description:

Responsibility of the United Nations for Wrongful Security Council Non-Forcible Measures

Undoubtedly the United Nations Security Council is endowed with enormous power: under Article 41 of the Charter, it has imposed sanctions on States and other entities, it has frozen accounts of natural persons having no real recourse against its decisions, it has taken measures binding on all the UN member-States with respect to terrorism or WMDs, it has established ad hoc international criminal tribunals, and so forth. With power must also come responsibility, this being the focal point of the doctoral thesis.

The Council was only allowed to operate, and to reveal both the true reach of its power, and its shortcomings, after the end of the Cold War. The thesis examines the conditions under which the international responsibility of the UN is engaged for Council conduct under Article 41 of the Charter, including issues of attribution and the international obligations incumbent on the Organization. It also discusses the methods of determination of that international responsibility, whether by international judicial organs or by the States themselves in a decentralized manner. Finally, the thesis looks into the legal consequences of UN responsibility, and attempts to establish whether State reactions to UN wrongful conduct can be meaningfully construed as a method of implementation (mise-en-oeuvre) of UN responsibility.

Education:

New York University School of Law, LL M 2005 (Jerome Lipper Prize)
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, LL M 2003 (HSSF award)
National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, LL B 2002

Publications:

Books and Articles -

The Binding Force of Provisional Measures Indicated by International Courts (Ant N Sakkoulas, Athens 2006) [in Greek]

‘Provisional Measures Indicated by International Courts: Emergence of a General Principle of International Law’ (2004) 57 Revue hellénique de droit international 53

The International Responsibility of States in the Articles of the International Law Commission, in International Jurisprudence and Literature (Ant N Sakkoulas, Athens 2004) [in Greek] [collaboration]

‘The Minority Protection Systems of the League of Nations and the Council of Europe – a Comparative Study’ (2003) 16 Public Law Applications 817 [in Greek]

Selection of Shorter Articles and Notes

‘Chapter VII Measures (UN Charter) (with regard to International Tribunals)’ in A Cassese (ed) Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice (OUP, Oxford 2008) [forthcoming]

‘Re Bekir-Ousta and others, Hellenic Supreme Court (Areios Pagos) 58/2006’ (2008) ILDC 831 (GR 2006) [Headnote and Commentary, forthcoming at www.oxfordlawreports.com]

‘Floating Storage Units as “Ships” under the 1992 CLC/FUND Regime–the View from the Hellenic Supreme Court’ (2006) 59 Revue hellénique de droit international 701

‘A Global Administrative Law Bibliography’ (2005) 68 Law & Contemporary Problems 357 [with D Gunton and M Livermore]

‘General International Law and International Protection of Human Rights: On Issa v. Turkey’ (2005) 18 Public Law Applications 154 [in Greek]

Selection of Book Reviews

‘Book Review of Catherine Denis’s Le pouvoir normatif du Conseil de sécurité’ (2005) 58 Revue hellénique de droit international 655

‘Book Review of Vera Gowlland-Debbas’s National Implementation of UN Sanctions’ (2005) available at www.globallawbooks.org

‘Book Review of René Provost’s State Responsibility in International Law’ (2003) 56 Revue hellénique de droit international 283