International Law--GOVT 445
Exam 2—Spring
Instructions: Students are to type the answers to the following problems. The
answers should be double-spaced, and the total number of pages should not exceed 12 (12-
pt. font, 1-inch margins). All answers must be supported by relevant case(s) and/or
document(s). Students are allowed to discuss the problems but all work must be their own.
Any answers that are too similar will not receive credit for the problem. The exam is due in
the professor’s office on Friday, April 24 no later than 4:00 p.m. Late exams will be reduced
one letter grade for each day late.
All papers should include a title page with the student’s name, the course name and
number, the professor’s name, the university’s name and the date. Papers that are not
stapled will not be accepted. Points will be deducted from a student’s grade for papers that
do not follow the rules of good grammar and are not proofread. Electronic versions of the
exam WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
1. In 1988, two Libyan citizens allegedly planned and executed the bombing of Pan
Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 passengers and crew aboard the
flight suffered violent deaths. Eleven people on the ground were killed by the
falling plane. Pan Am is a US corporation . Both UK and US citizens were
aboard this flight.
The United Stares and the United Kingdom indicted these individuals and
demanded that Libya surrender them for trial. This demand was backed by a UN
Security Council resolution. Libya initially said that it cooperate, but only if
former US President Ronald Reagan and former UK Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher were tried simultaneously for bombing Tripoli in 1986. The bombing
was a reprisal for Libya’s earlier bombing of a Berlin discotheque in which
several US soldiers were killed. The two Libyans were ultimately extradited to
The Hague for trial before s special international tribunal agreed to by the United
States, United Kingdom, and Libya.
Assume instead that Libya has not agreed to release its two intelligence officers
accused of that crime (i.e., more than ten years have elapsed between the incident
and the suspects’ subsequent trial). On what bases may the United Kingdom and
the United States apply their criminal jurisdiction consistently with the five
principles of international criminal jurisdiction?
2. Refer to the 1980 Hostage case from the International Court of Justice and the
1961 Diplomatic Relations Convention provisions—both set forth in 2.7 (pp. 99-
104 of the text. Answer the following questions based on the materials from 8.1:
a. Did the Diplomatic Relations Convention’s articles have to be self-executing
for the United States to claim that Iran breached the convention?
b. Are those provisions self-executing? Can this be answered by reading the
given articles?
c. Based on Sei Fujii and Asakura cases, how would you resolve the question of
whether the Diplomatic Relations Treaty is self-executing?
3. Problem 7.E pp. 380-381.
4. A group of Estado extremists seizes a US commercial airliner as it flies over
Jamaica with eighty US citizens onboard. The hijackers divert the plane to
Estado. En route, they broadcast that they seized the aircraft to bring world
attention to the plight of Estado. They proclaim that the only way they can deal
with US imperialism is to capture one of its aircraft and take the passengers as
hostages to Estado. They arrive in that State and are hidden from public view.
It is not clear whether Estado’s government played a role in planning this
hijacking.
The Estado hijackers are tried in an Estado “People’s Tribunal” and found not
guilty. The tribunal decides that the defendants have committed a “political”
crime rather than an ordinary crime under Estado law. Estado is a party to all of
the multilateral treaties that deal with commercial air flights as described in the
air zones section of chapter 6 in the text. Estado is not a party to any regional air
treaty such as the referenced European Convention. What states would have
jurisdiction to try the extremists in this scenario? Has Estado breached the air
treaties to which it is party? How?
5. Refer to Problem 6.C (pp. 343-344), wherein the US fleet steams into Estado’s
Bahia
Grande. Assume that Bahia Grande is not a historic bay that contains only
internal waters. Refer to the Exhibit 6.1 Sea Zones chart at the beginning of
6.3. Assume that Port El Centro’s outer harbor facilities are located on that chart
at the point marked “Coastal Baseline.” Apply the 1982 UNCLOS principles—
and any applicable customary International Law principles—to answer the
following questions:
a. Did the United States violate Estado’s territorial waters when it crossed into
Estado’s 200-mile “territorial sea”?
b. What coastal zone did the US fleet first enter when it was en route to Estado?
c. Did the US fleet ever enter Estado’s territorial waters?
d. Where do Estado’s internal waters meet its territorial sea?
Extra Credit (20 pts.):
Along the western bank of the Danube, more or less halfway between Zagreb and
Belgrade, there rests in historic obscurity a three-square-mile teardrop of no man’s land.
It is an artifact of a border dispute of long standing, and neither Serbia nor Croatia
expresses a desire to rule over this unprepossessing Gibraltar-size property. The land,
marshy and prone to seasonal inundation, is choked with unregulated scrub, with here
and there the lone tongue of a poplar or the gentle shag of a willow. The only road is a
rutted single-lane dirt track, the only existing dwelling a flimsy hunting hovel, its
provenance unknown.
The absence of governmental authority on this land is due to the manipulated course of
the Danube itself. By the late 19th century, the Danube was accepted as the natural border
between the regions — at that point still under Austro-Hungarian control — that would
become Croatia and Serbia. There, however, the river’s path was tortuous and difficult for
larger boats to navigate, so engineering work was undertaken to smooth the snaking flow.
The straightened Danube was a vast improvement for international riverine transport, but
in the process, four large uncontiguous bulges of Croatia became stranded alone on the
Serbian side, and one small pocket of Serbia, on what was now the far bank, became
attached to the Croatian mass.
This latter pocket, which local residents call Gornja Siga, is the no man’s land in
question. When the two countries were neighboring republics of Yugoslavia, these
orphaned riverbank plots were of little concern, but since the 1990s they have presented
an intractable problem. The stranded pieces of Croatia now contiguous with Serbia are
some 10 times larger, in aggregate, than the rather trifling portion of Serbia now joined to
Croatia; Serbia has been all too glad to assume ownership of its expanded territory, but
Croatia sees the situation as unacceptable. In light of this ongoing disagreement, for
Croatia to accept Gornja Siga would constitute a de facto recognition of the Serbian view
of the border and a relinquishing of Croatia’s claim to the more considerable, though
equally mosquito-infested and uninspiring, portions of Serbian bank. Vit Jedlicka, a 31-
year-old Czech politician who traveled to the land earlier this year and, on April 13, 2015,
in broad daylight, planted a new flag in its unstable soil and named it the Free Republic
of Liberland. Liberland has a Constitution. The Preamble of the Liberland Constitution
reads:
We, the Citizens of the Free Republic of Liberland, in order to secure Life, Liberty and
Property, for ourselves and future generations, do ordain and establish the Constitution
of the Free Republic of Liberland, attempting a harmonious consensus for the benefit of
all those willing to assume responsibility over the course of their lives. Being aware of
a long and shameful list of governments’ trespasses to the Rights of the sovereign
Individuals, we hereby declare that the Public Administration governing the Free
Republic of Liberland shall first and foremost respect the Bill of Rights and exercise only
such functions as have been delegated to it under this Constitution. Therefore, we declare
that whenever the Public Administration becomes an obstacle to, rather than a guarantor
of, our Rights, it shall be our duty to alter or abolish such government, and to institute
a new government for the restoration of the Rights which we consider inherent in all
human beings.
Liberland has offered its citizenship to others.
Is Liberland a legitimate sovereign nation-state? In this regard, was the territory terra
nullius? Why or why not? If not a legitimate state, which nation has the more legitimate
claim to the territory and why?
President Jedlicka is offering Liberland citizenship. People can apply to become a citizen
of Liberland on-line. Would Liberland citizenship be valid? Why or why not?
