Hovell Profile

Devika Hovell
Status: D Phil candidate

Devika Hovell

Supervisors: Professor Dan Sarooshi and Dr Elizabeth Fisher
College: Balliol

Start Date: October 2006
End Date (projected): October 2009

DPhil topic and short description:

UN Sanctions, Security Council Decision-making and Procedural Fairness

The Security Council is facing a crisis of legal and social evolution. Since the late 1990s, a strategic shift in Security Council policy transformed the sanctions regime into one that targeted individuals rather than states. Perhaps because the transformation was motivated by a policy shift focussed on outcomes, rather than a conscious institutional shift in decision-making focussed on process, the transformation was not accompanied by any significant reform in Security Council procedure. Criticism and reform proposals, while acknowledging the due process deficiencies in the existing framework, have failed to account for the contextual nature of procedural law, and the unique characteristics and limitations of Security Council decision-making. This invites the consequence that procedural proposals will either be ignored, or in their application potentially derail important functions served by the Council. This dissertation proposes the development of a ‘procedural fairness’ framework, having regard to (1) normative justifications for procedural fairness in the Security Council context; (2) threshold test for procedural fairness in Security Council decision-making; (3) institutional limitations to procedural fairness in the Security Council context; and (4) standards of fair treatment applicable to Security Council decision-making on sanctions.

Selected Publications:

‘The Deliberative Deficit: Transparency, Access to Information and UN Sanctions’ in Jeremy Farrall and Kim Rubenstein, Sanctions Accountability and Governance in a Globalized World (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2009)

No Country is an Island: Australia and International Law (UNSW Press: Sydney, 2006) (with Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Madelaine Chiam and Professor George Williams)

The Fluid State: International Law and National Legal Systems (Federation Press: Sydney, 2005) (edited with Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Madelaine Chiam and Professor George Williams)

‘A Tale of Two Systems: The Use of International Law in Constitutional Interpretation in Australia and South Africa’ (2005) 29 Melbourne University Law Review 95 (with Professor George Williams)

‘In the matter of David Hicks: A case for Australian Courts?’ (2005) 16(2) Public Law Review 116 (with Grant Niemann).

‘Chinks in the Armour: International Law, Terrorism and the Use of Force’ (2004) 27(2) UNSW Law Journal 398

‘Advice to the Hon Simon Crean MP on the use of force against Iraq’ (2003) 4(1) Melbourne Journal of International Law 183 (with Professor George Williams).

‘Deep Anxieties: Australia and the International Legal Order’ (2003) 25 Sydney Law Review 423 (with Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Madelaine Chiam and Professor George Williams)