Samantha Besson
Biographic Data
| ID | 1317699 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Samantha Besson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Samantha |
| FAMILY NAME | Besson |
| SIGNATURE | BESSON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Fribourg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8666-3280 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 70 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Democratic Representation in International Organizations
International organizations (IOs) play a central role in contemporary international law-making: they institutionalize most of the processes through which international law is adopted today. From the perspective of the democratic legitimacy of international law, this raises the question of the conditions under which those IOs may be regarded as democratic representatives of their Member States' peoples. Curiously, given its important international…
The future of Europe in a world of regions
The future of Europe in world-making is regional. This essay proposes that the European Union should be re-instituted as one regional international organization among others and as equal to them under international law. Thereby, the re-organized EU could contribute, with other RIOs, to building the ‘world of regions’ many have long thought could provide the institutional remedy to ‘post-imperial imperialism’. With other peoples, ‘We Europeans’ sh…
Le droit international est-il devenu impuissant
Droit international des institutions
et les deux sries de confrences des confrenciers invits dans le cadre du cycle Europe : Ivan Krastev, The fear of shrinking numbers : Democracy, demography and the East-West divide in Europe (https://www.college-de-france.fr/fr/agenda/conferencier-invite/ the-fear-of-shrinking-numbers-democracy-demography-and-the-east-west
In what sense are international organizations ‘public’? A plea for an international public law of organization
The privatization of rights and obligations of states under the influence of international organizations (IOs) is a challenge for international law. The difficulty resides in the lack of a clear public status of those organizations. This article purports to identify an ‘international public law’ of both states and IOs. Only such a law could indeed institute international organizations as ‘public’ institutions of their member states’ peoples and t…
The international law of academic freedom: Grounding a human right and responsibility to science
Academic freedom is under-protected in international human rights law. In order to remedy the situation, this article proposes, first, to critically assess its existing international human rights law framework; second, to interpret the newly re-discovered human right to science so as to re-ground academic freedom primarily (albeit not exclusively) therein as the “freedom indispensable for scientific research” guaranteed by Article 15(3) of the In…
Un vide juridique intersidéral
Droit international des institutions
EnseignementCours – Diligence et négligence en droit internationalIntroductionLa prévention et, plus généralement, l’anticipation des (risques de) préjudices sont, à tort ou à raison, au cœur des préoccupations contemporaines. Pour s’en convaincre, il suffit d’observer comment sont abordées les menaces climatiques, sanitaires, biotechnologiques ou terroristes qui pèsent actuellement sur la sécurité humaine. Le droit n’échappe pas à ce développeme…
The Institutional Guarantee of the Human Right to Science
This article identifies and specifies the institutional guarantee of Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ human right to science and, on that basis, argues for the consolidation of an international law of science. Its contribution may be described as threefold. First, it argues that science should be understood as a public and common good and, more specifically, as a public participatory good in …
Droit international des institutions
pour raison sanitaire. La srie de cours qui devait suivre a galement t repousse, pour la mme raison, ainsi que le colloque Thories du droit international de la responsabilit
International cooperation under the human right to science: What and whose duties and responsibilities
International audience
Anticipation under the human right to science: Concepts, stakes and specificities
International audience
The ‘Human Right to Science’ qua right to participate in science: The participatory good of science and its human rights dimensions
In 1948, Article 27(1) UDHR declared the right ‘to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’. Since 1966, the right has also been guaranteed by Article 15(1)(b) ICESCR as the right to ‘enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications’. This equivocation on the right’s name reveals a disagreement about the object of that right, i.e. (actively) participating in the scientific practice or (passively) ‘enjoying its fruits’ only.…
The International Public: A Farewell to Functions in International Law
Frédéric Mégret's extremely rich and interesting article implicates a wide range of issues. Luckily, a lot has already been written about some of them elsewhere. In any case, the limited scope of this essay precludes engaging with them all again here. What it will do instead is explore ways of contributing further to the article's important, timely and, I would like to argue, providential project, which is to reflect over and develop the publicne…
The Analogy between States and International Organizations
The Impact of International Organizations on International Law
http://doc.rero.ch/record/324719?ln=fr
The Sources of International Law: An Introduction
This introductory chapter offers a brief overview on the sources of international law. It first highlights the importance of and the controversies surrounding the sources of international law, touching upon the nature, legality, normativity, and legitimacy of international law, as well as the sites and tools of its contestation. The chapter then turns to the historical origins of the sources of international law, asserting that the sources of int…
Sources of International Human Rights Law: How General is General International Law?
This chapter discusses the sources of international human rights law (IHRL) in the light of general international law scholarship. It addresses the question of the autonomy of IHRL as a self-contained regime of international law and, accordingly, that of the ‘generality’ of general international law in respect of sources. It argues that there are at least three features of IHRL that account for their specificities in terms of sources and are refl…
The Oxford Handbook of the Sources of International Law
The question of the sources of international law inevitably raises some well-known scholarly controversies: where do the rules of international law come from? And more precisely: through which processes are they made, how are they ascertained, and where does the international legal order begin and end? These traditional questions bear on at least two different levels of understanding. First, how are international norms validated as rules of inter…
Legitimate actors of international law-making: Towards a Theory of International Democratic Representation
This article addresses the identity of the legitimate actors of international law-making from the perspective of democratic theory. It argues that both states or state-based international organisations, and civil society actors should be considered complementary legitimate actors of international law-making. Unlike previous accounts, our proposed model of representation, the Multiple Representation Model, is based on an expanded, democratic under…
Is the Ideal of a Deliberative Democracy Coherent?
In what follows, I would like to contribute to a defense of deliberative democracy by giving an afrmative answer to the question in the title. The goal is admittedly humble. For the coherence of an ideal says nothing about its desirability, feasibility or overall appropriateness.1 And, indeed, I will not address these further issues here. But, though humble, the goal of assessing the coherence of an ideal seems to take precedence over any of the …
Deliberative Democracy and its Discontents
Drawing on political, legal, national, post-national, as well as American and European perspectives, this collection of essays offers a diverse and balanced discussion of the current arguments concerning deliberative democracy. Its contributions' focus on discontent, provide a critical assessment of the benefits of deliberation and also respond to the strongest criticisms of the idea of democratic deliberation. The essays consider the three basic…
Law Beyond the State: A Reply to Liam Murphy
Voluntarism about the very sources of international law is incoherent, but there is a better way to interpret this view. The sources of international law being what they are, legal obligations are never imposed on states without their consent. ... The claim ... is false (though perhaps it
Moral Philosophy and International Law
This chapter offers a critical discussion of the origins, aims, and main contributions of moral philosophies of international law. Then, in moving beyond mere exposition, the chapter turns to a meta-theoretical discussion of international law, and in particular to how international legal theory should best be conceived and conducted. The chapter argues for the development of normative legal philosophies of international law that take the normativ…
State Consent and Disagreement in International Law-Making. Dissolving the Paradox
This article starts with a paradox: international law-making is ridden with reasonable disagreement and yet no state can be bound by international law without its consent and hence without agreement. Breaking away from the pragmatic resignation that prevails among international law scholars on this question, the article proposes an interpretation of the role of state consent that both fits and justifies its central role in the practice of interna…
The Extraterritoriality of the European Convention on Human Rights: Why Human Rights Depend on Jurisdiction and What Jurisdiction Amounts to
The extraterritoriality or extraterritorial application of international and European human rights treaties refers to the recognition by those treaties' states parties of the international and European human rights of individuals or groups of individuals situated outside their territory and, in a second stage, to the identification of their corresponding duties to those individuals. Examples of extraterritoriality abound in international human ri…
Legitimate actors of international law-making: Towards a Theory of International Democratic Representation
This article addresses the identity of the legitimate actors of international law-making from the perspective of democratic theory. It argues that both states or state-based international organisations, and civil society actors should be considered complementary legitimate actors of international law-making. Unlike previous accounts, our proposed model of representation, the Multiple Representation Model, is based on an expanded, democratic under…
State Consent and Disagreement in International Law-Making. Dissolving the Paradox
This article starts with a paradox: international law-making is ridden with reasonable disagreement and yet no state can be bound by international law without its consent and hence without agreement. Breaking away from the pragmatic resignation that prevails among international law scholars on this question, the article proposes an interpretation of the role of state consent that both fits and justifies its central role in the practice of interna…
Enforcing the Child's Right to Know Her Origins: Contrasting Approaches Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights
The justification of the child's right to know her origins and the fundamental interests underlying it have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. This article goes one step further and assesses that right's enforcement in practice together with its guiding principles. It starts by restating what the right consists in and what interests it protects according to different international human rights instruments. It then reveals the conflicts…
The Principle of Non-Discrimination in the Convention on the Rights of the Child
International audience
Sovereignty, International Law and Democracy
http://doc.rero.ch/record/32540?ln=fr
Human rights and democracy in a global context: Decoupling and recoupling
Human rights and democracy have been regarded as a mutually reinforcing couple by many political theorists to date. The internationalisation of human rights post-1945 is often said to have severed those links, however. Accounting for the legitimacy of international human rights requires exploring how human rights and democracy, once they have been decoupled or disconnected, can be recoupled or reunited across governance levels (vertically) and ma…
The ‘Human Right to Science’ qua right to participate in science: The participatory good of science and its human rights dimensions
In 1948, Article 27(1) UDHR declared the right ‘to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’. Since 1966, the right has also been guaranteed by Article 15(1)(b) ICESCR as the right to ‘enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications’. This equivocation on the right’s name reveals a disagreement about the object of that right, i.e. (actively) participating in the scientific practice or (passively) ‘enjoying its fruits’ only.…
The European Union and Human Rights: Towards A Post-National Human Rights Institution
There is growing evidence that the European Union (EU) is becoming more involved in human rights protection and has the capacity to turn into an unprecedented post-national human rights protection institution. Based on that evidence, this article suggests different arguments in favour of a further development in this direction. These arguments stem not only from a general global justice approach to post-national institutions’ responsibilities, bu…
International cooperation under the human right to science: What and whose duties and responsibilities
International audience
The Impact of International Organizations on International Law
http://doc.rero.ch/record/324719?ln=fr
Evolutions in Non-Discrimination Law within the ECHR and the ESC Systems: It Takes Two to Tango in the Council of Europe
Journée BENEFRI de droit européen de l\textquoterightInstitut de droit européen - BENEFRI-Tagung im Europarecht des Instituts für Europarecht (2013)
Discrimination and Freedom of Contract: Philosophical and Economic Foundations of the Law against Racial Discrimination in Employment
The aim of this article is to clarify the apparent antithesis between the fundamental private autonomy of the contractual parties and the right of a party not to be discriminated against and found anti-discrimination law’s legitimacy in philosophy and economics. The purpose of reviving this controversy derives from a recent attack from some of the scholars of the ‘law and economics’ movement on anti-discrimination law, and from Richard Epstein’s …
The Principle of Non-Discrimination in the Convention on the Rights of the Child
International audience
The European Union and Human Rights: Towards A Post-National Human Rights Institution
There is growing evidence that the European Union (EU) is becoming more involved in human rights protection and has the capacity to turn into an unprecedented post-national human rights protection institution. Based on that evidence, this article suggests different arguments in favour of a further development in this direction. These arguments stem not only from a general global justice approach to post-national institutions’ responsibilities, bu…
Enforcing the Child's Right to Know Her Origins: Contrasting Approaches Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights
The justification of the child's right to know her origins and the fundamental interests underlying it have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. This article goes one step further and assesses that right's enforcement in practice together with its guiding principles. It starts by restating what the right consists in and what interests it protects according to different international human rights instruments. It then reveals the conflicts…
Toward European Citizenship
International audience
Gender Discrimination under EU and ECHR Law: Never Shall the Twain Meet
Gender discrimination is addressed differently under Article 14 ECHR and EU primary and secondary legal provisions. This is no wonder, since the role and scope of non-discrimination law in both legal orders are not the same, and since the scope of jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice applying those provisions differ drastically as well. While this observation is not new, the potential discrepancy be…
Legal Republicanism: National and International Perspectives
Interest in republicanism as a political theory has burgeoned in recent years, but its implications for the understanding of law have remained largely unexplored. This book offers a critical survey of the potential for creating republican accounts of fundamental issues in law and legal theory. Bringing together contributors with backgrounds in political and legal philosophy, the chapters in the book assess republicanism's historical traditions, c…
Legal republicanism: National and International Perspectives
Interest in republicanism as a political theory has burgeoned in recent years, but its implications for the understanding of law have remained largely unexplored. This book offers a comprehensive, critical survey of the potential for creating republican accounts of fundamental issues in law and legal theory.
Human rights and democracy in a global context: Decoupling and recoupling
Human rights and democracy have been regarded as a mutually reinforcing couple by many political theorists to date. The internationalisation of human rights post-1945 is often said to have severed those links, however. Accounting for the legitimacy of international human rights requires exploring how human rights and democracy, once they have been decoupled or disconnected, can be recoupled or reunited across governance levels (vertically) and ma…
Sovereignty, International Law and Democracy
http://doc.rero.ch/record/32540?ln=fr
Evolutions in Non-Discrimination Law within the ECHR and the ESC Systems: It Takes Two to Tango in the Council of Europe
Journée BENEFRI de droit européen de l\textquoterightInstitut de droit européen - BENEFRI-Tagung im Europarecht des Instituts für Europarecht (2013)
The Extraterritoriality of the European Convention on Human Rights: Why Human Rights Depend on Jurisdiction and What Jurisdiction Amounts to
The extraterritoriality or extraterritorial application of international and European human rights treaties refers to the recognition by those treaties' states parties of the international and European human rights of individuals or groups of individuals situated outside their territory and, in a second stage, to the identification of their corresponding duties to those individuals. Examples of extraterritoriality abound in international human ri…
Moral Philosophy and International Law
This chapter offers a critical discussion of the origins, aims, and main contributions of moral philosophies of international law. Then, in moving beyond mere exposition, the chapter turns to a meta-theoretical discussion of international law, and in particular to how international legal theory should best be conceived and conducted. The chapter argues for the development of normative legal philosophies of international law that take the normativ…
State Consent and Disagreement in International Law-Making. Dissolving the Paradox
This article starts with a paradox: international law-making is ridden with reasonable disagreement and yet no state can be bound by international law without its consent and hence without agreement. Breaking away from the pragmatic resignation that prevails among international law scholars on this question, the article proposes an interpretation of the role of state consent that both fits and justifies its central role in the practice of interna…
Is the Ideal of a Deliberative Democracy Coherent?
In what follows, I would like to contribute to a defense of deliberative democracy by giving an afrmative answer to the question in the title. The goal is admittedly humble. For the coherence of an ideal says nothing about its desirability, feasibility or overall appropriateness.1 And, indeed, I will not address these further issues here. But, though humble, the goal of assessing the coherence of an ideal seems to take precedence over any of the …
Deliberative Democracy and its Discontents
Drawing on political, legal, national, post-national, as well as American and European perspectives, this collection of essays offers a diverse and balanced discussion of the current arguments concerning deliberative democracy. Its contributions' focus on discontent, provide a critical assessment of the benefits of deliberation and also respond to the strongest criticisms of the idea of democratic deliberation. The essays consider the three basic…
Law Beyond the State: A Reply to Liam Murphy
Voluntarism about the very sources of international law is incoherent, but there is a better way to interpret this view. The sources of international law being what they are, legal obligations are never imposed on states without their consent. ... The claim ... is false (though perhaps it
The Sources of International Law: An Introduction
This introductory chapter offers a brief overview on the sources of international law. It first highlights the importance of and the controversies surrounding the sources of international law, touching upon the nature, legality, normativity, and legitimacy of international law, as well as the sites and tools of its contestation. The chapter then turns to the historical origins of the sources of international law, asserting that the sources of int…
Sources of International Human Rights Law: How General is General International Law?
This chapter discusses the sources of international human rights law (IHRL) in the light of general international law scholarship. It addresses the question of the autonomy of IHRL as a self-contained regime of international law and, accordingly, that of the ‘generality’ of general international law in respect of sources. It argues that there are at least three features of IHRL that account for their specificities in terms of sources and are refl…
The Oxford Handbook of the Sources of International Law
The question of the sources of international law inevitably raises some well-known scholarly controversies: where do the rules of international law come from? And more precisely: through which processes are they made, how are they ascertained, and where does the international legal order begin and end? These traditional questions bear on at least two different levels of understanding. First, how are international norms validated as rules of inter…
Legitimate actors of international law-making: Towards a Theory of International Democratic Representation
This article addresses the identity of the legitimate actors of international law-making from the perspective of democratic theory. It argues that both states or state-based international organisations, and civil society actors should be considered complementary legitimate actors of international law-making. Unlike previous accounts, our proposed model of representation, the Multiple Representation Model, is based on an expanded, democratic under…
The Impact of International Organizations on International Law
http://doc.rero.ch/record/324719?ln=fr
The Analogy between States and International Organizations
The International Public: A Farewell to Functions in International Law
Frédéric Mégret's extremely rich and interesting article implicates a wide range of issues. Luckily, a lot has already been written about some of them elsewhere. In any case, the limited scope of this essay precludes engaging with them all again here. What it will do instead is explore ways of contributing further to the article's important, timely and, I would like to argue, providential project, which is to reflect over and develop the publicne…
Droit international des institutions
pour raison sanitaire. La srie de cours qui devait suivre a galement t repousse, pour la mme raison, ainsi que le colloque Thories du droit international de la responsabilit
Political science (28 works) · Law (21 works) · Sociology (21 works) · International Law and Human Rights (17 works) · Law and economics (14 works) · Law (12 works) · International law (11 works) · Human rights (10 works) · Politics (9 works) · Human Rights and Development (7 works)