Proportionality in the Application of International Law - in search of coherence

Proportionality assessments form an integral part of the application of international law in many areas such as EU law, international humanitarian law, the law on the responsibility of states for international wrongful acts, the regulation of the use of force, WTO law, and the application of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The phenomenon of proportionality assessments is met with widespread skepticism, however. Sceptics argue that proportionality assessments are always more or less intuitively based and cannot be legally justified in any normal ways. The aim of this research project is to investigate this claim.

The project investigates how the principle of proportionality is applied in different areas of international alw