For a man with a remarkable level of expertise in his field, holding a senior position in a prestigious international institution, Peter Tomka is softly-spoken and approachable in discussion. Through these traits, the Slovakian President of the International Court of Justice, having studied international law in 5 countries, reveals a reverence for and understanding of the function and ideals of his organisation.

The Court, established in 1945 as one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, “is the only court with universal jurisdiction”, Tomka explains. “That means it can adjudicate cases relating to a variety of legal issues, and of course, jurisdiction covers the states.”

Bringing judicial authority to the global stage does not come easily, however. First of all, determining the Court’s jurisdiction proves problematic. Noting that “a case comes under the jurisdiction only if the two states involved accept it”, Tomka comments that the system is a compromise from when proposals for compulsory jurisdiction were not adopted in 1921, from the founding of the original Permanent Court of International Justice.

In a strangely constrained role then, judges like Tomka can only bring states to justice when they are asked to do so. Clearly these limitations can cause frustration to a man devoted to his work. “In my view the world has moved in more than 90 years, so there is a need to further strengthen the jurisdiction of the Court.” Nevertheless, these issues do not wound the President’s optimism for the future. “A promising route is to encourage states which have not yet made declarations recognising Court jurisdiction to do so.” Moreover, he explains that “the majority of disputes in today’s world are resolved, and also in the future will be resolved, through settlement by the parties.”

“I would say that this is always a preferable way of resolving disputes and reaching agreement,” he adds. Importantly, international law’s purpose is to maintain peace and security among nations, rather than simply labelling one state or the other as ‘guilty’. Tomka’s recognition of this fact provides a refined perspective on the Court’s role. “The existence of the Court and the possibility of bringing a case before it may sometimes have a positive impact – be conducive to reaching the settlement – because then parties, or at least one of them, may be a little bit more flexible.”

Tomka points to a case concerning aerial herbicide spraying by Columbia over land Ecuador considered as its own. The spraying took place to destroy plantations of coca used by rebels to finance activities against the Columbian government. “Shortly before opening our hearings, which were scheduled for the last day of December this year, the parties informed the Court that they had reached an agreement”, he says. “They appreciated the Court’s involvement and said that without such involvement, it would be much more difficult, if not impossible, to reach such a settlement out of Court.”

The Court has passed judgement on 154 cases, although this does include advisory opinions deliberated on at the request of other international organisations. I ask Tomka if settlement outside of court is always possible, given the large variety of cases this figure surely comprises. Of course, there are more troublesome examples: “If there is a region which is still a little bit more reluctant on the judicial settlement of disputes, it’s Asia,” he notes.

Here the issue of countries’ consent to the Court’s adjudication returns; “perhaps it’s due to some historical and cultural conditions in that part of the world, and that they are not so used to having affirmed rights in the Courts, or to resolving disputes in judicial bodies. Just to illustrate that, this is the region where there is no regional convention of human rights.”

Such differences in tradition and the conventions of law between nations prove to be one of the major obstacles between the Court’s practical reality and the consistent application of international justice. The judges themselves are, sometimes, even drawn from nations often involved in cases.

Academic work in the area has questioned if the Court is biased for this reason. In fact, the Court’s structure creates a deliberative, fair body: Tomka points out that “The Court consists of 15 judges, coming from different corners of the world, and it’s important that we have different backgrounds.”

I challenge him over whether his national identity, and time spent as a legal advisor to the Slovakian Foreign Ministry, influences his legal opinion. Tomka dispels the idea, saying, “I would not say there are national inclinations. Well, certainly one has a legal background, and I come from a country which has continental European traditions in written law, i.e. the role of the courts is to interpret statutes, not to create law.” This is exactly what the ICJ does. Furthermore, he concludes that the Court has a broader function – its decisions clarify international law through precedent, and “strengthen international order in this way.”

With these remarks it is clear that Tomka is a judge committed to the promotion of international justice rather than a specific nation’s interests. His international experience serves as an ideal tool to this end. I simply hope that the institution he leads can obtain enough international influence for his intentions to be made manifest.

In 6th week, Oxford held a Disability Awareness Week to help students find out about what disabilities mean to students in Oxford. It is an important thing: 9.8% of Oxford students currently have a declared disability, and it is encouraging to see more being done to raise awareness and support. On a national scale, the NUS has campaigned against discrimination, highlighting the fact that one third of disabled people between the ages of16-24 feel they have been discouraged because of their disabilities. But, I wonder, are our valuable efforts to tackle this feeling of discrimination being undermined by this country’s attitudes to abortion?

In 1990, the UK Parliament amended the 1967 Abortion Act so that abortion can now be performed at any stage in pregnancy, up to and including term, if ‘there is a substantial risk that if the child was born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped’. The wording is deliberately vague, allowing considerable latitude for interpretation by doctors and lawyers of what constitutes a ‘serious handicap’. In 2003, Joanna Jepson, after researching government abortion statistics, highlighted a case of late feticide carried out at twenty-eight weeks in a foetus with cleft lip and palate, which is a gap in the lip and upper mouth. This condition is easily treatable with surgery, leading to no complications and normal speech. She asked the High Court to declare that this did not constitute a serious handicap in the context of the Abortion Act, but the Crown Prosecution Service declined to continue the case. I have friends with congenital amputations (parts of an arm missing) and mental illnesses, and I wonder how they must feel about this.

It was wonderful to see, even though my little brother was born dangerously prematurely after 26 weeks of pregnancy, that he was kept alive and well by a fantastic neonatal team. But our attitudes to abortion have led to surreal situations in major NHS hospitals like Oxford’s John Radcliffe. In one operating theatre a group of highly trained professionals are engaged in a sophisticated medical procedure, the sole aim of which is to salvage an unborn baby whose life is seen as precious and uniquely valuable. Yet in the adjacent operating theatre a group of highly trained professionals are engaged in a sophisticated medical procedure with the sole aim of destroying an identical unborn baby who is seen as disposable, and whose life has been rejected by both parents and society. The two operating theatres are functioning under two mutually contradictory ethical traditions. One worldview has been held by much of the world throughout history: by the Greeks, Romans, and much of the East. It has recently been revived in the West, with Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University a leading proponent. He says we should recognise that the worth of human life varies. Singer argues that “we should treat humans in accordance with their ethically relevant characteristics”, including the capacity for physical, social and mental interaction.

The inevitable conclusion from this argument is that society consists of a hierarchy –the Scholar and Blue’s Player, then the ordinary adult students, then the non-persons: babies, the brain-damaged, the mentally disabled, Alzheimer’s sufferers. All of us fit somewhere in the pecking order, and the value of life goes up or down according to the passage of events. I am deeply uncomfortable with this world view, yet it is prevalent in our society. Following this materialistic worldview to its conclusion, Singer concludes that ultimately both abortion and infanticide are acceptable options. To Singer, it is inexplicable that we are prepared to abort a foetus with Down’s Syndrome, but are not prepared to kill a new-born baby with the same condition.

In vivid contrast to this is the understanding of human rights explicitly founded upon the Judeo-Christian worldview: that humans are made in God’s image, and thus have a unique dignity and an incalculable value. Therefore we are all equal. Males are equal to females, adults equal to children, the disabled equal to the healthy. God himself has placed his image within each of us and so it follows that we respect and care for one another as fellow image-bearers.

But what of the mother’s right to choose what she wants? Shouldn’t people be free to make their own decisions? This autonomy is the basis of the ethics that I am taught as a medical student. I respond, are we really autonomous? Do the decisions we make based on our understanding of the value of life really make no practical difference to other people? Is society just a collection of private individuals doing their own thing? The fact that disabled individuals have protested against the abortion of affected foetuses is evidence that this is an inadequate view of both society and of the value of human life. And yet until we recover the Judeo-Christian understanding of human value and dignity, which flows from a theistic world view, we will be living a contradiction: saying that we support the rights of disabled students, yet undermining that support with our attitude to disabled foetuses.

You’ve got to admire LJ Trup. He landed a speculated £20,000 salary, as well as the CV points that come with being president of the student union of one of the best universities in the world. And he managed it all without giving a single thought to a policy that could improve the lives of Oxford students.

The result shocked many, but will have consequences beyond the student community. OUSU serves as our only direct method of negotiation with the University, and it will now be rendered ineffectual by Trup’s leadership.

The Vice Chancellor, who recently recommended increasing tuition fees to £16,000, must feel a greater degree of freedom to speak against students’ wishes in the knowledge that students care less now about representation than ever before.

Yet the effect of the election has even wider scale consequences. We’re all aware of the influence the University has – the Daily Mail, Independent and BBC all reported on the result – and Trup’s victory sends a clear message about students’ growing apathy towards decisions which affect their lives.

It seems clear that students are more eager to witness a joke election than be properly represented. Considering this, is it really a surprise that the government is so happy to break promises on tuition fees and go ahead with the privatisation of student loans? If we care so little about voicing our concerns, we cannot expect them to be considered in government policy on higher education funding.

However this isn’t just about university and national policy. OUSU does some excellent work, it’s just that a lot of this is aimed at the most vulnerable. Consider a few of OUSU’s campaigns; ‘It Happens Here’ raising awareness of sexual assault, ‘Mind Your Head’ supporting students with mental health problems, WomCam, the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality, the Disabled Students campaign and the LGBTQ campaign. Instead of working on raising awareness on these real and serious issues we’re left with a president who has promised us a collection of crayon scribbled joke policies.

I’m shocked at the arrogance of students who, just because they are free of mental health problems or financial difficulties, are happy to undermine our entire student union. One student’s tweet summarised it perfectly; “I can’t help but feel that Trup’s victory is a spit in the face of people who genuinely need OUSU’s help by those who don’t.” Perhaps if we had the empathy to realise that OUSU’s work is important to students in positions that are different to ourselves, then maybe we would’ve taken the election more seriously.

Of course, the election wasn’t a complete disaster. The humour added some much needed relief to the elections, and Trup’s stunts meant that voter turnout increased.

It is also promising to see an unorthodox candidate win, especially since candidates are so frequently written off – hopefully in future elections students will no longer need backing by OULC or Prescom before being considered a contender. It seemed Trup even surprised himself with his popularity, with a confused article in The Oxford Student to try and justify his campaign. He wrote of how he was fed up of student politicians dominating OUSU, which allegedly overshadowed progressive ideas that could improve students’ lives.

A bizarre claim, given that he ran a campaign which was fixated with charisma, extroversion and personality, without a single achievable policy on his manifesto. He also criticised slates for being “undemocratic.” However we are now in a situation where our OUSU president is free to choose whatever serious policy he decides on after winning the election, since he was busy planning cheap attention-seeking stunts beforehand.

We lack any policies to hold Trup accountable to – is this not the most undemocratic option of them all? As the joke wears off, students must feel a little deceived. “Read what candidates are saying and interrogate them” he suggested, whilst conveniently immunising himself from such interrogation by suggesting policies as ludicrous as building monorails.

It seems that LJ Trup is the quintessential student politician, with neither policies nor proposals of how to improve OUSU. Trup wants OUSU to be run by “fun students”, but we must remember what OUSU is for. There is nothing comical about mental health problems, sexual assault or homophobia; OUSU’s purpose is not to make students laugh. It is there to represent our views and to work on issues which affect students.

Maybe you’re lucky enough to not need a lot of the support it provides. But that’s not a reason to render it useless for those who do rely on its services. Turning OUSU into a joke is arrogant and immature; it deprives vulnerable students of essential support and leaves the entire student body without a voice.

Will Railton: No

Bridge, Wahoo, Camera, Camera, Park-End, Bridge. As you gaze back on all you’ve achieved this term, you are confronted with the realisation that time in Oxford congeals into one homogenous headache. Still, you refuse to acknowledge that the anguish of your interminable essay has been punctuated only by Varsity’s torturously formulaic reprieves.

You’ve run out of different ways to ask that guy you once spoke to in Fresher’s week what he did with his weekend or how the Orienteering society he set up is faring. As with most other people in college, after eight weeks, you’ve scraped the barrel for things to say. You know it and they know it. Having reached the point when the small talk can’t get any smaller, all either of you can do is smile aggressively, and nod, safe in the knowledge the vacation is long enough for a silent floor-stare to be socially acceptable — after all, neither of you will remember how horrifically awkward this conversation was by the time you get back.

Park-End, Camera, Wahoo, Bridge. The carousel has started to make you nauseous, but you still don’t get off. You could go and see a play, a debate or a talk, but you don’t. Like victims of Stockholm syndrome; you’ve become grateful for your shit sandwich. You tell yourself that you and your sandwich want the same things, or something like that. You bemoan your philistinism, acknowledging that your cultural curiosity extends no further than Daft Punk (but they’re French, actually, so that’s okay) and a fascination with Katie Hopkins, Tindr and the sidebar of shame. Meanwhile, you find your discussion is limited to the contents of BBC Sport Gossip. And criticising Katie Hopkins, Tinder and the sidebar of shame.

You really ought to go home; the real world has been falling apart without you. If you were relieved that your parents had managed to keep their mid-life crisis hidden before you left, they will have become symptomatic in your absence. Armed with the disposable income they’d been wasting on you the last 18 years, they’ll have e-smoked and Bikram’d their way into ridiculousness inside the mobile-home they once told you was being kept for a rainy day.

Camera, Bridge, Camera, Camera. 8th week is certainly the worst of them all. We get that inevitable, temporary euphoria during the last days of term because we are finally free to appreciate our time here on the tail-end of essays and tute sheets. Buoyed on by the notion that we might always have it this good, we tell ourselves that next term, things will be different. Why? Because we’ll have done all our reading before 0th week. Because, like a nightmare dramatised by Samuel Beckett, we can’t leave Oxford. What’s worse is that we don’t want to.

Robert Walmsley: Yes

When I first came to Oxford, I was told I would only have time for two of three things. These three things were sleep, work or a social life. The reason why it resonates, with Oxford students, is there is a high degree of accuracy to this idea. Oxford terms are famously intense, so much so that when they end Oxford students enter a state rather similar to hibernation. The truth is all those late nights and early essay deadlines really do take their toll.

It does not take long, even for the most unobservant fresher, to realise Oxford terms really are not long at all. By the time term ends, you experience the entirely contradictory sensation of both feeling you have just arrived, but that an infinite amount of time has passed. Oxford students are the last to start their terms and the first to finish them.

The intensity of Oxford terms, it is argued, allows students to make a lot of progress in a small period of time, but would Oxford students really do less well if terms were longer? The long gaps between terms arguably lead to students falling out of practise and forgetting much of what they learnt the previous term. Furthermore, students are paying £3,000 for 8 weeks of teaching, working out at a pricey £375 per week.

If a student happens to be ill for even a week and has to go home, they miss over 12 percent of their term. The brevity of Oxford terms also makes it immensely difficult to maximise the opportunities here. There are always several things going on at once, meaning students have to carefully choose their commitments.

It is also hard not to have sympathy for the freshers who suffer the fate of having an essay set on the first week of their arrival.

Given all these reasons, it is not at all unreasonable to think Oxford could still be the serious and academic place it should be, with longer terms. In fact, students would benefit immensely from it.

There is also a serious issue of student welfare, involved in the question of whether Oxford terms are too short and, as a result, too intense. Students often to seem to disappear for weeks under the burden of work. The higher incidence of mental health issues at Oxford, compared to other universities, as well as the phenomenon commonly labelled “fifth week blues” are all symptoms of the problem with terms, which are too short.

If you asked most students whether they would like longer terms the answer, from the majority, would almost certainly be yes. Exhausted students lead to essays exhausted of ideas and problem sheets riddled with errors. Longer terms would mean better academic results and more time to enjoy the university experience, which most of us are now paying an awful lot more money for. If the University is not taking the idea of extending terms seriously, it most certainly should be.

I was sitting in the London Science Museum in South Kensignton, staring at a revolving globe depicting currents, weather patterns and lighting at night across the earth when I realised I really should be somewhere else. Although the #copsoffcampus protest had started roughly an hour earlier, and much of the action – including an attempt to take over Senate House Library – was over, I decided to make my way to Goodge Street to see if there was still much going on. 

I rushed out of the tube and made my way to the University of London Union (ULU), where a debris of scattered banners was all that remained of the protest. I moved on to SOAS, where a large group of protestors were making their way into Russell Square, and ended up embarking on a tour of London including Leicester Square, 10 Downing Street and Westminster. As a non-Londoner, the walking tour was certainly welcome. 

I’ve been to a few protests before, and have often been disheartened at the sight of young idealists taking the limelight and embarking on long impassioned speeches with elaborate sentences but little substance to speak of, clouding the real issues at stake. And, indeed, the issues being brought up by the protest in London last week were certainly important; increasingly bogged down by extortionate fees and smothered by police action in a number of universities, students certainly had plenty to shout about.

As thousands of us marched – or rather strolled – down London streets on our tour of the capital, I made my way to the front of the march, where a group of masked students were waving anarchist flags, and a sound system had been attached to a trolley in order to provide an upbeat soundtrack to the protest. 

In general, the protest was peaceful and constructive, with students flowing down the streets and shouting slogans or simply chatting as they made they way through London. Being a protest sparked by police action, moments of tension with police themselves were to be expected. In the few clashes with the police which I witnessed, my overall impression was that, whilst a select few sought a direct confrontation with police cars – at one point jumping on a police van, throwing garbage bags on it and repeatedly bashing it – the overwhelming majority of students present had no such intentions, and actively discouraged the more excited protestors to desist. 

However, the general attitude of the protest, with slogans such as “No Justice, No Peace, Fuck The Police”, together with a number of verbal attacks on individual police officers, made me think that perhaps many of the students protesting last week were slightly off the mark in the target of their protest. No doubt the police as an institution has been widely discredited recently; endemic racism and cases of undue violence within the police force have made many people – including students – distrust their agents of justice. There is no doubt either that responsibility has to be acknowledged, and that important changes – including a debate to drastically reconsider what role the police is meant to play in public life – must take place for that trust to be regained. The case of Mark Duggan, whose face was printed on many of the banners held by students last week, is perhaps the most high-profile, relevant example of the police’s weaknesses as an institution. The outrageous case of police spying on Cambridge students as revealed earlier this year is another. 

However, the officer on the street is simply too easy a target for student anger. Most officers are not too dissimilar to the average citizen. Their wages have also been cut, their children also pay extortionate fees to study at university, they also have bosses to answer to. By confronting the police as a whole, and in particular the individuals stationed across London last Wednesday, rather than seeking institutional responsibility, the #copsoffcampus protest attempted to simplify the issue: despite playing an important part in highlighting the need to address flaws in the police force, the protestors obscured the more complex, systematic nature of the problems.