I still need to write Part 2 of my response to Ryan Goodman, but it's worth noting that he and I actually agree about detention in NIAC much more than we disagree. We both agree that IHL itself does not authorize such detention. We both agree that the standard governing detention in NIAC is that it must be non-arbitrary. We...
[William S. Dodge is The Honorable Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. From August 2011 to July 2012, he served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked on the amicus brief of the United States to the Fourth Circuit...
At Just Security, my friend Ryan Goodman has posted a long analysis of Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense, in which the UK High Court held that IHL neither authorizes nor regulates detention in non-international armed conflict (NIAC). That decision will soon be considered by the Court of Appeal. In his post, which is a must-read, Ryan states that he agrees with the High Court...
I am pleased to announce that a new ILA Study Group on sanctions has been formed. Larissa van den Herik and I will be working together, with the support of a group of sanctions scholars and practitioners, to address questions of individualization, formalization and interplay in multilateral sanctions. Here are the three aims of the group: To evaluate the individualization and...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Malian rebels fought pro-government militia in the northern village of Kano overnight, three security sources said, firing rockets and briefly kidnapping at least 20 people in the latest spike of violence between armed groups. Chadian forces have killed 120 militants from Boko Haram in a battle in the...
Events The Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Program at Cardozo School of Law, Jacob Burns Foundation, Rutgers School of Law-Newark, and the Law & Humanities Institute invite you to a symposium at Cardozo School of Law and Rutgers School of Law titled "The Abolition of War" on February 20-21, 2015. More information is here. Call for Papers The Goettingen Journal of International Law will...
I am occasionally accused -- correctly, of course -- of using the blog as little more than a tool for shameless self-promotion. So it gives me great pleasure to use the blog as a tool of shameless other-promotion and announce the publication of Jens's important new book, The Assault on International Law, now available from our friends at Oxford University Press....
The Washington Post has a long article today about how Mossad and the CIA collaborated to blow up Hezbollah's chief of international operations in 2008. Here are the key paragraphs: On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the...
This week on Opinio Juris saw Deborah note the publication of current Guantanamo detainee Mohammedou Slahi's diary and her review that appeared in the Washington Post about it. Peter offered further commentary on his first post on John Boehner’s invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address the US Congress, specifically in terms of what the invitation says about constitutional change. Though he never met him in...
Today, the ICTY Appeals Chamber affirmed genocide convictions in the Srebrenica case, Prosecutor v. Popović et al. The full Appeals Chamber judgment is here. The PDF document is 792 pages (including a few short dissents), which is long-ish but certainly not extraordinary by ICTY judgment standards. In my opinion, the most critical part of the judgment relates to the connection between the defendants, their Joint...
Ian Henderson may be mad at me. He asked for fewer posts on foreign relations. But he also asked for more posts on treaties. I have a new paper up that tackles both topics -- An Intersubjective Treaty Power. For those of you who are interested in such things, here's the abstract: Does the Constitution require that U.S. treaties address matters...
News reports indicate that Jordan is engaged in frantic negotiations with the Islamic State (ISIS) over a proposed hostage swap. Jordan is apparently willing to turn over a prisoner, would-be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi, in exchange for ISIS releasing both a Jordanian air force pilot and a Japanese captive. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, the deal appears to have collapsed. Earlier...
