This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Kevin and Deborah discussed the OLC's legal justification of the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, which Kevin called murder. Kevin then replied to a response by Jamie Orr on the issue of the CIA's entitlement to invoke the public authority justification. Deborah analysed what procedural protection the Fifth Amendment requires before a citizens can be targeted and discussed the key legal...
Many people are surprised that Germain Katanga has dropped his appeal, particularly given Judge Van den Wyngaert's savage dissent. I'm not surprised in the least, because it locks in his sentence, which the OTP planned to appeal. Katanga's 12-year sentence is even shorter than Lubanga's, and he has already spent seven years in pre-trial detention. In fact, he'll be eligible for...
Just like General Assembly resolutions can be indicative of state practice and opinio juris, I have always assumed that acts of the Security Council - an organ of the UN, composed of states - would be relevant as evidence and to the formation of customary international. Significantly, however, Security Council acts do not feature in the first report of the...
I will be participating in a roundtable about Syria and international justice next Monday night at the LSE. It's free and open to the public, so I hope at least a few OJ readers will come. You can also send questions to the following hashtag: #LSESyriaICC. We will try to answer at least a few of them! Here are the event details: Syria...
Jamie Orr has responded to my previous post on the drone memo, in which I argue that the OLC fails to adequately defend its conclusion that the CIA is just as entitled to the public-authority justification (PAJ) as the DoD. It's a thoughtful response, and I appreciate Dean Orr taking the time to write it. But I don't find his arguments convincing. Orr begins by citing Art. 43 of the...
So did we learn anything new from the redacted OLC memorandum we didn’t already know from the earlier White Paper, Administration fact sheet, official speeches, testimony, and media leaks about the nature of the Administration’s legal theory supporting lethal targeting? Yes, several things, with important implications for operations going forward. The newly released memo has some key deficits (see, e.g.,...
As everyone on Twitter knows by now, the US government has released the notorious memorandum in which the OLC provides the supposed legal justification for killing Anwar al-Awlaki. I'm a bit disappointed not to get a mention in the memo; people in the know have suggested that a post I wrote in April 2010 led the OLC to substantially rewrite it. Vanity aside, though, I'm...
Here he is, defending General Sisi, the new President of Egypt: This is a general, but a general who has studied in both the United States and the United Kingdom, so he is certainly someone who is familiar with the rule of law. Because everyone knows that you can't learn about the rule of law outside the West. Duh. PS. Abbott made his silly comment as a way...
Events The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals will take place on 18 July 2014 in Geneva. The seminar, the program of which is found here, will focus on the dialogue between the International Law Commission and international courts and tribunals. Members of the ILC, experts and practitioners will take part. The event is open to all. Calls for Papers The Editorial...
Most of the discussion about Abu Khattallah's capture in Libya has focused on the operation's basis -- or lack thereof -- in domestic US law. Less attention has been paid to whether international law permitted the US to use force on Libyan soil. As Marty Lederman recently noted at Just Security, Abu Khattallah's capture can potentially be justified on two different grounds:...