UN chemical weapons inspectors have handed their report into an alleged gas attack in Syria to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Secretary Ban stated in a UN meeting that an expert team's report will likely confirm the use of chemical weapons in the August 21 attack on Damascus. At PhD Studies in Human Rights, a post discusses Secretary Ban's comments and the...
Calls for Papers A call for papers has been issued for the 2014 Barcelona Workshop on Global Governance, happening January 9-10, 2014. The theme is Networks in Global Governance and the call is here. The Society of International Economic Law has posted a call for papers ahead of its Fourth Biennial Global Conference, to be held in Bern, Switzerland and hosted by the World Trade...
On both twitter and the blog, readers seem to have inferred from my previous post that I'm somehow disappointed that the US-Russia chemical-weapons deal does not automatically allow force for noncompliance. I suppose that's my fault; I tend to assume when I write that readers have at least some prior knowledge of my politics. So let me be clear: I am...
That's the tally in light of the deal that has been reached regarding Syria's chemical weapons. The US position was that any agreement had to permit the use of force against Syria in case of noncompliance. But the US-Russian deal simply calls for the Security Council to consider the consequences of noncompliance under Chapter VII; it does not commit the...
Apparently not, because yesterday's war propaganda editorial by Sebastian Junger beating the drum for attacking Syria is just spectacularly awful. I've been out of the fisking game for a while, but the editorial simply can't pass unmentioned. Every war I have ever covered — Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Liberia — withstood all diplomatic efforts to end it until Western military action...
Can anyone point me toward a good discussion -- historical and/or theoretical, preferably both -- of the ability (or inability) of the Security Council to adopt resolutions that are binding on states that are not members of the UN?...
Andrew Cayley, the co-international prosecutor, has resigned effective next week: British national Andrew Cayley told VOA that it was no secret he was planning to resign this year, but said he was leaving now for personal and professional reasons. He did not elaborate and said his resignation will not affect the ongoing prosecutions under his authority. Cayley’s departure, which is effective September...
In From Apology to Utopia, Martti Koskenniemi mapped how international legal rhetoric can be used to “apologize” for power—to provide a fig leaf over the rude exposure of realpolitik—and how it can be utopian—making rules for a world that does not actually exist. This week we have had two examples of international law and high politics: President Obama’s speech on Tuesday and Vladimir Putin’s...
I've been following Argentina's travails in the U.S. courts with great interest, even penning an oped on the subject back in January on their standoff with sovereign debt creditors in Ghana. Argentina and the so-called "holdout" creditors have been battling out their dispute in the federal courts of New York for years. So it is interesting to note that Argentina...
On September 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, will hear oral argument in the case of Guantanamo detainee and alleged al Qaeda propagandist, Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul. Earlier this year, a D.C. Circuit panel invalidated al Bahlul’s conviction by a military commission for conspiracy and related charges because those offenses did not violate the international law of war when committed. The ruling in Al Bahlul followed logically from the D.C. Circuit’s previous ruling in Hamdan v. United States (Hamdan II), reversing the defendant’s conviction and holding that jurisdiction under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (2006 MCA) is limited to violations of international law for conduct that pre-dates the statute.
Al Bahlul presents the important question of whether the U.S. may try in a military commission offenses such as conspiracy and material support for terrorism (MST) that do not violate international law. The U.S. government’s argument is predicated on the assumption that the jurisdiction of military commissions extends also to violations of a separate (domestic) U.S. common law of war. The principal focus in Al Bahlul will be on statutory and constitutional issues—more specifically, whether the 2006 MCA authorizes the prosecution of pre-2006 conduct that does not violate international law and, if so, whether the statute violates the Ex Post Facto Clause, the Define and Punish Clause, and/or the civilian criminal jury trial guarantee under Article III and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.It is important, however, to consider some other implications of the U.S. government’s argument for commission jurisdiction based on a domestic common law of war.
In his speech yesterday, Obama predictably took credit for the latest developments regarding Syria's use of chemical weapons: In part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action, as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin, the Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical...
