Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has flagged a very interesting ATS case that is due to be re-argued in light of the Supreme Court’s recent — and much discussed here at Opinio Juris — decision in Kiobel. Here is CCR’s description of the case, Al Shimari v. CACI:

Al Shimari  v. CACI was originally brought against L-3 Services Incorporated (formerly Titan Corporation), CACI International Inc., and Timothy Dugan, a former employee of CACI.  CACI and L-3 Services were the U.S. government contractors responsible for interrogation and translation services, respectively, at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities in Iraq. L-3 Services and Timothy Dugan have since been dismissed as Defendants in the case. The complaint alleges that CACI directed and participated in illegal conduct, including torture, at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where it was hired by the U.S. to provide interrogation services.   The four Plaintiffs had all been held at the “hard site” in Abu Ghraib prison.

The suit, brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and federal question jurisdiction, brings claims arising from violations of U.S. and international law including torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; war crimes; assault and battery; sexual assault and battery; intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent hiring and supervision; and negligent infliction of emotional distress. There are also civil conspiracy and aiding and abetting counts attached to most of these charges.  Through this action, Plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages.

Among the heinous acts to which the four Plaintiffs were subjected at the hands of the Defendant and certain government co-conspirators were: electric shocks; repeated brutal beatings; sleep deprivation; sensory deprivation; forced nudity; stress positions; sexual assault; mock executions; humiliation; hooding; isolated detention; and prolonged hanging from the limbs.

All of the Plaintiffs are innocent Iraqis who were ultimately released without ever being charged with a crime. They all continue to suffer from physical and mental injuries caused by the torture and other abuse.

CCR makes a strong argument in the relevant brief that Al Shimari is precisely the rare ATS lawsuit that can survive Kiobel. First, CCR argues that Kiobel‘s presumption against extraterritorial application of the ATS should not even apply in Al Shimari, because the conduct in question occurred in Iraq during the US occupation, a period in which (quoting Rasul) the US had “complete jurisdiction and control” over Abu Ghraib (recall that the Coalition Provisional Authority had “all executive, legislative, and judicial authority” over Iraq at this time), making it effectively US territory. The fact that the US was functioning as the sovereign in Iraq at the time of the relevant conduct, CCR also points out, means that allowing the lawsuit to proceed would be unlikely to result in “international discord” between the US and Iraq.

Second, CCR argues that the relevant conduct does indeed “touch and concern” the US “with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application.” It notes that CACI is a US corporation headquartered in the US; that CACI’s immunity from Iraqi legal process made it subject to US law; and that the conduct in question was directed from the US. It also notes that the US’s control over Abu Ghraib is — or should be — relevant to the “touch and concern” analysis.

Third, and finally, CCR claims that ATS lawsuits involving war crimes and torture should always be deemed to satisfy Kiobel, especially where — as in Al Shimari — the perpetrators of those crimes are present in the US. It argues that the potential for “international discord” is minor in such lawsuits, because war crimes and torture are types of conduct that all states are obligated to prevent and punish.

I am skeptical that CCR’s third argument will convince many federal courts post-Kiobel. Its first and second arguments, however, seem very compelling. I hope our resident and extraterritorial experts on the ATS will weigh in.

This according to the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which has considerable investigative ability. Reuters:

(Reuters) – U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

“This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” she added, speaking in Italian.

Recent news reports indicate that the Obama administration has been rethinking its opposition to arming the Syrian rebels. The Commission’s revelations, if true, not only complicate that idea but also deprive those who (in my view misguidedly) want to invoke the responsibility to protect to justify military intervention in Syria of one of their most potent rhetorical weapons. It’s easy to justify intervening in a civil war when one side is “good” and the other is “bad.” The situation is much more complicated, however, when a civil war involves two bad sides, even if one side — here, clearly the Syrian government — is worse than the other.

PS. As Ty McCormick points out at FP.com, the Commission’s findings would seem to validate Obama’s unwillingness to conclude — as demanded by the British, French, and Israelis — that the Syrian government has been responsible for using chemical weapons.

In the wake of Obama’s memorable statement, a number of bloggers have questioned whether the Boston bombings deserve to be labeled “terrorism.” Most of those bloggers — such as the excellent Ali Abuminah here – emphasize that many US definitions of terrorism require the violent act in question to be politically or ideologically motivated, which is still an open question with regard to the Tsarnaev brothers’ actions.

I’m sympathetic to this position — and I wholeheartedly agree with Abuminah’s observation that “acts of violence, especially mass shootings, carried out typically by white males, are immediately labeled as the acts of ‘disturbed individuals’ while the acts of a person identified as ‘Muslim’ are to be labeled ‘terrorism’ regardless of the facts.” But it is important to acknowledge that not all definitions of terrorism require a political or ideological motivation — including the one that is most relevant to the Boston bombings, the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (“Terrorist Bombing Convention”), which is codified in the US Code at 18 USC 2332f. Here is the international definition:

1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally delivers, places, discharges or detonates an explosive or other lethal device in, into or against a place of public use, a State or government facility, a public transportation system or an infrastructure facility:

(a) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or

(b) With the intent to cause extensive destruction of such a place, facility or system, where such destruction results in or is likely to result in major economic loss.

And here is the US definition:

(a) Offenses -

(1) In general – Whoever unlawfully delivers, places, discharges, or detonates an explosive or other lethal device in, into, or against a place of public use, a state or government facility, a public transportation system, or an infrastructure facility -

(A) with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury,
or
(B) with the intent to cause extensive destruction of such a place, facility, or system, where such destruction results in or is likely to result in major economic loss,

shall be punished as prescribed in subsection (c).

The Boston bombings clearly qualify as terrorism under either definition. There is also no question that the Terrorist Bombing Convention applies, because one of the victims of the bombings was a Chinese national. (The Convention excludes acts that take place in one state and involve only nationals of that state.) The US version is a bit more complicated, because 18 USC 2332f requires a bombing to have a substantial effect on foreign or interstate commerce if jurisdiction is predicated — as it would be here — on the fact that the bombing killing a foreign national. But I agree with Bobby Chesney that the bombings almost certainly do have the requisite effect.

Again, I think it’s unfortunate that the label “terrorism” is almost always reserved for violent acts committed by Muslims, even though domestic groups (from right-to-lifers to neo-Nazis) pose a much greater threat to Americans living in the US. But that doesn’t change the fact that setting off bombs in the middle of a marathon does indeed qualify as terrorism.

NOTE: I should add that, as a normative matter, we should restrict the term “terrorism” to violent acts that are politically or ideologically motivated. I think it is precisely the presence of such a motivation that distinguishes terrorism from “ordinary” criminality. Alas, the international community does not seem to agree, at least for certain kinds of weapons.

[Jonathan Horowitz is writing in his personal capacity. He is the Associate Legal Officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Security and Counterterrorism Program and Naz K. Modirzadeh is a Senior Fellow at the HLS-Brookings Project on Law and Security at Harvard Law School, where she leads the Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement initiative.]

Part II: How International Law Could Work in a Transnational NIAC…with Consent

In our previous posting, we used a scenario to explore a set of legal issues relating to transnational non-international armed conflicts (NIACs). The scenario focused on Syria deciding whether or not to attack three high-level Free Syria Army (FSA) rebel commanders on U.S. soil who were present at the invitation and encouragement of the U.S. government (obviating any expectation that the U.S. would provide consent for an attack against them, or that it would arrest and hand them over to the Syrians).

In this posting, we explore the set of legal issues that arise when a foreign State, in this case Iran, does grant Syria permission to target the high-level FSA commanders who are part of Syria’s NIAC.

As mentioned in the previous post, the purpose of setting out this scenario is to tease out how different international law regimes (specifically the law of armed conflict, the law of self-defense, and international human rights law) could interact in transnational NIACs.  What follows does not intend to raise, or answer, all the legal issues that the scenario presents. Nor do we even think the legal analysis below is necessarily “correct” in all places. Instead, we intend to find areas of agreement, provoke disagreement, and welcome any other thoughts and comment amongst Opinio Juris readers.

Let’s begin:

In this scenario, while Syria is in a NIAC with the FSA, the three high-level FSA commanders secretly travel to Iran to meet with members of the Sunni minority community to discuss possible recruitment operations. The Syrian government learns of the meeting and contacts the Iranian government to ask for assistance to kill or capture the FSA commanders. “Are you kidding me?” the Iranian official responds. He continues, “We’re not getting involved in your war… Well, not directly at least. Plus, I’m not going to commit our limited military and law enforcement resources to a low-priority operation that could result in the death of my agents.” The Syrian official responds, “Well, how about you let one of my fighter jets deal with the situation? After all, we are at war and these FSA commanders shouldn’t be immune from attack just because they cross an international border.” The Iranian official agrees.

What could happen next: After a bit more thinking, the Iranian official realizes that he just authorized what amounts to…

[Jonathan Horowitz is writing in his personal capacity. He is the Associate Legal Officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Security and Counterterrorism Program and Naz K. Modirzadeh is a Senior Fellow at the HLS-Brookings Project on Law and Security at Harvard Law School, where she leads the Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement initiative.]

Introduction:

This is the first in a two-part series of postings that attempt to tease out how different international law regimes (specifically the law of armed conflict, the law of self-defense, and international human rights law) interact in transnational non-international armed conflicts (NIACs).  Through conversations between the two of us, and conversations we have had with others, our sense is that looking at public international law generally, as opposed to focusing separately on targetability, other jus in bello constraints, imminence and self-defense, and human rights, illustrates the myriad dilemmas, tensions, and consequences that such a borderless  notion of NIAC would raise.

By way of background, a “transnational NIAC” is the term-of-art for a NIAC where hostilities cross international borders and/or where NIAC targetable individuals cross international borders.  In this type of NIAC, many have argued that the law of armed conflict (LOAC) can follow, like a cloud overhead, targetable individuals to another territory where there are no indications that a NIAC is taking place.  This place could be an empty café in Paris where a targetable individual is making arrangements for a weapons airdrop back where he is fighting; or it could be on a dark street corner in Morocco where a targetable individual is obtaining a zip-drive with the license place numbers and vehicle descriptions of his enemy’s top commanders.  The idea is that the NIAC itself would follow the fighters (thus presumably making their targeting lawful under LOAC), but that the actual decision to target these individuals would hinge on a complex array of other factors borrowed from other areas of law: imminence of the threat posed by the individual, consent from the state where the individual has traveled, or the determination that the state is unable or unwilling to detain or expel the individual.

The purpose of this posting is not to discuss whether “the cloud” of LOAC is or isn’t allowed to follow targetable individuals from places fraught with the violence of a NIAC to a place that is peaceful and calm. Its purpose is to assume that this is allowed and, from there, look at the consequences of this; ask what parts of international law outside of LOAC interact with this type of targetability; and ask whether new mechanisms or doctrines should be put in place to limit those consequences.

It is also important for us to note that what follows does not raise, or answer, all the legal issues at hand. Nor do we even think the legal analysis below is necessarily…

It’s always exciting when the media pays attention to expert reports on international law. Unfortunately, the media all too often gets international law wrong — and recent reporting on the Tallinn Manual on International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare is no exception. There has been a spate of articles in the past couple of days that breathlessly claim the Tallinn Manual permits the use of lethal force against hackers. The Huffington Post’s article is entitled “Report for NATO Justifies Killing of Hackers in a Cyberwar.” According to the Verge, “Killing Hackers is Justified in Cyber Warfare, Says NATO-Commissioned Report.”  And Silicon Angle claims that “Hacktivists Can Be Killed Under Rules of CyberWarfare.”

Does the Tallinn Manual permit a hacker to be killed? Yes, in extraordinary circumstances. But the articles mentioned above each fail to mention that the Manual imposes very significant limits on the use of lethal force against individuals involved in cyber-warfare — and that all of those limits are based on, and reflect, the traditional rules of international humanitarian law (IHL). There is nothing particularly troubling in the Manual, and I say that as someone who is profoundly sympathetic to hacking collectives like Anonymous. Indeed, properly understood, it almost inconceivable that the Manual would permit a state to use lethal force against Anonymous or a similar collective — no matter how dangerous (in the view of a state) their hacking might be.

To begin with, the Tallinn Manual deserves credit for not conflating the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello…

Wells Bennett calls my attention to this statement by Marc Ambinder in a recent article in The Week entitled “Five Truths About the Drone War”:

The CIA does not “fly” drones. It “owns” drones, but the Air Force flies them. The Air Force coordinates (and deconflicts) their use through the CIA’s Office of Military Affairs, which is run by an Air Force general. The Air Force performs maintenance on them. The Air Force presses the button that releases the missile. There are no CIA civilians piloting remote controlled air vehicles. The Agency has about 40 unmanned aerial vehicles in its worldwide arsenal, about 30 of which are deployed in the Middle East and Africa. Most of these thingies are equipped with sophisticated surveillance gear. A few of them are modified to launch missiles. The Air Force owns many more “lethal” RPVs, but it uses them in the contiguous battlefield of Afghanistan.

Wells points out at Lawfare that “if Ambinder is correct, then it is military personnel who do the drone-flying and the button-pushing, and military personnel can invoke a public authority justification for strikes implicating 1119, in Kevin’s view.” In other words, Wells suggests that it might be irrelevant whether CIA officers are entitled to a public authority defence, because they may not actually be involved in lethal drone attacks, including the one that killed al-Awlaki.

I completely agree with Wells’ restatement and application of my position on the public authority defence. But I am less sure that Ambinder’s “truth” insulates CIA from potential criminal liability. Ken Dilanian, a leading national-security reporter, had a long article in the Los Angeles Times last month discussing the possibility of the military taking over much of the CIA drone program. Ambinder’s reporting seemed to contradict Dilanian’s article, so I tweeted Dilanian about it. Here was his reply:

@kevinjonheller no it doesn’t. The cia doesn’t fly it’s drones, but it does the targeting and gives the order to fire.

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianLAT) March 17, 2013

Dilanian is right: the articles don’t necessarily contradict each other. Ambinder says that the military flies the drones and pushes the button that launches the weapon; he does not claim that the military chooses the targets and makes the decision to launch the attack. There are some interesting questions about what it means for the CIA to “give the order to fire,” but it seems clear that CIA officers are still involved in lethal drone attacks in a manner that gives rise to a potential violation of the foreign-murder statute — as conspirators or instigators or as aiders-and-abettors. So the fact that a CIA officer is not entitled to a public authority defence remains an important issue.

This according to a bizarre — and bizarrely inaccurate — article in the Jerusalem Post. How many errors can you find?

An Israeli law firm on Thursday formally announced its request to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensada, to open a criminal investigation into violations by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and nine members of Hamas for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.

[snip]

After years of public threats by the PA to file such a request or case against Israeli soldiers and political leaders, an Israeli lawyer, Mordechai Tzivin, was the first to strike, filing a complaint and request for an investigation.

The request is unprecedented not only because it involves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is against “Palestine” as a state and its leaders such as Abbas and nine Hamas members, but also because it is filed by an individual law firm as opposed to by a state.

Generally speaking, the ICC can only hear cases filed by states.

However, as the Tzivin wrote in his request to Bensada, the ICC prosecutor has a little known and almost entirely unused power to essentially self-open an investigation and self-file an indictment against individuals for international law violations.

The power, referred to as the prosecutor’s “propio motu” power, is generally not used by the prosecutor because it requires special approvals from the ICC itself and leaves the prosecutor’s office exposed for using an extraordinary measure not requested by any state.

[snip]

Asked whether he had coordinated his move with Israeli officials, Tzivin said he had spoken with top legal officials in all of the key ministries as well as a top official in the security establishment.

Despite Israel’s official position that there is still no state of Palestine, Tzivin said that he was either told that he had their blessing or that at least no one told him to hold back.

Here’s my count: (1) the ICC does not yet have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression; (2) there is nothing remotely unprecedented about a private individual asking the Court to investigate a situation; (3) it is not true that, “generally speaking,” the Court can hear only cases brought by states; and (4) the Prosecutor’s proprio motu power is not remotely “almost entirely unused” (Kenya, Cote D’Ivoire?).

Did I miss any?

I’m grateful to Ken, Wells Bennett, and Marcy Wheeler for speculating that my April 2010 blog post on 18 USC 1119, the foreign-murder statute, is the post referred to in today’s New York Times article on the behind-the-scenes machinations that culminated in the CIA using a drone to kill Anwar al-Awlaki. I imagine they are correct; the post fits the timeline and Marcy notes that no other post around that time on a legal blog specifically addressed the foreign-murder statute. If so, it’s a testament to the growing importance of academic blogging.

In this post, I want to discuss the part of the White Paper that seems to be motivated by the questions I raised in my 2010 post — Part III, which argues that killing a US citizen abroad who qualifies as a senior operational leader in al-Qaeda or its associated forces would not be murder because the individual responsible for the killing would be entitled to a public-authority defense. Here, for example, is one statement to that effect (p. 14):

A lethal operation against an enemy leader undertaken in national self-defense or during an armed conflict that is authorized by an informed, high-level official and carried out in a manner that accords with applicable law of war principles would fall within an established variant of the public authority justification and therefore would not be murder.

As everyone likely knows by now, Rand Paul has ended his remarkable talking filibuster because Attorney General Holder officially responded “no” to the question “Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?” Is it just me, or does Holder’s answer actually raise more questions than it answers?

(1) “Engaged in combat” seems like a much broader standard than “senior operational leader,” which the recently disclosed White Paper described as a necessary condition of killing an American citizen overseas. Does that mean the President can kill an American citizen inside the US who is a lower-ranking member of al-Qaeda or an associated force?

(2) Why (to second Marcy Wheeler) did Holder delete one word from Paul’s question, changing “not actively engaged in combat” to “not engaged in combat”? Does that indicate that the President can kill an American inside the US whose activities qualify as “engaging in combat” even if they would not qualify as “actively engaging in combat”? What is the difference? What does the US understand by “actively”?

(3) What does “engaged in combat” mean? That is a particularly important question, given that Holder did not restrict killing an American inside the US to senior operational leaders and deleted “actively” from Paul’s question. Does “engaging” require participation in planning or executing a terrorist attack? Does any kind of direct participation in hostilities qualify? Do acts short of direct participation in hostilities — such as financing terrorism or propagandizing — qualify? Is mere membership, however loosely defined by the US, enough?

Come on, Rand. Stand up again and get us some real answers.

Dan Blumenthal of AEI has a thoughtful piece in Foreign Policy on different tactics the U.S. could take to “win a cyberwar” with China. I think it is more about how the U.S. should “fight” the cyberwar with China and other governments that are going to use cyber-attacks against US companies and government entities.  Still, what caught my eye are two interesting legal proposals.

1) The US could amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to permit lawsuits against governments and government entities (like China’s) for cyberattacks and cybertheft.  I suppose the idea would be that a US company could sue the infamous People’s Liberation Army unit that is allegedly sponsoring many of the cyber attacks against the U.S.  I think this is a not very good  strategy since such litigation for state sponsors of terrorism have not gone very well.  And it would seem to require the US to open the doors to litigation against a foreign sovereign, which will certainly invite retaliation against the US government and US companies doing business with China. So I assume no such lawsuits would ever be brought, or almost never would be brought.  Still, worth thinking about.

2) Here is the hot idea:  Issuing letters of marque and reprisal against cyberattackers.  This idea has been developed by GMU lawprof Jeremy Rabkin and Ariel Rabkin here. I think as a policy matter, the idea of bringing private non-governmental resources into play is really important, since they have much of the technical expertise and suffer the most damage from cyberattacks.  On the other hand, officially sanctioning private warfare via “cyber-privateers” seems more trouble than its worth.  You are responsible for the damage they wreak, but you don’t actually control them very well since they are not in your chain of command.  And, oh yes, other countries could do this even better than the U.S. could.  Except they simply deny their relationship with the “private”attackers.

And I also think that international law would have something to say about this.  If a state of armed conflict existed, than it is easier to imagine unleashing a private band of cyberwarriors.  But absent that, I don’t think the cyber-privateers makes much legal or policy sense.  How could the US legitimately sanction private attacks against a foreign government absent a state of armed conflict without having to treat all foreign private attacks against it as “armed attacks” as well?

Still, I like the idea of expanding the universe of U.S. expertise and ability in the cyberwars, taking an offensive rather than a defensive approach, and thinking of new ways to do so. I am just not sure reviving private warfare will necessarily do that.

Libya has filed yet another brief concerning the admissibility of the case against Saif Gaddafi. The new brief is more than 50 pages long, so it’s going to take some time to digest. But we really don’t have to go beyond pages 22-24, because Libya’s admissions in those paragraphs doom — or at least should doom, if the Pre-Trial Chamber would ever actually rule — its admissibility challenge:

48. The Libyan Government does not deny that Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi remains in Zintan (one of the largest cities in north-western Libya) and that efforts to arrange his transfer to a detention facility in Tripoli are ongoing.[57] During his incarceration in Zintan Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi has been visited by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch on several occasions.[58] Permission was granted by the Minister of Justice, Salah Marghani, for a further visit by Human Rights Watch on 4 March 2013.[59] It is now a matter for Human Rights Watch to arrange this visit at their earliest convenience.

49. Since 30 October 2012 each of the extensions of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi’s periods of detention have been judicially approved by Tripoli based judges[60] who have travelled to Zintan to conduct a private hearing (ie. a closed session) on the extension of his remand period. These hearings have been facilitated by the local authorities in Zintan without any difficulties. The Libyan Government
understands that the reference on the remand extension documents to these hearings bearing held in public is an error as the hearings were held in closed session and were not open to members of the public.

50. The Libyan Government will shortly begin implementation of its recently devised proposal for the members of the Zintan brigade responsible for guarding Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan to be trained and regularised so as to form part of the judicial police which would then guard him upon his transfer to a central government controlled prison in Tripoli. It is not possible to say with any certainty the exact date of Mr Gaddafi’s transfer to Tripoli but it is understood that this will occur before the earliest possible estimated commencement date of the trial in May 2013.

51.It is anticipated that if the national security proceedings, which are presently in the pre-trial phase and for which there was a public court hearing[61] in the Zintan court on 17 January 2013, are to proceed to trial that once Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi is transferred to Tripoli these proceedings will also be transferred to the Tripoli court.

The first thing to note is that, even if these claims are true, Libya is still currently “unable” to prosecute Saif within the meaning of Art. 17(3) of the Rome Statute…