Last week, Asaf Lubin offered a compelling post at Just Security wondering why Israel's repeated attacks on Hezbollah arms shipments in Syria have not received the same kind of jus ad bellum scrutiny as the US's recent attack on a Syrian airfield. Today, Charles Dunlap provides his answer on the same blog: the Israeli attacks are clearly legal, so why would anyone...
Hope our New York-area friends will be around for this one - Cardozo Law School and the ICRC are hosting an evening panel discussion: "A View from Abroad on Current Trends in Targeting, Detention and Trials." The panel will be at Cardozo Law School, 55 Fifth Avenue in New York, May 18, 6:00-7:30p.m., and features OJ's own Kevin Jon Heller,...
A great profile of an incredible man. When some people call his tireless work pursuit of the rule of law idealism, he responds that he is a realist who sees the actual progress we have made and that...
I had the great honour last week of giving a presentation to ICC member-states about Art. 15bis and Art. 15ter of the aggression amendments -- the conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction. The presentation was sponsored by the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) and organised by Austria, part of a series of presentations designed to prepare delegations to participate in the...
Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce: Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recalled the scene at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, when the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was interrupted by the strike on Syria. “Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him,...
Most readers are probably keenly familiar with International Law Reporter, the brainchild of Professor Jacob Katz Cogan (Cincinnati). For those not aware, ILR provides notices of scholarship, conferences, calls for papers, and the like -- and it's available in RSS feeds and via Twitter. (There's even a tip jar!) It's invaluable for anyone in international law and, I expect, anyone...
I read Jennifer Trahan's post yesterday with great interest -- but not surprisingly I disagree with it. Before I get to my disagreements, though, I think it's bizarre that we are all debating the legality of unilateral humanitarian intervention in the context of the recent US missile attack on Syria. It simply beggars belief to think that the attack was in any way motivated...
As I write this, the ASIL annual meeting is conducting a well-timed, previously unannounced panel discussion about the legality of the missile strikes against Assad's airbase in Syria. In addition to Harold Koh (Yale Law School), who has argued in support of humanitarian intervention, the speakers include moderator Catherine Powell (Fordham Law School), Jennifer Daskal (AU Washington College of Law), Steve Pomper...
On Monday, my friend Beth van Schaack posted an excellent analysis at Just Security of the Syria War Crimes Accountability Act of 2017, a bipartisan Senate bill "[t]o require a report on, and to authorize technical assistance for, accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Syria." Beth summarises the most important aspects of the bill; in this...
In a comment to my earlier post on humanitarian intervention and natural rights, Adil Haque asks me the following question: Can States voluntarily make binding agreements that curtail their natural rights of legitimate defense for the sake of greater collective security? Here's my answer. The positive law can expand the natural right but cannot curtail it. To explain my answer, let's think...
Everyone seems to have lined up against humanitarian intervention this week. I'm not sure if the proponents of intervention have changed their mind, or if they are keeping quiet, or if they never existed in the first place. Either way, I want to be clear -- if it isn't obvious already from my prior scholarship -- that I support a limited...
The blogosphere is now so fast that we can get an enormous sampling of expert opinion in a very short time. So within 24 hours of President Trump’s military strikes on Syria, we have already heard from former Bush State Department Legal Advisor John Bellinger, former Obama State Department Legal Advisors Harold Koh and Brian Egan, former DOJ officials and...
