In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

08 Sep

It looks like President Obama learned his lesson. Last summer he decided to seek Congress's advance approval for a strike against Syria's chemical weapons capabilities. Political support for the operation evaporated. Obama looked weak and waffly (the decision was taken on a dime after a 45-minute South Lawn stroll with chief of staff Denis McDonough, almost certainly not vetted through...

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08 Sep

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Rebels of the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab have pledged allegiance to their new leader after his predecessor was killed and said their enemies would reap the "bitter fruits" of revenge after Ahmed Godane's killing, a spokesman said. Boko Haram militants early on Saturday attacked another town in...

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06 Sep

As predicted last week, it was only a matter of time before someone on the Hill dropped a bill to terminate the citizenship of Americans who are fighting with the Islamic State. Ted Cruz has taken the plunge, so it will probably get a little more attention than if some backbencher had adopted the cause. Press statement here; text of...

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06 Sep

In late June, I wrote a long post responding to the notorious memorandum in which the OLC attempted to provide a legal justification for killing Anwar al-Awlaki. I argued that although the AUMF likely provides the US military with a public-authority justification for violating 18 USC 1119, the foreign-murder statute, it does not and cannot provide the CIA with that justification. In defence of that conclusion,...

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06 Sep

This week on Opinio Juris, we welcomed Jens Ohlin to our masthead. Kevin asked whether it's time to reconsider the al-Senussi admissibility decision, linked to a Rolling Stone article about Chevron and the Lago Agrio case, and criticized attempts to assess the proportionality of an attack based on combatant:civilian kill ratios. There was more on the Gaza Conflict in a guest post by Liron Libman,...

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05 Sep

Anyone familiar with foreign relations law hears the common refrain that treaties almost never supersede statutes under the last-in-time rule. Until recently, it was certainly my understanding that the ancient Supreme Court case of Cook v. United States was the only significant example in which a self-executing treaty trumped an earlier conflicting statute. But my recent research on the...

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04 Sep

Last week, 45 Fijian peacekeepers deployed as part of a 1,200-member U.N. force monitoring a buffer zone between Syria and Israel were captured and are being held by Nusra Front rebels.   (Hat tip to Theodore Christakis here at the ESIL conference in Vienna for raising the issue yesterday in the ESIL / SHARES Peace and Security Interest Group Seminar.) Rebels have...

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02 Sep

It is my great pleasure to announce that Jens Ohlin, Professor of Law at Cornell, is joining Opinio Juris as its newest masthead member. (Astute readers will have noticed he was added there yesterday!) I doubt Jens needs much introduction, but here is a snippet from his Cornell bio anyway: Professor Ohlin specializes in international law and all aspects of criminal law, including...

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01 Sep

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Somali and African Union forces have launched a long-awaited fresh offensive against al-Shabab fighters aimed at capturing remaining ports from the armed group, army and government officials have said. Somalia asked the International Court of Justice to determine the maritime boundary between it and Kenya, which disagree about the...

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31 Aug

As the military situation in eastern Ukraine become more violent with the incursion of Russian troops, Vladimir Putin has called for talks to determine the statehood of eastern Ukraine. The Interpreter, a website that translates and analyzes Russian media reports, states that in an interview on Russian television Putin said: We must immediately get down to a substantial, substantive negotiations, and...

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30 Aug

This week on Opinio Juris, Julian asked whether the US President can enter into a legally binding climate change agreement without Congress, and educated news agencies about the difference between Taiwan's airspace and its Air Defense Identification Zone. The main focus this week was on the Middle East. Kevin commented on an Al Jazeera America piece on Israel's attack on Shujaiya, while Peter discussed the...

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28 Aug

I’ve been impressed by the number of questions I’ve fielded in the past few weeks from students, colleagues and media alike about whether the United States can and/or should pay ransoms or exchange prisoners for Americans held by various groups overseas. (I discuss the issue in short clips here and here.) Why did we exchange prisoners to rescue Bowe Bergdahl, but refused to pay ransom for James Foley? Is it illegal to pay ransom to these groups, or just a bad idea? Is it really a bad idea? In the interest of consolidating some answers on a topic that raises a complex cluster of issues, I thought it worth summarizing some of them here – first on the topic of ransom for hostages taken by terrorist groups, then on the topic of prisoner exchanges more broadly. The upshot: It may well be the right policy decision in an individual case for a government not to pay ransom to a terrorist group, but the broader, categorical statement that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is neither historically accurate nor strategically wise.
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