In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

13 May

Last week saw a set of posts, across the law-and-security blogs, about whether an armed conflict existed at the time current commission defendant Abd Al Rahim Hussayn Muhammad Al Nashiri was allegedly involved in planning the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. See, e.g., Frakt, Vladeck, Heller, and Margulies. While I’ve written about this at length elsewhere, after reading the posts, I find myself disagreeing (at least in part) with pretty much all of my friends on the question of who can/must decide the answer to the existence-of-armed-conflict question. Here’s my thinking.
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12 May

[Naz Modirzadeh is a Senior Fellow at Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement Project at Harvard Law School. This post is written in her personal capacity and does not represent the views of the CHE Project]  Part 1 can be found here. Humanitarian Concerns Perhaps as significant as the legal errors in the letter, the authors seem to take no account of the security implications of their recommendation....

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12 May

[Naz Modirzadeh is a Senior Fellow at Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement Project at Harvard Law School. This post is written in her personal capacity and does not represent the views of the CHE Project]  There is no shortage of profound questions arising out of the armed conflict in Syria. Yet whether the reported United Nations legal analysis concluding that the UN needs the consent of the Syrian authorities before it can undertake humanitarian relief actions on Syrian territory is not one of them. As international law questions go, this one is relatively straightforward: Absent a sufficient Security Council decision authorizing intervention—a decision which has not been forthcoming, at least not yet—UN system bodies, funds, programmes, and specialized agencies need to obtain the consent of the Syria authorities before undertaking relief actions on Syrian territory. You would be forgiven for being confused about whether there is a contested legal issue at stake if you had read the open letter sent on April 28th from 35 eminent legal experts (repeatedly referred to as “top international lawyers” in the press and in an increasingly loud Twitter campaign) to the UN Secretary General, Under Secretary General Valerie Amos, and the heads of the five UN humanitarian agencies. US Senator Tim Kaine (who sponsored the Syrian Humanitarian Resolution of 2014) quickly capitalized on the letter and the caliber of its signatories, sending a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stating that “continued inaction will only undermine the legitimacy and reputation of the UN.” The Senator noted that while he supports a Chapter VII decision, he believes that “the UN already has the authority to act.” He states,
“Based on the opinion of prominent international lawyers, the UN currently has the mandate and legal authority to organize a large coalition of international NGOs poised to deliver humanitarian aid to all areas of Syria. Anything short implies complicity with the Syrian government’s continued violations of the basic principles of international law, and is shameful.”
Strong words—and ones that raise the question of whether the prominent international lawyers who signed the letter anticipated being implicated in the suggestion that the UN’s failure to essentially run the Syrian border against the government’s explicit denial of consent suggests “complicity with the Syrian government’s continued violations.” There are many actors with blood on their hands in the generational tragedy unfolding in Syria. In my view, the women and men of the UN’s humanitarian agencies are not on that list. In this post, I would like to provide a close initial read of the letter (whose arguments have been quickly amplified by an advocacy and media campaigns). My sense is that this is a political argument dressed up in the language of IHL.
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12 May

As my correspondent Victoria Ferauge points out in response to last week's post on inter-governmental agreements implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the problem with FATCA for expatriate Americans is not so much the prospect of added accountant fees in tax preparation. It's the prospect of being discriminated against as an American for all things financial. Faced with their own accounting...

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12 May

The state of the international law academy in the United States is undoubtedly strong.  International law and its progeny are no longer marginalized pieces of the law school curriculum as they were for much of the 20th century.  U.S. Law Schools regularly offer international law, with a fair number now doing so in the first year (whether as a required...

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12 May

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Boko Haram has released a new video claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted last month, alleging they had converted to Islam and would not be released until all of its prisoners held by Nigeria were freed. Israel offered Nigeria help in locating 200 schoolgirls abducted...

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10 May

A busy week on Opinio Juris with a book symposium on Just Post Bellum-Mapping the Normative Foundations. Kristen introduced the great definitional debate on the meaning of "just post bellum" (JPB). Jens Iversion contrasted JPB with transitional justice and Ruti Teitel discussed JPB as transitional justice. Jens Ohlin argued in his post that ideas about omission liability are stumbling blocks towards the acceptance of JPB. Where...

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08 May

A constitutional challenge is in the works to Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the anti-offshoring tax measure that is the bane of ordinary US citizens worldwide. The law adds a burdensome layer of administrative requirements to longstanding citizenship-based tax liabilities. If you're an American living in France, say hello to thousands of Euros in accountant fees. Foreign banks are a key location...

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06 May

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Medecins Sans Frontieres has suspended all but emergency care in the Central African Republic to show its "dismay" at the government's failure to condemn the killing of 16 people at one of its clinics. The violence is spreading in the Central African Republic as at least 28 people...

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03 May

This week on Opinio Juris, Duncan posted an abstract to a book chapter arguing that IHL should adopt a duty to hack. He also argued that reports of the death of treaties are greatly exaggerated. Peter marked May Day with a post on global consciousness of the non-elites; Kevin argued that the PTC II is not treating defence attorneys fairly; Julian wrote about Florida's narrow...

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01 May

Florida's legislature has just passed a bill that is an interesting variation on the wave of other foreign law bans that have been enacted in U.S. states.  Florida's new law would ban the use of foreign law in Florida state courts if that law "contravenes the strong public policy" of Florida or if the "law is unjust or unreasonable."  It...

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01 May

Before the Piketty bubble reaches stage six (at this rate, sometime later today), a few thoughts on the geosocial implications of his theory of inequality. That theory has been getting the lion's share of the lion-sized attention showered on Capital in the 21st Century (Kindle edition available only). Those of you reading the reviews (if not the book itself) will know...

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