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Search: jens iverson

26 Jan

...takes the sovereignty/non-intervention approach as explained before the recent US practice did not follow it and rightly so as there are still discussions on the absence of coercion (see ICJ Nicaragua case para. 205) in election interference (see Prof. Michael Schmitt here, here and here). So this leaves countermeasures out of the picture. If we take the self-determination approach presented by Prof. Jens Ohlin then the Russian action during the 2016 might have violated international law because in the election process opinions where disseminated by external actors that posed as...
26.01.21 | |

12 Jul

This week on Opinio Juris, we hosted a symposium on Ian Henderson and Bryan Cavanagh’s paper on Military Members Claiming Self-Defence during Armed Conflict. In a first post, Ian and Bryan discussed when self-defence applies during an armed conflict, while their second post dealt with collateral damage and “precautions in attack”. Their third post addressed prohibited weapons, obedience to lawful commands, and a ‘duty’ to retreat, and summarized the main points of their paper. In their final post, they focused on the concept of unit self-defence. Jens Ohlin and Kinga...
12.07.14 | |

11 Jul

...its nature and scale, reaches the threshold of an armed attack, the inherent right of national self-defence can be invoked and force may be used within the limits of that right. In such a case, unit self-defence would be absorbed within the jus ad bellum concept. If the use of force triggers an armed conflict, the law of armed conflict will become applicable, in which case, as discussed by Henderson & Cavanagh as well as Jens David Ohlin, the concept of self-defence (unit or personal) becomes arguably redundant. But what...
11.07.14 | |

28 Sep

...update, or repeal the 2001 AUMF and to clarify the basis for its action against ISIL and other terrorist groups that did not take part in the September 11th attacks – and in many cases did not even exist at the time of the attacks. See for instance Jens David Ohlin here, Deborah Pearlstein here, Peter Spiro here, Jack Goldsmith here, and Jennifer Daskal here. While both Sales and Daskal expressed concerned with the current legal framework dealing with terrorist threats in the United States, their opinion differed as to...
28.09.14 | |

14 Feb

Cross-posted at LieberCode. David Rieff has an interesting – and somewhat polemical – article in the latest Foreign Policy. Rieff, you will recall, was an early supporter of intervention, a policy position no doubt influenced by his time spent in Bosnia which culminated in Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. Although initially hawkish on intervention, and willing to support liberal interventionism in Iraq, Rieff had a change of heart after the Iraq war failed to achieve any liberal goals. Not only did Rieff renounce the Iraq...
14.02.12 | |

25 Jun

I met Mike Lewis during my first year of law teaching at Cornell Law School. Mike was scheduled to give a lecture at the law school about torture and I was invited to give a commentary on his presentation. Mike had pre-circulated the paper that the presentation was based on. I disagreed with his thesis and pressed him sharply on its details during the event. His thesis had the virtue of proposing a very workable standard for defining torture, but I felt it yielded counter-intuitive results for particular...
25.06.15 | |

07 Mar

This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Kristen discussed the Elders Proposal for Strengthening the UN and its proposals to change the selection process for the position of the Secretary-General Jens pointed out how the end of an armed conflict can be as legally complex as its start, and wrote about the proposed CIA reorganisation. Patryk Labuda contributed a guest post on hybrid justice in Africa Julian asked whether Japan will embrace the ‘illegal but legitimate view of the UN Charter’s limits on the use of force. He also wondered whether the...
07.03.15 | |

06 Mar

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times says that John Brennan has proposed a major reorganization of the CIA that will, to a large extent, break down the deep bureaucratic divide between agency analysts and clandestine operatives. Historically, analysts engage in research and, as their name suggests, intelligence analysis. Some of that was obscure and abstract–for example writing reports on the political situation in a country and the likelihood that a particular head of state might be deposed. But other aspects of that research might be of more...
06.03.15 | |

17 Mar

...proposed applying the justificatory theory to examine decisionmaking by actors that lack formal power in international decisionmaking, but still play an important role in it. Referring to the comments by Ralph Wilde and Rob Howse, she added that these actors might challenge the understanding of which values are considered “universal”. Tai-Heng Cheng’s response, which includes references to some of his other research, can be found here. On Wednesday, Kevin Heller reported on the ICC’s landmark first judgment in the Lubanga case. Jens Ohlin and Kevin Heller posted on the relevance...
17.03.12 | |

30 Dec

...and Methods of Warfare Robert Cryer, Royalism and the King: Article 21 and the Politics of Sources Jens David Ohlin, Joint Criminal Confusion Elies van Sliedregt, Article 28 of the ICC Statute: Mode of Liability and/or Separate Offense Mohamed Elewa Badar, Dolus Eventualis and the Rome Statute Without It? Olympia Bekou, A Case for Review of Article 88, ICC Statute: Strengthening a Forgotten Provision Ilias Bantekas, The Need to Amend Article 12 of the ICC Statute: Remedying the Effects of Multilateral Treaties upon Third Parties Cedric Ryngaert, The International Criminal...
30.12.09 | |

23 Sep

I agree with Jens’ excellent post on the importance of the “unwilling or unable” standard to the US justification for legal strikes on non-state actors in Syria. I agree this action may reveal state practice supporting (or rejecting) this legal justification. I am curious whether the UK, France, or other states that may be participating in Syria strikes will embrace this theory. (I already know the Russians have roundly rejected this US justification). I also wonder whether this legal justification will weaken, as a policy matter, the ability of the...
23.09.14 | |

30 Sep

House Speaker John Boehner said in an interview on Sunday that ground troops may be necessary in order to stop the threat of ISIS. Although his comments were interwoven with lots of unnecessary talk of ISIS being barbarians, which I don’t think is terribly helpful, I do agree with his bottom-line assessment: air power and proxy ground troops won’t be enough to win this war. This points to a frequent mistake. Politicians think they can eliminate the cost of going to war by conducting an air war. That...
30.09.14 | |