There has been much consternation and hand-wringing about the Kenyan parliament's decision to table a motion to withdraw from the ICC. I understand the fear; Kenya's withdrawal would obviously be a sign that Kenyatta and Ruto no longer intend to cooperate with the Court. Withdrawal could also encourage other African states to leave the ICC, which they have not seemed...
The legality under international law seemed to play an important role in the U.K. Parliament's deliberations over whether or not to support a strike on Syria. The UK government issued an (admittedly bare bones) legal opinion which advanced a version of humanitarian intervention. So now that the U.S. Congress has taken up the same question, how important is the U.N....
[Mark Kersten is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of the blog Justice in Conflict. You can find him on Twitter @MarkKersten] Who would have thought that the most pressing question regarding the Responsibility to Protect in 2013 would be: what is it? The answer to this question is as unclear today as any time in R2P's...
[Ezequiel Heffes and Brian E. Frenkel are LL.M. candidates at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and Teaching Assistants of Public International Law at the University of Buenos Aires, School of Law. This post reflects partial conclusions of our ongoing research at the University of Buenos Aires’s Law School as members of the project “Beyond the...
[Otto Spijkers is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Utrecht University] It is interesting to compare the obligations of States at the international level with the obligations of individuals at the national level. Such a comparison is also interesting when it comes to the obligations of other States to intervene in Syria. In this post I will suggest some lessons...
[Stephanie Carvin is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She is the author of "Prisoners of America's Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo" (Hurst/Columbia 2010) and co-author of the forthcoming "Between Annihilation and Restraint: Law, Science Liberalism and the American Way of Warfare" (Cambridge University Press) with MJ Williams.] I have...
[Charles Kels is a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. His views do not reflect those of the Department of Homeland Security, Air Force or Defense.] From a U.S. perspective, the core issue with a Syrian intervention is the interplay between international and constitutional law. Specifically, to what extent does satisfying...
[Marty Lederman is a Professor at Georgetown Law School and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, and an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994-2002. This is the second part of a two-part posting.] In my previous post, I explained that the difficult and unresolved constitutional question has (thankfully) been avoided—at...
[Marty Lederman is a Professor at Georgetown Law School and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, and an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994-2002] Most of the participants in this Insta-Symposium, and in earlier OJ posts, have understandably focused their attention on the question of whether a U.S. military strike...
[André Nollkaemper is a Professor of Public International Law and Vice-Dean for Research at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam as well as the External Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands. This contribution is cross-posted at the SHARES Research Project Blog.] States that have decided to potentially engage in military strikes against Syria, or to...
Calls for Papers The University of Liege Law School will host Nudging Europe: What Can EU Law Learn From Behavioural Sciences? December 12-13, 2013. They have put out a call for papers for this event. Papers addressing the implications of behavioral sciences for contract law, competition law and risk regulation will be particularly welcome, but all areas of EU law are of interest. Where relevant,...
In a surprise announcement, President Obama announced today that he will seek congressional approval for his plan to launch military strikes against Syria. This is a smart decision, both politically and legally, since it will force many of his congressional critics to reveal their preferences, and take a position on this very difficult issue. If they approve the strike, the...
