Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation

19 Mar Treaties’ End

country—Tajikistan—provides for less involvement by a part of the legislature in treaty-making than in domestic lawmaking and makes the results of that process automatically a part of domestic law. To explain how the United States came to have such a haphazard and unusual system for making international law, I trace the history of the two tracks of international lawmaking back to the Founding. The current system rests on rules and patterns of practice developed in response to specific contingent events—events that for the most part have little or no continuing...

22 May A Word on Maqaleh

...who have NEVER been afforded the protections or rights of Enemy Prisoners of War under the law of armed conflict, OR the right to contest their U.S. military-assigned status, who are being treated by the American judiciary as LEGITIMATELY-defined POWs or non-POW detainees with a lawfully-assigned status, despite their never having been able to dispute it in front of a "competent tribunal," as clearly required by international law. Even the belatedly-ongoing habeas hearings in the D.C. District are ignoring the violations of the law represented by the absence of Article...

23 Jan A Response from the Human Rights Community

receive. That can’t plausibly be an outcome we seek. Perhaps most troubling in this line of argument, Mr. Bellinger asserts that the bargain the Geneva Conventions strike may be summarized as follows: “Ignore the laws of war, and you cannot seek the status given to lawful combatants.” Because the Taliban violated the law of war, they are not entitled to the protection of the law of war. This is something like a circular argument. The Taliban no doubt committed war crimes; accordingly they should be prosecuted for these violations under...