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03 Mar Why Won’t the United States Call China Killings a Terrorist Attack?
attacks, but I still think the term “terrorist” is perfectly appropriate for this situation. The attackers indiscriminately killed and injured civilians in a train station, and there seems plenty of evidence that it is motivated by politics and ideology. To be sure, the international definition of terrorism remains contested, but the US law definition seems applicable. the term “international terrorism” means activities that— (A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or...
26 Jan It is in the Interest of India to Settle the Jadhav Matter (India v. Pakistan) through Diplomatic Methods
...“consular access” or “fair trial.” On this point, India can argue that the term “consular access” used in Article 36 of the VCCR should be interpreted to include private or confidential conversations with Jadhav. Pakistan would, of course, deny such conversations, as it has been doing so, because it believes that such conversations are outside the scope of Article 36. Thus, it gives rise to a difference of opinion as to the interpretation of the term consular access. Third and most importantly, for India to satisfy the complete jurisdictional requirements...17 Jun Understanding the Bolivian Coup: Latin American Democracy and the Cold War Paradigm
the government obstructed the work of human rights organizations, looking to de-legitimize them. Similarly, opponents frequently accused him of harassment through use of spurious judicial charges. For many, including close supporters, Morales had “distorted his essence” by pursuing a policy of “the ends justify the means”. The final straw came when Morales refused to acknowledge defeat in a 2016 referendum. 51.3% of Bolivians refused to approve a constitutional amendment eliminating presidential term limitations. Morales vowed not to respect the results, arguing before the Constitutional Tribunal that term limitations were contrary...
02 Nov Who Is Afraid of a Truth Commission? The Narratives of the Opposition to the Final Report of the Colombian Truth Commission
[Adriana Rudling is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Chr Michelsen Institute, Bergen Norway. Post-Doctoral Visiting Fellow at the Instituto Pensar, Bogota, Colombia working on issues relating to the interactions between victims and transitional justice mechanisms.] Eduardo González Cueva once told me the worst thing that can happen to a truth commission is that nobody talks about it, that it goes by unnoticed. This has certainly not been the case of the Colombian Commission for Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Guarantees of Non-Repetition, known locally as the CEV, so far. The...
20 May Political Recognitions of Genocides avant la lettre: the Case of the Armenian Genocide
[Dimitrios A. Kourtis, is a PhD candidate Aristotle University, Research Associate, Adjunct Lecturer, University of Nicosia.] Photo credits: Flickr, z@doune, CC Attribution 2.0 Generic. The Armenian Remembrance Day (24 April) marks the commemoration of the tragic events that took place against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. The persecutions, massacres, forceful deportations, and attempts to terrorize the Ottoman Armenian communities have been classified as genocide by historians (see indicatively Dadrian, Akçam 2019/2018/2012, Bloxham, Hovannisian) and at least certain legal scholars (de Zayas, Garibian, Kielsgard) although not necessarily...07 May Jus Post Bellum Symposium: The Norm of Environmental Integrity in Post-Conflict Legal Regimes
covering several hundred square kilometres, or ‘long-lasting’, defined as having a duration of several months or about a season, especially since in the assessment of such effects there would always be a large subjective element.” The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has criticized it as both too stringent and too imprecise; the ICRC would also apply a different standard. The UN Compensation Commission, operating under Security Council Resolution 687 and in a context where the respondent was not a party to the treaties, declined to apply “widespread, long-term and/or severe” as...23 Sep A Reply to Goodman Re: War/Not War with Al-Qaeda
..."police action." (Korea, too.) So, no, the history books do not need to be rewritten. In IHL, war is a term of art -- referring to declared wars between states. It was that use of "war" to which Cassese was referring, as the article Ryan links to makes clear. War is also, of course, an obsolete term of art, the last formal declaration of war taking place in 1945 when Russia formally declared war on Japan. Daniel Davies Thanks for addressing this shortcoming in Mr. Goodman's entertaining analysis. To further...
25 Feb Whether the U.S.-China Trade Deal is a MOU Doesn’t Matter, But Its Legal Status Might
It is not often that the U.S. President and his chief trade representative debate fine points of international law in the Oval Office in front of the world’s press and senior Chinese officials. But President Trump and the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer did just that last Friday when they publicly debated whether the possible US-China trade deal would be called a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) or a “trade agreement.” Here is the exchange, per Bloomberg. Trump told gathered reporters that the memorandums would “be very short term. I don’t...
11 Sep Contemporary International Criminal Law After Critique Symposium: After Critique – Rescuing the Anti-Impunity Norm Before Moving Forward
points to a specific problem that is not easily conveyed by any other term. Its broader meaning is not foreign to the history and common use of the term. The very word impunity emerged from a context of abuse of power and structural discrimination in Latin America. Indeed, it is because impunity has historically been associated with abuses of power or structures of political inequality that the term has a strong rhetorical force. This force is important because it mobilizes institutional change and provides legitimacy. Why should we allow a...