In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: {search_term_string}

09 Oct

...think Roger is correct in believing that President Obama will now have to approach the rest of this term (and potentially a subsequent term) from a different perspective. President Obama acknowledged this when he said the award was "a call to action" in his speech. Putting aside the reasons for the honor, it is exciting to see an America being welcomed back to the international table. Laura Little We can't ignore the President's own reaction to receipt of the award, as a "call to action", implicitly he affirmed with his...
09.10.09 | |

30 May

...well-founded prediction, since these methods fail to respect principles 1. through 4. By requiring initial and local viability of institutional reform, the incremental method neglects the fact that institutions which are viable in the large and in the long term may not be so in the small and in the short term. This is, in fact, the main objection that Tocqueville makes to Burke's evaluation of the French Revolution.' [emphasis added] I think these methodological principles have some application in the assessment of the ad hoc tribunals and the ICC...
30.05.06 | |

17 Mar

...based on the text or history of the AUMF, however. It is informed by the history of the CIA and its use in activities related to armed conflict. You are fundamentally arguing that a general requirement to comply with a relatively context neutral criminal statute (let's keep in mind that it does not specifically apply to covert action or the CIA by its terms) cannot be the subject of an implied exception. I am arguing that the law can be reasonably interpreted to grant a context specific implied exception when...
17.03.13 | |

04 Apr

was recently incorporated by reference in the Rome Statute. It deliberately employed a broad definition of the term State that applies without regard to recognition or UN membership. In the Draft Statute on the International Criminal Court the ILC said: An individual cannot incur responsibility for this crime in the absence of aggression committed by a State. Thus, a court cannot determine the question of individual criminal responsibility for this crime without considering as a preliminary matter the question of aggression by a State." So determinations regarding statehood will undoubtedly...
04.04.12 | |

29 Jan

...We have to also realize, that on the long-term we won’t be able to afford more bailouts and there has to be alternative solutions, since we are passing the trillion Dollar deficit boundary. Printing more money can be utilized as short-term tool, but on the long run it will devastate economy. Something needs to be done immediately, but more regulation & spending does not seem to be a logical answer, we need another alternative solution. Maybe we should take pure libertarian approach and let the free market decide who wins...
29.01.09 | |

31 Jul

...in Lebanon. A few more thoughts before handing it over to the legal experts: It may help to keep in mind what Stephen Poole has said about 'asymmetric warfare,' defined here by Robert R. Tomes: 'A simple theoretical construct underlies the theory and practice of counterinsurgency warfare. It is the essence of what today’s theorists and strategists term asymmetric warfare: although an asymmetric distribution of resources and abilities actually favors counterinsurgent forces, they are often inappropriately wielded. The conflict is asymmetric because there is a “disproportion of strength between the...
31.07.06 | |

27 Mar

...the late-term, highly circumscribed state of the Bush approach to the war on terror. That is, after the Administration's policies were heavily revised as a result of losing a sequence of battles at the OLC, Justice and the Supreme Court, as well as in terms of public opinion. The early Bush record of outlier policies in the war on terror, which is dominated by executive overreach, is conveniently discarded out of sight when Julian tries to draw a circle of reasonableness around "the basic legal framework" of the Bush Administration....
27.03.10 | |

19 Mar

...as an "apartheid" state. Terms are inverted. Reality twisted. At least Yiftahel created a new term. Quite a simple tact, if nefarious, really. Anon A DNA study of Jews and Palestinian Arabs (including Bedouins) found that these were more closely related to each other than to people of the Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopian Semitic-speaking people (Amharas, Tigrayans , Harari and Tigre people), and the Arabic speakers of North Africa. Genetic studies indicate that modern Jews (Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi specifically), Levantine Arabs, Assyrians, Samaritans, Maronites, Druze, Mandaeans, and Mhallami, all have...
19.03.17 | |

23 Feb

...they would gladly speak of "freedom of religion." I myself don't like the phrase because it doesn't work very well in traditions like Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. In any case, we might be likewise be troubled by Samelson's (note the spelling) use of the phrase "acts of faith," as faith does not carry the same meaning for all religious traditions, indeed, the concept is not found in all religious traditions. And where similar terms are found as, say, in Buddhism, their meaning is often rather different from the conception of...
23.02.10 | |

06 Dec

Rob In ordinary parlance, 'specific direction' would generally be taken to mean an order or instruction. If the Tribunal is going to use such poorly worded jargon, it can expect to have its decisions misinterpreted by the law public. Kevin Jon Heller Law is not ordinary parlance. Would you say the same thing about a journalist who didn't bother to learn a medical term, or a chemical term, or a physics term? Rob No I wouldn't. Although many legal (and medical and scientific) terms prima facie have a technical meaning,...
06.12.13 | |

10 Jul

Marissa Number 11 is a very strange question... First of all, if the settlers resisted they would most likely be doing so against the army. They would not start bombing random cafes in Jerusalem or firing rockets on Sderot. This is a major distinction. Hamas terrorists, in addition to attacking armed soldiers, attempt to harm civilian populations. When fighting soldiers, they use illegitimate means such as human shields and do not wear uniforms. Secondly, the term "freedom fighters" is a preposterous term which today is coined to give a human...
10.07.09 | |

07 May

el roam Thanks for an interesting post . To my best knowledge , this is the issue : If hunting whales, in high seas, in such or such circumstances, is forbidden , according to the international law, and the observation of such activists was reasonable in light of the given specific situation (ad hoc) then: The term: " private" should be split off to two observations: One is the : purpose , here we deal then with public act, and not a private one.Since, the circumstances, prima facie, indicated clearly...
07.05.15 | |