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30 Mar The Climate Change Negotiations Resume
...he noted that it would be guided by a combination of science and pragmatism (my emphasis) and emphasized the importance of “defin[ing] a path forward that will be supported by the people that we serve.” Not surprisingly, President Obama’s announced goal of returning US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 falls well short of what many other countries would like (although his longer term target of reducing US emissions by 80% by 2050 is comparable in ambition to the EU). The negotiations are currently fragmented between two groups that meet...09 Apr Will CEDAW Bring A “Radical Transformation of American Law”?
...domestic laws or those covering foreign activities. Further, Benshoof asserted that CEDAW doesn’t allow for any defense based on custom or religion, and that it applies to all private conduct. I guess my (admittedly not expert) reading doesn’t see where the big transformation is. Not to mention the treaty is almost certainly non-self-executing. But this debate may eventually come back to us when (or if) the Obama Administration makes a final push for CEDAW (although that will probably not be until Obama’s second term, if there is a second term)....
17 Jun The Domestic Definitions of the Crime of Genocide: A Dizzying Diversity
[Dr. Tamás Hoffmann is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Legal Studies and an Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest.] Since the adoption of the Genocide Convention by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948, the crime of genocide has been universally regarded as the ”crime of crimes” in international criminal law. Article II of the Convention defined genocide as: [a]ny of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious...12 Sep From Apology to Bazinga!: International Legal Rhetoric in Obama’s Speech and Putin’s Op-Ed
...the language of international law is used by both leaders. Putin’s argument plays on American fears and worries but it is framed in the rhetoric of international law. There are some scare lines, such as: “A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism.” There is a description of a “reeling” Afghanistan where “no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw.” And, he adds, don’t forget the divisions in Iraq and Libya. It is not in “America’s long-term interest” to have U.S. military intervention...
18 Sep Transitional Justice Symposium: Law’s Liberation
“transitional justice.” He argues, the popular translation of transitional justice in traditional Chinese（轉型正義）, which is allegedly informed by Taiwanese scholars during the first decade of this century, is quite misleading. The term has often been misinterpreted as “deformation” or “mutation” of justice. Local commentators criticized the connotation of the term, for justice is universal, prospective, and generally applicable, rather than constructive, in-between, and context-dependent. In their words, transitional justice is a political excuse of the successor regime to persecute people on the other side of political spectrum. “Transitional injustice” was...
20 Jun A Tale of Two Definitions: Fortifying Four Key Elements of the Proposed Crime of Ecocide (Part I)
...addresses four facets of the Independent Expert Panel‘s (“IEP”) 2021 proposed definition of Ecocide and contrasts them with the corresponding elements of the definition of Ecocide (reproduced here) proposed by the Author in his book: “Prosecuting Environmental Harm before the International Criminal Court”. Part 1 examines the IEP’s lack of enumerated underlying crimes and its framing of Ecocide as a crime of endangerment. Part 2 examines the IEP’s use of the term “wanton” and its approach to the element of “lawfulness”. This comparative analysis is designed to fortify pivotal elements...28 Sep The United States’ Radical Charges Against Al-Nashiri
...military commission have jurisdiction over that attack? The MV Limburg was a French oil-tanker owned by Belgium and chartered by Malaysia; as far as I know, no American was harmed in the attack or was even aboard the ship. (The one fatality was Bulgarian.) So what is the jurisdictional nexus? The charge sheet is silent on that issue. The only possible argument for jurisdiction that I see involves the definition of “unlawful enemy combatant” in 10 U.S.C. 948(a) (emphasis added): (1) Unlawful enemy combatant. – (A) The term “unlawful enemy...
09 May Why Does the United States Continue to Oppose International Courts?
[Dr. Joanna Rozpedowski (twitter: @JKRozpedowski) teaches political theory at George Mason University, Schar School of Policy and Government, and her research focuses on international human rights and humanitarian law, geopolitics, and global security.] As recently as April 2019, the Trump Administration renewed a long-standing U.S. opposition to international courts by revoking visas of the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and her team in response to the prospects of a looming investigation of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. The genealogy of America’s unprecedented anger towards a system of international...
22 Dec Governance in the Grip of Debt
...is precisely “to help profitable actors further increase their profits.” In this post, I show how states and governments function within a tightly interlocked global economic system, which determines their conduct and their roles. Within this system, the national governments’ primary allegiance is to the market and the institutions which regulate it, not to their citizens. As the policy decisions imposed on governments impoverish the masses, the role of governance in under-developed states is to maintain order, not ameliorate misery. I will begin by sketching the functioning of this global...24 Nov Reponse by Professor Matthew Waxman, “International Standards for Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond the Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide.”
...detention model is underdeveloped and proposes some substantive and procedural standards to help fill it in. But I wonder whether administrative detention is so underdeveloped, or so expansive a concept, that it doesn’t make sense to think of it as a single model at all. Consider the many dimensions along which administrative terrorist detention proposals or examples vary: robust judicial review versus deference to military judgments; short-term versus long-term; one-time challenge versus periodic review; regular civilian judges versus special courts or military panels; right to counsel of choice versus special...