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16 Mar Preliminary Reflections on Sinochem
...put it, quoting the Intec decision from the Seventh Circuit, “Jurisdiction is vital only if the court proposes to issue a judgment on the merits.” Certainly, this understanding harmonizes the Court’s rulings—both before and after Steel Co.—in a wide variety of contexts, e.g., declining to adjudicate state-law claims on discretionary grounds without first determining whether the court has pendent jurisdiction over those claims, Moor v. Alameda County, 411 U.S. 693 (1973); abstaining under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), without first determining whether the case presented an Article III...23 Apr Venezuela and the Role of Domestic Constitutional Order in International Law
[Chiara Redaelli is Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Law School and Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.] Over the past months, while international legal scholars have been engaging in passionate debates as to whether Nicolás Maduro is still the de jure president of Venezuela or whether Juan Guaidó should be considered the new interim representative of the country, Venezuelan lawyers have debated over the constitutional basis of the two claims. The roots of the debate draws back to January 2016, when the Supreme...06 Jun The Corporate Joust with Morality
...remains wedded to short-term profits regardless of societal impact and even if fraudulently obtained. The colossal Volkswagen deceit, where 11 million diesel-fueled and supposedly eco-friendly vehicles were apparently rigged to cheat on emissions tests, blatantly screamed “go to hell” to corporate social responsibility. Coca-Cola paid scientists to argue that physical exercise is the antidote to high-sugar drinks, so consumers were encouraged to keep chugging and then jogging off the fat while Coke prospers. General Motors, which settled with the Justice Department for $900 million, ignored and then delayed reacting to...
11 Nov Symposium on Erin Pobjie’s Prohibited Force: Toward a Higher Level of Analytical Clarity – An Introductory Reflection on Erin Pobjie’s ‘Prohibited Force’
...take this opportunity to repeat here what I have stated in my foreword to the book: In my humble view, the central contribution of this elegantly written study consists of the suggestion to treat the term ‘use of force’ as a type rather than a concept and to identify a basket of elements which, while not having all to be present must be weighed and balanced to determine whether the threshold for the definition is met. It is by no means a weakness, but it rather testifies to the author’s...
20 Mar De-Christianizing International Law: US Politics and the Evangelical Legacy
...terms, the source code is good but the American mental operating system needs a serious update. They glorify winning not because they hate losers, but because they always assume contests are fair. The ordinary American dislikes bullies, abhors cheating and values fair competition. So, when international law says ‘proportionate’ civilian casualties are legally acceptable when in furtherance of a legitimate military target, this arrangement resonates with Americans as being ‘fair’. The very term ‘proportionate’ leaves open great ‘leeway’s of choice’ for politicians and religious leaders to exploit. So, when the...23 Aug Ambiguity in International Law and Diplomacy, and the Ambiguous Meaning of Multilateralism at the UN
...will. It has caused me to think about the virtues and vices of ambiguity in international law and diplomacy more broadly. At the UN, in the grand conceptualizing of the UN, a core ambiguity lies in the term and usage of “multilateral.” For some, multilateral means no more and no less the coming together – or not – of sovereigns around particular issues, without any ultimate compromise into the future of their sovereignty notwithstanding their cooperation on a particular issue in the present. For others, however, multilateral means this kind...
02 Nov The Legality of a SADC Intervention in Cabo Delgado in the Absence of Mozambican Consent
[Marko Svicevic is a post-doctoral research fellow at the South African Research Chair in International Law, University of Johannesburg.] Introduction The growing insurgency in Mozambique continues to worry its neighboring states and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) alike. Known as Ansar al-Sunna, the insurgency first arose in 2017 in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado. By July 2019, it had pledged allegiance to ISIS and by 2020, several reports confirm it has been added to the Islamic State Central Africa Province. Over the course of three years, insurgents have...
29 Jan In Justice Efforts for Syria, ‘Universal Jurisdiction is not Disappearing’
...the near, mid-term and long term future. UJ Proceedings are Needed to Bridge the Gap Until Other Accountability Mechanisms are Available To design and build the architecture of a future accountability process is going to take years. This includes any specialized court system in Syria, which the new administration announced to be operational by March 2025, if it is to guarantee minimum standards of fair trial. Until then, UJ proceedings play an important gap filling function in the following ways: Ongoing Cases and Investigations It goes without saying, that ongoing...
07 Apr What Happens When Transitional Justice Leaves Victims of Reproductive Violence Behind? A Look into the Inter-American Court’s Ramos Durand v Peru Historic Judgment
also advocated for this term to be codified into the Draft Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity and denounced the obscuring of reproductive violence under the category of sexual violence. While acts of reproductive violence have been considered by other international jurisdictions, the term ‘reproductive violence’ had not yet been used, let alone defined, by any adjudicative body. In Ramos Durand, the Court breaks with this pattern, becoming the first to call it by its name. In what will likely become a frequently cited paragraph in the tribunal’s jurisprudence, the Court...