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28 Oct International Law and Popular Culture Symposium: Fantastic Futures – International Humanitarian Law and the Generative Potential of Pop Culture
knowledge of course material through the analysis of fictional fact patterns. Law school is more of the same, frequently featuring surprisingly fantastical hypos. That is how we learn. And in fact, scratching one’s head while trying to reconcile IHL with fictional universes is in itself an opportunity to mitigate one of IHL’s major flaws: reactivity. States dedicate a significant amount of money towards their militaries, including research and development. And while Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions stipulates that states should consider whether their research of or development of...
14 Jan War on Drugs at Sea: Lethal Interdiction, IHRL, and the “No Survivors”
...armed conflict in the legal sense. Conversely, a State can deny the existence of armed conflict and still be bound by IHL if the objective criteria are met. Armed conflict classification is an objective determination, made based on facts and legal criteria established under IHL. The classic formulation is the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Appeals Chamber’s statement in Prosecutor v Tadić: an armed conflict exists whenever there is protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organised armed groups, or between such groups within a State (para....24 May Securitization and Intermediation in Microfinance: Access to the Capital Markets
Financial intermediation is a dicey proposition these days, and ‘asset securitization’ a downright dirty word in a world in which securitization allowed the obfuscation of risk – purses from sows’ ears, but actually just fancy looking sows’ ears, it turns out, everywhere you looked. Nonetheless, one of the important longterm issues for microfinance (and for the whole, newly emerging ‘venture philanthropy’ sector that links for-profit and nonprofit together) is whether nonprofit enterprises such as microfinance can or should seek to access capital in the regular global capital markets; how that...
04 Apr Symposium on Military AI and the Law of Armed Conflict: A (Pre)cautionary Note About Artificial Intelligence in Military Decision Making
...example, ground operations, establishment of military installations, defensive preparations, quartering of troops, and search operations. It has been said that this requirement to take ‘constant care’ must “animate all strategic, operational and tactical decision-making.” In assessing the risk to civilians that may arise from the use of an AI-DSS, a first step must be assessing whether the system is actually suitable for the intended task. Applying AI – particularly machine learning – to problems for which it is not well suited, has the potential to actually undermine decision-making (p 19)....01 Mar The Immunities of International Organisations: The End of Impunity?
...governments,” the Act seems to continuously link the immunity of international organizations to that of foreign governments, so as to ensure ongoing parity between the two. The statute could otherwise have simply stated that international organizations “shall enjoy absolute immunity from suit,” or specified some other fixed level of immunity. Other provisions of the IOIA, such as the one making the property and assets of international organizations “immune from search,” use such noncomparative language to define immunities in a static way…Or the statute could have specified that it was incorporating...12 Mar Cheng Book Roundtable: When Should International Law Do More than Work?
...as well as the special contingent circumstances that led to the frantic search for intelligence from detainees. According to Professor Cheng, the legal memos authorizing waterboarding were still overbroad and wrongful. But he does not go so far as to argue that all waterboarding is always illegal at all times. Carefully monitored waterboarding, following the techniques used for training of U.S. soldiers, and subject to aggressive third-party monitoring, could indeed be justified in contingent circumstances. Waterboarding that was videotaped, and specifically authorized under the oversight of monitors, could be justified...20 Apr Kony 2012: Clicktivism and Child Soldiering
LRA) on their own initiative, through escape or by abandoning the group. In short, it may amount to strategic short-term media outreach to portray child soldiers as passive clueless victims, devastated, devoid of agency, or dehumanized tools of war robotically programmed to kill. But these images belie a much more sublime, humanistic, and granular reality of resilience and potential. Unfortunately, the Kony2012 campaign, and clicktivism generally, has a short attention span and limited shelf-life. Roger Alford opened this roundtable by posting a graph of the search volume index of “Kony”....05 Apr The Relevance of the Academic Model for the Modern Lex Mercatoria
...as may be suggested in the modern functional approaches are deemed irrelevant. Empirical research is unnecessary. There is no fundamental search for newer and better ways. Professors write practitioners’ handbooks and are proud of it. They follow and do not lead. It is very different in the top law schools in the US but they are too busy with themselves. It is one reason why the modernisation of private law along transnational lines is retarded or even rejected. In Europe in particular, there is little will and inspiration to move...26 Sep Weekly News Wrap: September 26, 2013
...go from room to room inside the mall, firing protectively before entering unknown territory, in a bid to secure the complex a day after a siege that killed scores ended. Foreign forensic teams have joined to assist the Kenyan authorities in their search. Foreign Policy offers analysis here. African Union leaders will hold a special summit next month amid growing opposition to the crimes against humanity trials of Kenya’s leadership at the ICC. Europe Today, at 11:00 CET, the Appeals Judgment will be delivered in the Charles Taylor Trial (see...24 Jun No, HRW and Amnesty International Don’t Ignore Labor Rights
...work, particularly just and fair conditions of employment, protection against forced or compulsory labour and the right to form and join trade unions; And, of course, neither mentions that if you search the Amnesty website for “labor union” or “trade union,” you get literally hundreds of results like these: Kazakhstan: Public figure on trial for defending strikers; Iran must release imprisoned trade unionists; Colombia: Security fears for peasant farmers’ leader; Guatemala: Trade union leader killed, others in danger; Nigeria: Release Labour Activists; Colombia: Further information: Organizations and unions threatened; Warning...