Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
06 Dec A Critical Lens on the Protection of Sexual and Gender Minorities under International Human Rights Law
[Daniel Ó Cluanaigh is a researcher and consultant in international human rights law, non‑profit strategy, and protection of human rights defenders.] Notwithstanding the ubiquity of criminalisation and violence against sexual and gender minorities (SGM) across the world, international human rights law has been notoriously tardy in getting to grips with it. Indeed, to this day, international human rights fora are the site of bellicose resistance to the recognition of the basic human rights of SGM, and there remains no international human rights treaty for their protection. In the last 30...
04 Mar Warning! Obstacles Ahead! The Regulation of Autonomous Weapons Systems in the GGE LAWS
[Jeroen van den Boogaard is a legal counsel for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a lecturer in international humanitarian law at the University of Amsterdam. He writes this post in his personal capacity.] In the coming weeks, Opinio Juris will host a symposium on “Responsible Military AI and the Law of Armed Conflict.” The purpose of the symposium is to examine the challenges in regulating autonomous weapons systems. There is no forum where challenges become more apparent than during the meetings of the GGE LAWS. The symposium takes...14 Mar Symposium: Alter and Helfer’s Liberal Theory of International Courts–Interlocutors, Context, Backlash
contextual approach to ICs. This approach locates courts in their international and especially domestic contexts, and explores how ICs interact, not only with state governments (which Alter and Helfer believe have been overemphasized in previous scholarship), but also and especially with other supranational and domestic actors. Given the wide range of topics they address, any review of their book must be selective, and I select just three themes – interlocutors, context, and backlash – as the core value-added contributions of the volume over existing scholarship, including Alter’s and Helfer’s previous...13 Sep The Uncertain Foundations of Human Rights
...particularized foundations. Another approach is to suggest that the positive law is an alternative foundation for a universal norm such as human dignity, in that positive law reflects principles grounded in fundamental rights. Under this approach, one can determine what is foundational by examining what is uniformly reflected in ordered societies. The existing legal architecture is an image of the philosophical foundations. A third approach, and one that I find particularly appealing at an abstract level, is what one participant described as the German theory of begründungsoffen, the idea that...08 May Harold Koh’s Speech at the Oxford Union
Former State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh spoke yesterday at the Oxford Union. His speech, “How to End the Forever War?” (link to .pdf) is a reflection on the Obama Administration’s foreign policy, in particular in regards to the rule of law. It is also a talk set to contrast the Obama Administration’s approach to international law and foreign policy from the Bush Administration’s. He opens in this way: Now that I have returned to the academy, I tend to hear three common misperceptions from friends on both the left...22 Mar Caution on the Private Manning letter
the sanction is lawful then it is not torture. Does the question of whether Manning's treatment constitutes torture turn solely on whether it is legal under American law? It can't. Congress cannot pass a law that prescribes mutilation as a punishment, thereby making it a lawful sanction and therefore not torture. So there is only so much work that the "lawful sanction" language can do. If certain kinds of solitary confinement are torture I don't think they can be rehabilitated with the "lawful sanction" language. Does Heller? Probably not, but...11 Jul Defending the American Way of Teaching International Law
everything ends with our Constitution. It seems that foreign relations law would be better treated in a Constitutional law casebook rather than in a casebook in a public international law survey course. It sort of makes me think that the American way of teaching international law does not really teach international law to our students - it teaches a very large dose of US foreign relations law with a tip of the hat (that is more or less extensive) to external approaches. From this is derived the ignorance of our...29 Jan Thoughts on the CMCR’s Questions in al-Bahlul
...an obligation to cease providing support to their countrymen who remained engaged in conflict in exchange for enjoying the protection of the occupying power. But violations were punished under the authority of the "domestic" law being enforced by the occupation government, and not as violations of the law of war per se. John C. Dehn Kevin, I don't intend to take a position now. These are thoughts for further discussion, now or in the future. There seems to be a category of punishable law of war violations by civilians that...01 Nov Academic BDS and Individual Israeli Scholars
...policies of Russia, China, and others? Like Israel, they're "democracies," too. Kind of curious, given your contempt for non-Israeli Jews, that you nevertheless choose to attend an American law school. As a proud graduate of the same law school, I can't imagine Stanford's heavily Jewish law-student population has become any more sympathetic to Israel over the past 15 years. Quite the opposite, I imagine. Kevin Jon Heller PS: I'm assuming you wrote this article criticising Obama's Middle East policies. What gives you the paternalistic right to deliberately attempt to subvert...
04 Jan In Ukraine, Russian Passportization Generates Effective Denationalization
was not a citizen of any other nation, that person became stateless under Ukrainian and international law. This is because it is the operation of the law—how the law functions in practice to grant or deny nationality—that determines whether an individual is stateless. This scenario makes clear that it is not only administrative decrees and legislation that can generate statelessness, but also actions that destroy an individual’s proof of citizenship. Denationalization in Newly Occupied Territories An analogous dynamic is emerging now, only on a much larger scale, in territory that...