Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
05 Apr Of Palestinian Liars and Israeli Saints: Confronting Anti-Palestinian Racism in International Law
underlying epistemology of international law. Above all, proponents of the international legal regime claim that, however flawed, it remains an efficacious framework for the resolution of conflict. Yet, when assessed alongside the atrocities inflicted on the Palestinians, we are forced to conclude that international law appears sanguine about their annihilation, posturing as the solution while failing to restrain the actions of a tiny state that declares itself beyond the regime’s reach. What value does international law hold if it cannot prevent one state’s massacre of nearly 35,000 people, its maiming...
17 Mar Looking for a Solution Under International Law for the Moldova – Transnistria Conflict
a clear comparison. The international community has widely condemned Russia’s occupation of Crimea as violation of international law because the occupation violates Ukraine’s sovereignty. Like Transnistria, Crimea voted overwhelmingly in a referendum over whether to join Russia. Moreover, Crimea has a significant Russian population, as Transnistria does, but again that does not make Crimea part of Russia. There is no basis under international law for Transnistria to join Russia without Moldova’s permission and Moldova would of course never allow that. Is Russia violating international law? Though Russia has served as...05 May Jus Post Bellum Symposium: What’s in a Name? The Great Definitional Debate over Jus Post Bellum
...the justice of post-war settlements and reconstruction, and I focus exclusively on non-consensual interventions. Others in the volume, in contrast, argue for interpretive and functional definitions, which are classified as newer approaches to the field. While these approaches certainly merit exploration, I continue to defend, and see greater value in a narrow but deep definition of jus post bellum. One reason is that to the extent that jus post bellum can and will serve a regulatory function, perhaps one day even evolving into a new Geneva Convention, there needs to...
11 Jun The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Final Report and Genocide
exception to this approach is mentioned in the SRG, page 3, where it quotes the Krsti ć Trial Chamber decision of the ICTY (see here) by saying: […] although the [Genocide] Convention was adopted during the same period that the term “genocide” itself was coined, the Convention has been viewed as codifying a norm of international law long recognised and which case-law would soon elevate to the level of a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens). The italicized wording in this quotation is correct but it also important...
18 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: From Contract to Combat – Individual Criminal Liability of PMSC Personnel and Its Integration into Emerging Treaty Frameworks
Articles 86 and 87 of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions), and may be specified and detailed in contractual obligations and domestic guidelines. For instance, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Law of War Program, under DoD Directive 2311.01E, mandates that contractors must adhere to policies preventing violations of the laws of war, including appropriate training and dissemination of relevant regulations. Violations of these obligations should be reported as “suspected violations of the law of war.” However, it must be emphasized that domestic law, and even less private...23 Sep Book Symposium: Cyber War – A Duty to Hack and the Boundaries of Analogical Reasoning
subject to physical, territorial boundaries, most notable in on-going debates about which governance models best serve cyberspace (the traditional sovereign territorial model, a multistakeholder model where cyberspace is a res communis, or some sort of hybrid approach). But, I notice similar sorts of conceptual boundary disputes in questions over what rules of international law apply in cyberspace, with much of the existing analyses resting on analogies to pre-existing regulatory regimes. I find this “law-by-analogy” approach problematic, particularly when it comes to IHL and rules on the use of force. My...
11 Dec Symposium on Forensic and Counter-Forensic Approaches to International Law: Private Investigators, Public Accountability – Digital Forensics and the Politics of Evidence in International Crimes
It would draw upon existing principles of international law, particularly the attribution mechanisms established in the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA). In short, the foundation of this approach lies in recognizing that responsibility should follow the capacity to perform a function rather than formal legal status. To be clear, this proposition differs from the classical functionalist approach in international institutional law, as it generally has a blind spot in addressing questions of accountability and responsibility. In short, functionalism ties an actor’s powers, privileges, and immunities...04 Feb AJIL Symposium: Can the ECOWAS Court Revive Regionalism Through Human Rights?
lawmaking rather than an out-of-court approach to ‘progressive’ lawmaking? The ball seems to be in Court’s yard as litigants have offered several opportunities for water testing. For instance, the 2001 Good Governance Protocol is the good example of an instrument that is not a human rights convention of ECOWAS but rather ‘Community law’, which however contains a wide range of provisions that look more like (human) rights than (states) obligations. Even after it was granted an express human rights jurisdiction, the ECCJ rejected all attempts to claim individual rights from...
12 May Invoicing Russia for Ukraine’s Recovery: The Complexities of Repurposing Frozen Russian Assets
[Dr. Paul R. Wil liams is the Founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), the Rebecca I. Grazier Professor in Law and International Relations at American University, and a world-renowned peace negotiation lawyer who has assisted over two dozen parties in major international peace negotiations.] [Alexandra Koch is Co-Chair of the Policy Planning Initiative at the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) and previously worked at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. She graduated Stanford University Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in International Relations...
07 Aug Fifteen Years After Sri Lanka’s Civil War Ended, a Different Approach to Transitional Justice is Needed
[Nadeshda Jayakody is an Australian qualified lawyer specializing in international human rights law, international humanitarian law (IHL), international criminal law and transitional justice. Nadeshda previously worked on accountability for human right and IHL violations that occurred in Sri Lanka as a Senior/Legal Officer at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Australia and as a Senior Researcher at the South Asian Centre for Legal Studies in Sri Lanka.] [This piece is written in a personal capacity and does not reflect the views of any organization the author is or was affiliated...