Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
07 Nov From ‘Nuclear Weapons’ to ‘Climate Change’: The ICJ’s Approach to the lex specialis Maxim
to displacing the general rule. As revealed in the International Law Commission (ILC)’s commentary on the fragmentation of international law, “[t]he application of special law does not normally extinguish the relevant general law. That general law will remain valid and applicable and will…continue to give direction for the interpretation and application of the relevant special law…” (p. 178) (emphasis added). Further, in Construction of Wall, the ICJ shed light on its Opinion, stating that some rights “…may be matters of both these branches of international law…namely [IHRL] and, as lex...26 Feb Symposium: The Assumptions of Koh’s Transnational Legal Process as Counter-Strategy
[Craig Martin is a Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, and is Co-Director of the International and Comparative Law Center at Washburn Law.] This post will bring to a close the formal part of the virtual symposium on Harold Koh’s recent article The Trump Administration and International Law. As moderator, I would like to begin by thanking all those who contributed (including a couple of announced contributors who we unfortunately lost along the way to illness and crises). I think that each of the essays has raised...
23 Mar TWAIL Pedagogy: Un-Learning Colonial Ways of Teaching International Law
Dr Mohsen al Attar and Dr Rafael Quintero Godínez** Modern legal education has been criticised for trying to make itself harmless. Law professors provide students with a sanitised view of the field that camouflages the cracks and contradictions on offer. This approach leads to the circulation of parochial knowledge that overlooks the nuances of the societies we inhabit and the struggles that take place. While this approach has limitations across legal education, its implications are especially pernicious in international law. Mainstream approaches dominate the teaching of international law. They present...
05 Apr Everybody Knows About Racism, Goddam! Pathways in the Struggle Against the Racialised Universe of International Law
forward in the struggle against racism in specific areas of international law, their institutions, and praxis. Others argue for the merger of discrete emancipatory struggles and liberatory movements, for example resurfacing black radical traditions to illuminate race in international law and to nurture pedagogical approaches that interrupt ongoing racism. As always, indigenous peoples’ interrogation of race and their resistance to and relationship with international law remain elucidative, proactive, and powerful. Despite these inspiring developments, we sound a note of caution, likely because we are still smarting from the racialised double-standards...
20 Jan Soleimani and Targeted Killings of Enemy Combatants – Part II: “Geneva Law” versus “Hague Law”
humanitarian law to its protective parts – “Geneva law” – but not to its rules on targeting – “Hague Law”. Extending the requirement of a certain level of intensity and duration to international armed conflicts The “first shot”-theory is not undisputed. Some doubt the feasibility and sense of applying international humanitarian law to all situations of inter-state hostilities. One view converges the different definitions of non-international and international armed conflicts by requiring a certain level of intensity and/or duration for the latter category as well. For example, former Special Rapporteur...
23 Aug Symposium on the Sentimental Life of International Law: The Affect of International Law
authority. There he rehearses his discussion, to have more play in his new book, of “bathos,” that law’s technocratic, procedural process can never encompass the horrors of great evil. In this earlier book, Simpson identified a tension within war crimes law: “I argue that war crimes law negotiates between a liberal cosmopolitanism (emphasizing individual responsibility, the rule of law, internationalism, tolerance of one’s adversaries) and an illiberal or romantic nationalism (emphasizing collective guilt, national prerogatives, procedural anti-formalism, and exemplary justice for outlaws).” [24] In his new book, Simpson is less...13 Feb Treaties and Soft Law Stories, A Reply to Raustiala
“soft law” oxymoronic, as Kal says, but so is the term “international law.” International law does not “bind” a state in anything like the way domestic law binds domestic actors. The point here is that whatever soft law is, and whatever international law is, worrying about whether they should be called “law” makes little sense unless we know what “law” is. How International Law Works is, in significant part, an effort to help us understand what international law is. Kal argues that there may be more to the distinction between...04 Sep Terrorism and The Extraterritorial Application of State Tort Laws
pronouncement on whether individuals historically had rights under international law. As for admiralty law, allow me to quote that most trustworthy of sources, Wikipedia: Admiralty law (also referred to as maritime law) is a distinct body of law which governs maritime questions and offenses. It is a body of private international law governing the relationships between private entities which operate vessels on the oceans. It is distinguished from the Law of the Sea, which is a body of public international law dealing with navigational rights, mineral rights, jurisdiction over coastal...16 Mar Letter Protesting the Treatment of Bradley Manning (Updated!)
end those which cannot withstand the light of day. Signed: Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School Additional Signatories (institutional affiliation, for identification purposes only): Jack Balkin, Yale Law School Richard L. Abel, UCLA Law School Peter Brooks, Princeton University Joseph Fishkin, University of Texas School of Law Lisa Hajjar, Department of Sociology, University of California A. Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law John Palfrey, Harvard Law School David Luban, University Professor, Georgetown University Law Center Kwame Anthony Appiah, Princeton University Alex Kreit, Thomas Jefferson...