Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
11 Jul The Systematic Destruction of Healthcare in Gaza
of May, the Indonesian Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital – which had been attacked and the former raided during Israel’s siege of North Gaza at the end of 2024 – were once again surrounded by Israeli troops; the remaining patients at Al-Awda Hospital were subsequently forced to evacuate, and the facility stopped operating, reportedly leaving no functional hospitals in the governorate. Furthermore, in early June, it was reported that Israeli military operations in the proximity of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis were posing a threat to patients, staff, and its continued...06 Feb Bobby Chesney on Targeting Al-Awlaki
Bobby Chesney has posted to SSRN an important draft paper on the law surrounding the targeting of Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Yemini-American radical Islamist cleric in hiding presumably in Yemen. It is still in draft form (to appear in final form in the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law), and Bobby is still revising and soliciting comments from knowledgeable folks. Here is his comment at Lawfare; the draft paper is up on SSRN at this link. My comments on an initial read? First, I agree with the overall structure of the analysis...
15 May Fishery Diplomacy: A New Concept for Analyzing Asia’s Maritime Order
of great power maritime competition, fishery diplomacy can be defined as a comprehensive diplomatic practice wherein a state utilizes fisheries-related activities—including resource management, maritime law enforcement, and international cooperation—as instruments to safeguard its maritime rights, constrain competitors’ interests, and reshape regional order. Unlike traditional fisheries cooperation, which emphasizes mutual benefit and resource sustainability, fishery diplomacy encompasses both cooperation and confrontation. It operates at the intersection of low-politics functional cooperation (such as resource conservation) and high-politics strategic competition (such as maritime power projection). The South China Sea offers compelling evidence of...15 Apr Political Commitments: A Response to Professor Swaine
...same set of responses; i.e., in those (many) cases where treaty-makers decline to adopt legal tools for enforcing or implementing the treaty. To the extent that some political commitments serve the same functions (and implicate the same risks) as some treaties, that functional overlap does, we believe, provide a good reason for considering the executive’s authority to make political commitments as a matter of U.S. law. Moreover, part of the controversy surrounding the Iraq SFA—and other political commitments—is the perception that the executive branch uses “unregulated” political commitment to circumvent...01 Mar The Immunities of International Organisations: The End of Impunity?
into their independence by host governments/courts. Instead of clarifying what this functional standard actually means and how it interacts with the commercial v non-commercial distinction, the Supreme Court chose to simply engage in an exercise of statutory interpretation taking a parochial approach (p. 12). So, there now exists a schism in the international and national law in this respect. However, ‘functionalism’ is not completely irrelevant to the IOIA regime. As the Supreme Court pointed out, the President of the United States can modify an IO’s immunity in light of its...
20 Apr Symposium on International Conflict and Security Law: A Research Handbook – Use of Force, Veto Use at the UN Security Council, and the Crime of Aggression
traces the development of the League of Nations and its contribution toward outlawing aggressive war by mandating amicable settlement of disputes and a three month “cooling off period” before states could go to war. The Covenant of the League of Nations also created a Council of the League of Nations as well as a sanctions regime.The chapter then covers the transformative moment in 1928 with the conclusion of the first multilateral treaty outlawing aggressive war: the Kellogg-Briand Pact, officially known as the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an...
19 Jun The Law of the Sea and the Rome Statute Concept of Territory
Justice has found that “[t]he territoriality of criminal law […] is not an absolute principle of international law and by no means coincides with territorial sovereignty”. (para 66) In November 2019 the Chamber affirmed that ‘Customary international law does not prevent States from asserting jurisdiction over acts that took place outside their territory on the basis of the territoriality principle’, (para 56), holding that ‘under customary international law, States are free to assert territorial criminal jurisdiction, even if part of the criminal conduct takes place outside its territory, as long...
12 Feb Reforming Military Obedience: Strengthening Vertical Checks on Trump’s (Ab)use of War Powers
...disobey those that are “manifestly” unlawful (10 U.S.C. 890 – Art. 90; Manual for Courts-Martial United States IV-24; CIHL r 154), in determining whether an order is lawful, soldiers are only permitted to consider a subset of the legal constraints on government decisionmakers, notably the dignity constraints. Moreover, military orders are presumed to be lawful (e.g. United States v. Nieves, 44 M.J. 96, 98 (C.A.A.F. 1996); United States v. New, 55 M.J. 95, 105 (C.A.A.F. 2001)) and unless they are clearly unlawful (i.e. clearly in breach of dignity constraints), disobedience...20 Aug Emerging Voices: The Joint Obligation to Protect Witnesses in the Fight against Transnational Organized Crime
[ Laura Salvadego is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Law, University of Ferrara. This work has been developed during a research stay at the New York University School of Law – Center for Research in Crime and Justice, funded by Unicredit bank and by 5 per thousand contributions given to the University of Ferrara in 2010] The need to ensure appropriate protection of witnesses plays a crucial role in the fight against transnational organized crime both at the universal level and in the European context. Rules concerning cooperation...