Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation

for Constitutional law. One can also consider an associated dilemma as follows: giving effect to national law may have extraterritorial effects, but failing to give effect to national law may be viewed as giving extraterritorial effect to another law. The list of resolutions approved by the ASIL membership is an example of the complex interplay, and the corresponding tensions created, between national and international law. When is it proper and appropriate to suggest (at least implicitly) that norms of international law can be viewed as a constraining force on national...

second chapter tries to clear up some of the conceptual confusion in existing case law. It examines the notion of state jurisdiction in human rights treaties, and attempts to place it within the framework of international law. Is this notion the general concept of jurisdiction one finds in public international law, which sets out limits on the prescription and enforcement of domestic law, as contemplated by the European Court in Bankovic, or is it a distinct, autonomous concept, which is a part of a self-contained human rights regime? Is it...

...Bolton's political agenda -- the same situation that occurred in Iraq, where the Bush Administration pressured the CIA and other intelligence agencies to tell it only what it wanted to hear about WMDs. Aaron Ostrovsky One thing that I couldn't help thinking as I read the Brooks piece this morning is that he seems to confuse U.S. internal and external relations. A functional "law of nations" is not going to take anything away from our constitutional rights as citizens of the United States. In fact, if anything it will protect...

Kate Cronin-Furman Hi KJH, Taylor et al. were acting in their official capacity, so all we need to support the claim that they have immunity is evidence that act/functional immunity for international organizations exists as a matter of customary law. I would argue that it does - it seems to me that there's consensus that when you allow an international organization's employees onto your territory, an obligation exists to respect their immunities so far as is necessary for them to do their job. Thus, even though Libya's not a signatory...

...Human Rights First’s position. We do not claim that the law of IAC is applicable to NIAC by analogy. We claim that the procedural protections of the law of NIAC, namely those of Common Article 3, which is explicitly applicable to NIAC, can only be understood with reference to national law that must comply with applicable human rights law. Second, what Mike suggests here is precisely what I refer to above: the mistaken analogy between detention and targeting. Now let’s return to drones. You are a political leader. Are you...

[Michael W. Lewis is a Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University where he teaches International Law and the Law of War.] I want to thank Gabor for continuing a discussion started over on Lawfare a couple of weeks ago and to thank Opinio Juris for allowing me an opportunity to respond. As I had the last word on Lawfare I believe Gabor will be given the final word here. Gabor is correct that drones themselves are “stupid” in that they do not make any targeting decisions themselves. Should that...

Former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has asserted immunity under international law from the lawsuit filed by Nafissatou Diallo, the maid who is accusing him of sexually attacking her. “Mr. Strauss-Kahn enjoyed absolute immunity under customary international law not only while he was head of the IMF, but also for the period of time after he had resigned from his post and was ordered to remain in the United States in his criminal matter,’’ the Frenchman’s high-powered lawyers said in a sensational motion to dismiss, filed today in Bronx Supreme Court....

...attack would be dramatic. Even so, the risk of inaction is sufficiently high that we should be prepared to handle the political fallout from a U.S. attack on Iran to avoid the security risks associated with an Iranian nuclear weapon. Some of my international law colleagues may contend that a preemptive attack on Iran’s uranium enrichment facility would be a violation of international law. That is true. I will not attempt to justify such an attack by using the rubric of self-defense, because any such justification stretches the concept of...

...weak and third world countries alone. International law, so it seems, is there to preserve the interest and the power of big powers against helpless nations. Take for example Israel, it is a country that violates international law by continuing its occupation of Palestinian lands, while declaring Jerusalem as its capital where international law clearly states that it is illegal to do so, and when it comes to the wall Israel is building on occupied territories, international law sided with the Palestinian argument and declared the wall as an illegal,...

[Tom Ruys is professor of international law at Ghent University. He is the author of ‘Armed Attack’ and Article 51 of the UN Charter (CUP: 2010) and co-editor-in-chief of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law.] In a previous post on OJ, Kevin Jon Heller talked about the Israeli intervention in Lebanon in 2006 and its relevance from a jus ad bellum perspective. The post gave rise to a discussion between Kevin and Marty Lederman revolving essentially around the legality of self-defence against attacks by non-State actors...

he cannot be detained by the military even if the US were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was an enemy military commander and planner (but asserted no criminal charges against him), simply because this is an NIAC and not an IAC? This brings into focus another linguistic disconnect between Heller and Chesney. Chesney talks about the Laws of War. Heller talks about IHL and seems to assume that it includes the laws of war, but then often assumes that the laws of war mean nothing except...

HC No. IV and the C.I.L. reflected therein apply to the West Bank occupation, GC IV, as treaty law, does not because of a technical argument re: the text of art. 2 -- a position that no other state, nor the ICCR, seem to accept. It is also important to recall the the IMT at Nuremberg applied that laws of war reflected in HC IV as C.I.L. without the participation clause-limitation regarding the treaty as such. By analogy, whether or not the Israeli claim about a technical limitation in common...