Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
27 Nov A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action Please – State Reporting and the Treaty Body Review 2020
...One of the instruments under review was the monitoring instrument of state reporting, a vital but dysfunctional part of the system. Despite holding great potential for international human rights protection, this instrument is severely hampered to fulfill its object and purpose, also because, despite the existence of good proposals, a useful reform barely took place. What is State Reporting? State reporting is one of the oldest monitoring instruments in international law. First introduced by the League of Nations (Art. 22 Covenant of the League of Nations) and the International Labour...29 Sep “Political” Commitments and the Constitution
a new U.S. security relationship with Iraq. The United States has long used political – or, non-legally binding – commitments as alternatives to its treaties, but the Executive’s authority to do so is un-theorized. And, although international law and international relations literature have studied political commitments extensively, conventional wisdom simply assumes that because they are not international law, they are irrelevant to domestic law as well. This paper challenges such views. We contend that the Constitution regulates the President’s ability to form political commitments and provide a comprehensive constitutional analysis...
18 Dec Meaningful Human Control over Autonomous Weapon Systems: An (International) Criminal Law Account
of the IHL principles of distinction and proportionality potentially amounting to war crimes. Criminal responsibility for unlawful attacks against protected persons (e.g. civilians) or objects is one kind of responsibility that could arise in this scenario. In light of possible responsibility gaps and the cardinal notion of ‘control’ in criminal law, meaningful human control must be shaped so that individual criminal responsibility for unlawful attacks amounting to war crimes can be attributed. Amoroso and Tamburrini rightly speak of meaningful human control as ‘responsibility attractor’. As I have previously argued ‘the...15 May Book Discussion “Outsourcing War and Peace”: The Clash of Market and Civic Values and Its Implications
[Allison Stanger is Russell J. Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics and Chair of the Political Science Department at Middlebury College. She is the author of One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy.] This is the first day of our book symposium on Laura Dickinson’s book Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs. Related posts can be found below. Laura Dickinson has written a compelling and thoughtful inquiry into the larger implications of...07 Nov M.B.Z. v. Clinton: Getting to the Merits on the Recognition Power
Robert Reinstein is Clifford Scott Green Professor of Law at Temple University Law School and the author of Executive Power and the Law of Nations in the Washington Administration , which addresses the early history of the recognition power. M.B.Z. v. Clinton is the first case in which there is an apparent conflict between an act of Congress and the President’s authority to recognize a foreign state or government. The Petitioner and the Solicitor General each argued that the Court did not have to resolve this conflict on the merits....30 May It’s My Potty, and I’ll Cry If I Want To
...disgruntled astronauts do about it? The Space Station operates pursuant to the 1998 Agreement Concerning Cooperation on the Civil International Space Station among Canada, the European Space Agency Member States, Russia, the United States, and Japan (although the Japanese Space agency’s participation is subject to an MOU with NASA, which I assume is because of domestic law limitations on the agency’s power to enter into international agreements). Article 10 of that Agreement provides The Partners, acting through their Cooperating Agencies, shall have responsibilities in the operation of the elements they...06 Apr Book Symposium: Is there Existential Interpretation in International Law?
operates within every nook and cranny of the field. As for my own chapter (which is still up on SSRN, although you should really buy the book), its inspiration lay in one other aspect of the conventional approach to interpretation — defining interpretation simply as a process of giving meaning to treaty texts. I’ve always thought that this approach under-claimed the functions interpretation can serve. Certainly, interpretation has an expository function where its processes help interpreters ascertain what meaning to assign some treaty provision or other aspect of international law....21 Feb The Collapse in Greek Living Standards, and a Question about Internal EU Welfare Migration (Updated)
...it’s cheaper to pay Greeks to stay home? What is the current state of EU law on internal migration for work, on the one hand, and social benefits, on the other? Is there any reason to believe that either of these two motives for internal migration could become sufficiently general to raise issues for the wealthier EU countries? Update: Thanks to Martin and EU Law Student in the comments for pointing us non-EU-law-experts to, first, the 2004 Free Movement Directive and, second, an article from 2006 by Kay Hailbronner on...
26 Jun The Problem with Independence in Torture Prevention
[Marie Steinbrecher is currently a teaching fellow at UCL’s Department of Political Science while completing her PhD at Royal Holloway’s School of Law.] The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) obliges State Parties to designate a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM). NPMs are mandated to visit all places of deprivation of liberty to prevent torture and ill-treatment. To date, 90 States have ratified OPCAT and must allow independent oversight of their detention facilities. In this post, I discuss the concept of independent oversight, and why independence is important yet...
24 Jul Does the Law have a Place in a World of Buried Bodies?
to avert from the law. Post Gaza, the law’s impartiality and its blindness in the pursuit of justice remain on paper only. In Amarata Sen’s understanding of justice, he argues that professing for ideal justice is limited and exclusionary as it fails to address the everyday injustices faced by people, which hinder the application of the law universally. When discussing the application of international rules and laws the Global South has learnt, through experience, that the social, political and systematic realities of people is the context in which the law...