Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
05 Apr The Situation in Palestine
[Michael Kearney is an LSE Fellow in the Law Department of the London School of Economics] Michael Kearney guest blogs with us to share his knowledge of the Palestinian situation as an external consultant for the Palestinian human rights NGO Al-Haq “I heard from the Americans,” Abbas reports. “They said, ‘If you will have your state, you will go to the ICC. We don’t want you to go the ICC.'” In a striking decision, issued shortly before he is due to step down in June 2012, Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo of the...
03 Oct People Make the World: A Conversation with Georges Abi-Saab
...and, as he wrote, “may the personal cost be damned.” This idea resonated deeply with the previous generation of critical Third World international legal scholars, including Mohamed Bedajoui, Taslim Olawale Elias, and, the subject of this essay and podcast, Georges Abi-Saab. Intellectual insurgency—or guerrilla legality as Abi-Saab termed it—is evident throughout his intellectual trajectory, particularly his role in introducing a Third World perspective to the discourse on international law. Indeed, Abi-Saab’s scholarship and praxis reveal the same courage and commitment that Said praised. In a podcast Omar Kamel and I...08 Nov Saddam News
...violence in Iraq. Leandro Despouy, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, harshly criticized Saddam’s trial. His primary criticisms: the IHT’s inability to prosecute international crimes committed by non-Iraqi soldiers during the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq; the Tribunal’s creation during an occupation by a foreign power; the death penalty; the impossibility of holding a fair trial in a climate of violence; the Tribunal’s failure to satisfy international standards of due process. Despouy recommends creating a new international tribunal to deal with the trial....20 Jan Why the Palestinian Authority Should Avoid Arafat’s Death
...Jerusalem for non-payment and instigating lawsuits abroad through its own parastatal agents. Like any other state, Palestine should assert its statehood and international standing in the normal course of events, while pursuing its own claims against Israel's foreign assets in the courts of every single country that has recognized it. There have been reports which indicate the Palestinian Authority has over a billion dollars in frozen accounts around the world as a result of lawsuits. So, it would definitely be in Palestine's best interest to have its own foreign sovereign...
14 May How did the Israeli Supreme Court Legitimise Starvation as a Weapon of War? An Autopsy of a Ruling (Part 2)
[Neve Gordon is a professor at the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences and the former Chair of the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies’ Committee on Academic Freedom. He is the author of Israel’s Occupation (University of California Press 2008) and co-author of The Human Right to Dominate (Oxford University Press, 2015), Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire (University of California Press, 2020). Muna Haddad is a Palestinian human rights lawyer and a PhD candidate at the School of Law,...19 Jul Kevin’s Gripe of the Day
Academic books that have long quotes in foreign languages and don’t provide translations of them — even in the footnotes. I’m reading Eyal Benevisti’s superb The International Law of Occupation, and there is French everywhere. I can usually get the gist (thanks, Mrs. Armour, for being such a good Latin teacher!), but I’m sure I lose the nuance. That is very unfortunate, and it makes me far less likely to cite the book in my own. Accuracy matters, particularly when it comes to doctrine. So we all — the author,...27 Feb Progress on Defining the Crime of Aggression — But at What Price?
The ICC’s Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression (SWG) met again last month in New York. According to the Financial Times, the SWG is close to achieving consensus on a definition of the crime: Sixty years after the Nuremberg trials made legal history by finding individuals responsible for the second world war, a select group of diplomats, lawyers and activists are close to another breakthrough: the universal criminalisation of aggression between states. Last week, about 150 experts met in the basement of the United Nations to discuss how...
20 Oct Forced Movement of Civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh?
[Dr Saeed Bagheri is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Law at the University of Reading School of Law. He conducts research in the law on the use of force and international humanitarian law.] After three decades of being occupied by Armenia, the territories in and around Nagorno-Karabakh (NK), which make up more than 20 per cent of Azerbaijan’s territory were recaptured by Azerbaijan by 1 December 2020. At the end of the second war over NK, which erupted on 27 September 2020, a ceasefire agreement, brokered by Russia after a...04 Dec Does Hillary Clinton Believe in International Law?
...properly described as skeptical of yielding "sovereignty to an unruly and unpredictable global community"? Do you disagree that there are those who are committed in the abstract to the idea of international law, but functionally ignorant of the doctrinal details and substantive law? Or do you think everyone who subscribes to progressive orthodoxy is ipso facto "well educated" and a serious scholar of international law? Do you? Do you disagree that "progressive" intlawyers can be guilty of self-aggrandizement when they equate their opinions with that of "the international community"? International...
01 Nov Fourth Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Representation of Ethical and Moral Dilemmas of Drone Warfare on Screen – An Analysis of ‘Good Kill’ and ‘Eye in The Sky’
type of warfare and have the characters playing the same role as the audience – they are watching events unfold on screen. In this regard, they are more immersive as a viewing experience and present a new form of law, ethics and proportionality to viewers. These films do reinforce existing narratives in international law, however they place the viewer in the position of decision makers. The films complement each other well but adopt different approaches when presenting a similar ethical conundrum of the collateral cost of action. Introducing Good Kill...