Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
11 Nov Would Secession by California and Oregon Be Legal?
...in its own internal arrangements, is entitled to the protection under international law of its territorial integrity. In other words, international law guarantees to every state its “territorial integrity” and it can’t be overridden by “self determination” unless serious freedoms or discrimination against residents in the seceding region are being infringed. Moreover, this right has generally only been exercised by states under colonization or foreign occupation. The right might also exist if the state is facing the threat of egregious human rights violations (e.g. Kosovo), but the right in even...02 Feb Distinguishing Guantanamo
David Glazier, a former naval officer and current research fellow at UVA’s Center for National Security Law takes issue with my claim that due process rights in Guantanamo may lead to due process rights at other U.S. military bases overseas. He writes: Having spent extensive time at overseas naval bases (I was stationed at Yokosuka, Japan for 20 months and have visited Guantanamo (GITMO) three times, most recently as the commandingofficer of a frigate in early 2001), I can tell you there are MAJOR differences between our use of GITMO...17 Jan New Book Project on the Nuremberg Military Tribunals
scholarly attention to the NMT is both perplexing and unfortunate, because the Tribunals’ judgments have played a critical role in the development of international criminal law. Most often, their jurisprudence was very progressive: holding that aggressive war does not require actual armed conflict (Ministries); insisting that international humanitarian law limits military necessity “even if it results in the loss of a battle or even a war” (Hostage); delinking crimes against humanity from war crimes and crimes against peace (Einsatzgruppen) and recognizing genocide as a crime against humanity (Justice); developing the...
08 May The Legal Consequences of the End of the Israel-Gaza War
[Noam Kozlov is a research fellow and lecturer in the Faculty of Law and Criminology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He previously received a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Philosophy and an LLB from the Hebrew University.] After six months of intensive fighting, the Israel-Gaza war is no more. While political forces – both in Israel and abroad – continue to stress otherwise, the on-the-ground reality has become unambiguous. For a month now the IDF has kept only one operational brigade in the Gaza Strip, stationed in primarily defensive...
31 Jan Hanging Hippocrates: Criminal Doctors from Nuremberg to Homs
[Merlina Herbach holds an LLM in International Law from the University of Edinburgh, has worked at the International Nuremberg Principles Academy and is currently a Legal Fellow with the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC).] A medical doctor practicing in Germany was discovered to have tortured his patients in Syria at the behest of the Syrian government, turning his back on that most sacred of oaths taken by all doctors, the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. The allegations against the former Syrian doctor, Alaa M., whose trial is to...
14 Jul Intervention in Civil Wars Symposium: Representatives of their Own Peoples–From National Liberation Movements to Opposition Groups
[Laura Íñigo Álvarez is a postdoctoral researcher and a lecturer in international law at Nova School of Law (Universidade Nova de Lisboa). She is the author of Towards a Regime of Responsibility of Armed Groups in International Law (Intersentia, 2020)]. Dr. Redaelli’s book, Intervention in Civil Wars: Effectiveness, Legitimacy and Human Rights, constitutes one of the most comprehensive studies on the question about intervention in civil wars or also called non-international armed conflicts. Her ultimate purpose is to examine how human rights have affected foreign interventions in internal conflicts. The...06 Dec Events and Announcements: 5 December 2020
at the time of submission may be nominated for this prize. Works that have already been considered for this prize may not be re-submitted. Entries may address topics such as the use of force in international law, the conduct of hostilities during international and non‑international armed conflicts, protected persons and objects under the law of armed conflict, the law of weapons, operational law, rules of engagement, occupation law, peace operations, counter‑terrorist operations, and humanitarian assistance. Other topics bearing on the application of international law during armed conflict or other military...28 May The Nature and Scope of the War in Afghanistan
...feel bound by widely accepted IHL. They have drafted their own body of rules governing their warfare - the so called Layha – which they claim to be based on Islamic law. However, Muhammad Munir in this article https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/review/2011/irrc-881-munir.pdf argues that their principles not only violate international humanitarian law, but do not even confirm with Islamic law. Regarding the other discussions I believe we have to distinguish between two different issues: whether the conflict is international or non-international and which actors can be considered (non-) state actors. First of all,...
25 Oct Framing Critique, on Celluloid and Paper
...“noble savages” in the Americas. As Anghie recalls, international law’s traditional approaches “characterize Vitoria as extending and applying existing juridical doctrines developed in Europe to determine the legal status of the Indians.” Thus, through colonialism, international law allegedly created a common language for Western and non-Western communities to speak to each other. As stated in the 2012 (!!) edition of Ian Brownlie’s Principles, international law “travelled with the colonizers to the Americas, to Asia, to Africa and eventually to Oceania.” In this story, the system “gradually came to incorporate other...