Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
21 Nov LJIL Symposium: In Defense of a (Relatively) “Empty” Conception of Self-Determination
[Brad R. Roth is a Professor of Law at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where he teaches international law, comparative public law, and political and legal theory] In “Beyond Empty, Conservative, and Ethereal: Pluralist Self-Determination and a Peripheral Political Imaginary,” Zoran Oklopcic gives an enlightening account of a set of related approaches to the international norm of self-determination of peoples. In this rendering, I have the honor of being cast as the representative of “Empty”: that is to say, my approach to international legal pluralism “empties” the self-determination norm...24 Jun Pax Sinica? China Beats U.S. in European Popularity Contest
...image and that the European public is not thrilled about the idea of China becoming a military rival to the U.S. Moreover, it also reflects the effectiveness of China’s diplomatic and PR machine. But the bottom line: China is not a liberal or democratic country. It is currently imprisoning a lot more people indefinitely in its laogai camps than the U.S. could hope to squeeze into Guantanamo. It has missiles pointed at Taiwan and continues to maintain a quasi-military occupation of Tibet. Oh yeah, they have the death penalty and...03 Jul Permissible Ruse or Perfidy — the Colombian Hostage Rescue
...conspiracies) in violation of the laws of war [10 U.S.C. § 950v(b)(15), (16)]. Therefore, it may in fact be a rule of CIL under the MCA as well. I raised the complexities of the related issues of perfidy and "unlawful combatant" status in my article regarding Hamdan's military commissions case at J Int Criminal Justice 2008 6: 371-383 (May issue). The definition of perfidy in both AP I and the MCA, as discussed below, relies on 'protection under rules of international law.' These international rules do not discuss "protections" owed...
17 Jun Prosecuting Aggression against Ukraine as an “Other Inhumane Act” before the ICC Part I: Prospects
[ Giulia Pinzauti is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Leiden Law School’s Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies. Alessadro Pizzuti (Twitter: @Aless_Pizzuti) is the co-founder and co-director of UpRights .] The authors would like to thank Miles Jackson and Daniel Gryshchenko for their help and suggestions for this post. Introduction The ICC’s lack of jurisdiction over the crime of aggression committed by the leadership of the Russian Federation and Belarus against Ukraine has prompted several voices to advocate alternative avenues to address such a potential impunity gap, including...
20 Mar De-Christianizing International Law: US Politics and the Evangelical Legacy
[Ilias Bantekas is Professor of Law at Hamad bin Khalifa University (Qatar Foundation) and Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service Andrew Dahdal is an Associate Professor at the College of Law and Legal Advisor in the Office of General Counsel at the College of Law, Qatar University] Modern international law is an outgrowth of the Westphalian system and European geopolitics. Through the West, international law is imbued with certain ideals stemming from the Christian faith and tradition. Notions such as ‘Blessed are...
08 Oct Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: The Palestinian Genocide and the Colonial Core of International Law
[José Manuel Barreto works on decolonizing human rights and international law based on TWAIL and Decolonial Theory. He teaches law at the Javeriana University in Bogotá and will publish ‘Decolonial Theory and the History of Human Rights’ in 2025.] The Palestinian genocide has unveiled the deep colonial structure of the international legal order. The so-called Westphalian system has been inveterately depicted and legally defined in the UN Charter as one of ‘equal’ ‘sovereign’ ‘states.’ Against the black letter of positive international law, the Palestinian Genocide has made evident the material...10 Apr The Cost of Conflation: Preserving the Dualism of Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello in the Contemporary Law of War.
applied concurrently with greater precision; and that international lawyers should consider whether the values that underwrite a “humanized” IHL and international human rights law alike should ever countenance limited exceptions to the axiom (e.g., in cases of humanitarian intervention or “transformative occupation”). Above all, my hope is that the article, for all its flaws, will help to revive a dialogue about the appropriate relationship between the traditional branches of the law of war in the twenty-first century—for these issues have been conspicuously (and, I think, dangerously) absent from that dialogue....
09 Aug Symposium on Unbroken Bond: Tracing the Ties Between African and Palestinian Anti-Colonial Struggles – When Nelson Mandela was (Considered) a Terrorist and the “Natural Alliance” between South Africa and Palestine
[Dr Cristiano d’Orsi is a Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg and Senior Consultant in AFRICAN Refugee Law at Witness Experts in London] Mandela and his First Struggles with the ANC Nelson Mandela’s birth coincided with the beginning of British rule in Palestine (1918) and what has been called the Third Aliyah, another wave of organised Jewish immigration to the region. He had close friendships with several South African-Jewish people (for example with Arthur Goldreich who provided refuge at his home in Rivonia...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...07 Dec Secretary Rice, Torture, and the Meaning of Berlin
...adviser wrote in 2002 about why it is important to follow the path of international law, law that the U.S. itself had created over decades of practice: *It has high costs in terms of negative international reaction, with immediate adverse consequences for the conduct of our foreign policy.*It will undermine public support among critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to sustain.*Europeans and others will likely have legal problems with extradition and other forms of cooperation in law enforcement, including brining terrorists to justice.*It may provoke some individual foreign prosecutors...