Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
28 Mar Assassination and the Koh Speech
international law in any case. The assassination ban does not include lawful acts of self-defense. Consider again the Koh speech on this topic. It too emphasizes that the ban is to be understood as not including lawful self-defense: [U]nder domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems—consistent with the applicable laws of war—for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defense or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute “assassination.” (Emphasis added.) This is one of several places in which the Koh...21 Feb Would Assassinating Iranian Civilians Be Legal? (Updated)
...and only in a state of war could civilians/non-combatants be intentionally targeted. Chris "Volokh largely ignores Campos' argument that Reynolds is openly and enthusiastically endorsing assassinations that are illegal under U.S. and international law." Isn't it most sensible to construe Reynolds as implicitly advocating a change in the law? Kevin Heller Chris, No. I think a law professor is capable of advocating a change in policy instead of murder. Chris "I think a law professor is capable of advocating a change in policy instead of murder." But I don't understand...06 Mar The ATS, Incentives, and Tradeoffs
brief were mentioned by name in the oral argument. The Goldsmith brief was not primarily about extraterritoriality – it was much more about whether this was international law as such, or instead some kind of well-intentioned but nonetheless faux-international law committed to the hands of US courts. (I have sometimes referred to it here at Opinio Juris as the “law of the hegemon” which US district courts have been persuaded by ATS plaintiffs’ lawyers, mistakenly in my view, to regard as “international law.”) This then combines with a general worry...10 May Doctors, Professors, and (North) American Exceptionalism
There is a friendly debate going on at Prawfsblawg about whether people who have PhDs or JSDs in law are entitled to refer to themselves as “Dr. so-and-so.” Skepticism seems to be the order of the day; here are quotes from Paul Horwitz and Jeff Yates, respectively: Although I think there’s a good deal to be said for obtaining JSDs or Ph.D’s in law, we might think about whether that trend represents a similar claim to authority and respect for law as an academic discipline; and if those folks start...14 Jul The Lawfare over South China Sea: Exceptional Rules vs. General Rules
composed of international treaties, international customs, and general principles of law and judicial decisions can only be utilized as a subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law rather than as an actual source of law. However, the U.S. may again make use of the gap between the understanding shared by small group of legal experts and the general public’s misunderstanding of international law so as to label China’s non-recognition of the award as non-compliance with international law. In fact, neither the U.S. nor the Philippines has much credibility...
23 Aug Symposium on The Sentimental Life of International Law: On Intimacy and Distance
[Zinaida Miller is Professor of Law & International Affairs at Northeastern University.] In his wide-ranging exploration, Gerry Simpson demonstrates the fundamental tensions experienced within international law and by international lawyers as they simultaneously embrace and distance themselves from the individuals, sites, histories, modes of violence, and narratives at the center of their work. To approach international law through the sentimental, Simpson suggests, allows him to understand it not only through the lenses of literature, emotion, and sensibility but as a “life lived” by people with professional and personal preoccupations and...13 Aug Emerging Voices: Is Dissemination Sufficient to Promote Compliance with International Humanitarian Law?
[Elizabeth Stubbins Bates is a PhD candidate in Law at SOAS, University of London.] States must disseminate international humanitarian law (IHL) as widely as possible, and integrate it into programmes of military instruction. These obligations exist in international and non-international armed conflict (with differences between treaty and customary international law for the latter) and are among the few IHL duties on states in peace-time. International humanitarian law typically applies only during armed conflict or belligerent occupation. This post tackles the assumption that simply disseminating or teaching IHL is sufficient to...19 Jan International Law as Behavior Symposium: Toward an Anthropology of International Law
They have also analyzed the production of international treaties by transnational elites and their localization and translation on the ground. Given the critical need to uncover how international law is produced and operates in practice, legal scholars can gain insights from anthropological literature and adopt ethnographic tools in their own analysis. As I will outline below, anthropology offers unique insights in understanding international law behavior. What is an Anthropological Approach to International Law Anthropological theory and methods enables the study of how international law operates in practice, from how it...