In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation

03 Oct

[Brian L. Cox is an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School, a visiting scholar at Queen’s Law, and a retired U.S. Army judge advocate. This two-part post commemorating the five-year anniversary of the Kunduz strike is part of a larger cross-blog collaboration with Just Security, Lawfire and the Harvard International Law Journal Online. You can find links to the other posts below.] Let me begin with a sincere “thank you” to the Opinio Juris editorial team for participating in this cross-platform collaboration on the occasion of the fifth...
03.10.20 | |

18 Apr

Opinio Juris is pleased to announce an online symposium addressing social activism and international law. As our readers know, Kony 2012 was a YouTube sensation, spreading faster than any video in history. Although the details are airbrushed, the central theme of the video is about international law. The key idea of the video is that the indicted fugitive Joseph Kony should be brought to justice before the International Criminal Court to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Millions of viewers who never thought about the International Criminal...
18.04.12 | |

12 Mar

policy-oriented approach to international law. Rejecting efforts to offer a purely conceptual theory of international law, he argues that political decisionmakers should follow “prescriptions” (rules) according to procedures accepted by other decisionmakers. In many, but not all, cases, this means that decisionmakers should follow formal “international law.” This sort-of-commitment to follow formal international law is undergirded by a moral commitment to world order and human dignity. But the key to distinguishing Professor Cheng’s policy-oriented analysis from pure positivism is that the commitment to following law should be understood (in his...
12.03.12 | |

15 Oct

...reading is consistent with (1) jurisprudence from the Ninth and Second Circuits; (2) the pre-FSIA common law approach; and (3) international law understandings of foreign sovereign immunity; and (4) the approach taken by foreign courts. The arguments are persuasive and I would not at all be surprised if the Supreme Court follows an approach similar to this. The other analogy that Bradley and Goldsmith do not reference but that I suspect will weigh heavily in the balance in Samantar is the approach taken in the domestic context with the Federal...
15.10.09 | |

19 Dec

other hand, a significant part of the law of occupation is applicable even without effective territorial control if the protected person finds himself in the power of the enemy state. See more on this functional interpretation of the applicability of the law of occupation in my recent article here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1883203 (Just to smuggle in a little bit of unashamed self-advertisement...) Jordan Response... Tamas: thank you for this, which I am printing from SSRN. I agree that one can be "in the hands of" (GC 4) or "in the power of"...
19.12.11 | |

04 Aug

...of effective control has little to do with the concept of effective control in the law of occupation. Effective control in the latter context determines whether the law of occupation applies; it does not determine who the sovereign is in the occupied state. On the contrary, one state’s effective control over the territory of another state does not transfer sovereignty from the government of the occupied state to the occupying state; the government in the occupied state remains the occupied state’s government, even if it loses some of its powers...
04.08.14 | |

04 Aug

...its current status as an occupied state. carl meyer Prof. Kontorovich wrote that "For a while, the Palestinians have managed to uniquely claim to best of both worlds". To me it is the occupying power that should no longer be able to have it both ways. The laws of occupation either apply or do not apply. If it is an occupation, it is beyond time for Israel’s custodianship — supposedly provisional — to be brought to an end. If it is not an occupation, there is no justification for denying...
04.08.14 | |

08 Nov

...inapplicability of the "law enforcement" paradigm when targetings are justifiable under the laws of war and/or the law of self-defense. The U.S. has claimed lawfulness under the laws of war (which I disagree with regarding targetings outside of the theatre of the real war in Afghanistan and, de facto, parts of Pakistan or regarding targetings of persons who are DPH in connection with that international armed conflict who are located elsewhere) as well as the law of self-defense. Both the AI and HRW reports use the wrong tests and criteria...
08.11.13 | |

17 Jul

...taking the traditional ICTY/ICTR approach, asking whether the Israeli perpetrators of the crimes on the Mavi Marmara are militarily or politically important enough to justify the time and expense of a formal investigation. The PTC, by contrast, does not care about the relative importance of the perpetrators; it simply wants to know whether the OTP can prosecute the individuals who are most responsible for committing the crimes in question. To see the difference between the two approaches — and to see why the OTP’s approach is far better — consider...
17.07.15 | |

16 Jul

...any proposals for ending Chinese occupation of Tibet and Russian occupation of Georgia, no one has suggested that the presence of occupying nationals in those countries is a continued violation of international law. Yes, China violates the GC by shipping Han en masse to Tibet to demographically overwhelm the native population. But has even a law professor suggested their deportation back? When America occupied Iraq, would it have been illegal for Americans of Iraqi ancestry to move back? I believe some did and no one made an issue of it....
16.07.09 | |

06 Jan

you guys are all just too selective in your western-biased perceptions. (surprise, surprise fellas, Turkey is a staunch ally of the west, especially of Obama Administration) Please, just google "Akritas Plan" and maybe we may talk about the reasons of the Turkish operation on the island, which is, as far as I am concerned humanitarian in essence and legally justified (sanctioned by the treaties establishing the Cyprus state and its regime ). This is how the occupation had started. As regards the regime of occupation, why should one occupation be...
06.01.13 | |

25 Nov

Sniff Nice post but this, 'The law that matters to EU constitutional theory is not about the ECB, but instead the European Court of Human Rights' is incorrect. Nick I am afraid for answers you will have to look to EU law journals (European Public Law, European Law Journal, the German EuZW) and books, the blogosphere seems not to have much to offer. There is http://eutopialaw.com/, an eu law blog by the Matrix Chambers, but more for practicioners. Then, for current information and some opinion/analysis there is http://www.euractiv.com/euro-finance and http://euobserver.com/....
25.11.11 | |