Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
27 Oct "Outsourcing Authority": Symposium at Albany Law School
Albany Law Review sponsored a symposium today on the topic of “Outsourcing Authority: Citation to Foreign Court Precedent in Domestic Jurisprudence.” It included a number of speakers, including Ken Kersch, Susan Karamanian, John McGinnis, John Baker, Mark Tushnet and yours truly. Wonderful debate about Roper v. Simmons, Lawrence v. Texas, Charming Betsy and the general trend toward citation of foreign and international authority. The most revealing comment came from Mark Tushnet on the subject of constitutional comparativism. He said, “If contemporary U.S. liberals have gotten off the rails they should...04 Mar Live Blogging the Harvard National Security Symposium
I’m at Harvard Law School today for a symposium, Cybersecurity: Law, Privacy, and Warfare in a Digital World. I’ll be talking about my e-SOS paper, how international law deals with cyberthreats, and ways it could do a better job. Anyone who’s interested can watch the proceedings; it’s being live web-cast here. I wanted to flag a fascinating debate over the future of the Internet that just occurred between HLS Professor Jonathan Zittrain and Stewart Baker. Baker, of Volokh fame, is well known for flagging the great potential of cyberthreats to...
12 Apr ICC Prosecutor Symposium: The Search for the New Prosecutor is Too Narrow in Scope
[ William Schabas is a Professor of international law at Middlesex University London and Professor of international criminal law and human rights at Leiden University. Have a look at Justice in Conflict for a symposium post from Douglas Guilfoyle.] Article 42(3) of the Rome Statute specifies that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court shall ‘be highly competent in and have extensive practical experience in the prosecution or trial of criminal cases’. Perusal of the travaux préparatoires suggests that this was a manifestation of some of the over-engineering of the...27 Sep HILJ Symposium: A Pragmatist’s Response to ‘The Democratic Coup d’Etat’
[William Partlett is an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School and a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution.] This post is part of the Harvard International Law Journal Volume 53(2) symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. The Democratic Coup d’Etat is an important article. First, and most obviously, this Article carries significant policy implications. The political transformations sweeping the Middle East and North Africa – known as the “Arab Spring” – have presented a wide range of conceptual challenges to policymakers and political...19 Jan International Law as Behavior Symposium: TIME’S UP – Deadlines as Behavior in International Law
...take one prominent example, the Convention requires parties to complete destruction of their chemical weapons within ten years of the Convention’s entry into force – with the possibility of an additional extension of up to five years. The United States and Russia have overshot this deadline and are therefore in violation of their obligations. Finally, deadlines feature in the work of the international organization created by the Chemical Weapons Convention (the OPCW), as with its recent use of deadlines in relation to Syria. As this example suggests, deadlines can prove...
25 Apr Symposium on Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War: Introduction
Over the coming five days, we are happy to host a book symposium on Boyd van Dijk’s new book, Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions, published by Oxford University Press. In addition to comments from van Dijk himself, we have the honor to hear from this list of renowned scholars and practitioners: Eyal Benvenisti, Andrew Clapham, Doreen Lustig, Katharine Fortin, Karin Loevy and Alonso Gurmendi. From the publisher: “The 1949 Geneva Conventions are the most important rules for armed conflict ever formulated. To this day they continue...08 Dec Symposium on Ruti Teitel’s “Transitional Justice and Judicial Activism: A Right to Accountability?”
This week it is our pleasure to host a symposium on Professor Ruti Teitel’s article Transitional Justice and Judicial Activism: A Right to Accountability? (.pdf). After an initial post by Professor Tetitel, we will have comments by Dinah PoKempner of Human Rights Watch, Professor Cesare Romano of Loyola, and Professor Chandra Sriram of the University of East London. We are looking forward to the discussion!...
06 May Symposium: New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace
This week, we are hosting another book symposium on Opinio Juris. This time, we feature a discussion of William Boothby’s new book, New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace, published by Cambridge University Press. In addition to comments from William himself, we have the honor to hear from a list of renowned scholars and practitioners: Kobi Leins, Robert McLaughlin, Melissa de Zwart, Alejandro Chehtman, Rain Liivoja, Markus Wagner, Cassandra Steer, Rasha Abdul Rahim and Opinio Juris’ own Emeritus contributor, Chris Borgen. From the publisher: Policymakers, legislators, scientists, thinkers,...
27 Mar Symposium on Prosecuting Heads of State for International Crimes: Punishing the Powerful – The Allure and Limits of the Penal Accountability Paradigm
...the prospect of their prosecution and punishment are addressed by other contributors to this symposium). However, as we argue in our recent article in the Leiden Journal of International Law, there are significant pitfalls to what we identify as a disproportionate reliance on, and channeling of collective efforts towards, penal accountability for atrocities – which we refer to as the “penal accountability paradigm”. Without denying the symbolic and concrete significance of indicting heads of state committing atrocities in real time, we maintain that the penal accountability paradigm can be limited,...
07 Feb ICC and Palestine Symposium: Prosecuting Settlements as War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity–The ICC’s Jurisdiction over the Occupied Palestinian Territory
...the Wall, the International Court of Justice stated bluntly that “the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.” (at para. 120) The ICC’s Jurisdiction over the Settlement Enterprise As the scope of the territorial jurisdiction of the ICC is the subject of other entries in this Symposium, and will soon be addressed at length by victims, States, and amicus curiae in response to the Request, this aspect of the Court’s jurisdiction will not be explored here. In any event,...