Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
15 Nov MJIL Symposium: A Response to James Stewart by Darryl Robinson
[Darryl Robinson is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law] This post is part of the MJIL 13(1) symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. I am very grateful for James Stewart’s comments on “How Command Responsibility Got So Complicated”. Professor Stewart and I are engaged in similar projects (criminal law theory and international criminal law (‘ICL’)) and immersed in similar literature, so our discussions are always very helpful to me, even though we at times reach different conclusions. Professor Stewart...13 Nov Opinio Juris/Yale Law Journal Symposium: Hathaway and Shapiro on Outcasting
Starting this coming Tuesday, Opinio Juris is pleased to host a joint symposium with the Yale Law Journal on a new article by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, Outcasting: Enforcement in Domestic and International Law. Here’s the abstract: This Article offers a new way to understand the enforcement of domestic and international law that we call “outcasting.” Unlike the distinctive method that modern states use to enforce their law, outcasting is nonviolent: it does not rely on bureaucratic organizations, such as police or militia, that employ physical force to maintain...
21 Jul Symposium on Cyber, International Law and Artificial Intelligence in Armed Conflict: Piercing the Veil – Why Siloed AI Governance Is Untenable
...AI systems were initially conceived for civilian or military purposes, creating regulatory gaps and enabling “forum shopping” to evade oversight. Simultaneously, commercial technologies are increasingly being used for military purposes; for instance, in Russia’s aggression war, the SpaceX Starlink satellite constellation, typically providing internet broadband to civilians, was deployed to support Ukrainian military communications, and generative AI (GenAI) is used to assist decision making, cybersecurity and intelligence operations. Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, was reportedly used by the United States (US) during Maduro’s capture operation in Venezuela. Unlike previous disruptive technologies...
08 Jul Customary International Law Symposium: Back to the Guillotine – Namely Hume’s Guillotine
[Martin Scheinin is a Professor of International Law and Human Rights at European University Institute and a former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism.] Professor Monica Hakimi’s article ’Making sense of customary international law’ is both rewarding and thought-provoking. It fully merits this Symposium. She makes a convincing case that most if not all mainstream doctrinal writing on the topic has serious flaws. She rightly criticizes what she calls the “rulebook conception” of customary international law and convincingly demonstrates that in everyday practice it does not really work like...
10 May New Technologies Symposium: Technology, Synergy, and Regulation
[This post is part of our New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace Symposium .] Technology advances through synergy. Breakthroughs in one area of technology spurs developments in others. Advances in materials science led to the miniaturization of electronic components. Miniaturization led to a revolution in the architecture of computers. From ENIAC to iPhones. The computer revolution led to a revolution in, well, just about every other area of technology. Advances in electronics, robotics, and computerization each affects space tech. And so on, across a complex web of...
10 Dec Symposium: A Duty to Prevent Genocide–Due Diligence Obligations among the P5 (Part One)
[Dr. John Heieck is a criminal defense lawyer in the US and an independent researcher of genocide and human rights studies.] Before I begin, I would like to thank Opinio Juris and the International Commission of Jurists for hosting this online symposium on my new book A Duty to Prevent Genocide: Due Diligence Obligations among the P5. I would also like to thank the preeminent scholars who agreed to not only read my book but also provide their respective analyses of what is an admittedly controversial position on the possible...29 May Introduction to the Virginia Journal of International Law/Opinio Juris Online Symposium for Issue 52:3
...as a defense to liability in ICSID arbitration. In his Essay, Professor Yackee suggests a model framework for dealing with this new trend. Responding to his piece will be Jarrod Wong (Pacific-McGeorge School of Law). Andrea K. Bjorklund (UC-Davis School of Law) and Daniel Litwin (McGill University) will also offer a joint response. Although this online symposium focuses on the pieces mentioned above, VJIL would like to bring attention to two additional Articles published in our third Issue. First, in her excellent Article, “Unwilling or Unable: Toward a Normative Framework...
20 Aug Symposium on Informers Up Close: Weaponizing the Populace
...parallels. I thought about it also because what Drumbl and Holá offer in this book is both a deep dive and a sweeping panorama as they note in their introduction to this symposium. This book is a richly researched catalog of informing in Czechoslovakia, and it is an analysis of informing more broadly. It is a critical examination of the treatment of informers after the fall of Communism and a critique of the moral goals and the moral failures of transitional justice processes. It is a study of individual lives...
30 May Futureproofing Human Rights Symposium: Innovative Accountability Mechanisms for Addressing Human Rights Violations Abroad – A Case Study of the UK
...previous methods may not be viable or accessible at a given moment. For instance, non-conviction-based confiscation was developed as a response to situations where a criminal conviction is not possible, such as when the perpetrators are absent from the jurisdiction. It is clear from the table that the UK has no shortage of tools to address human rights abuses abroad. What is missing is a systematic and strategic framework for their application. Taking these two innovative mechanisms as an example, where conduct targeted by sanctions is also ‘unlawful conduct’ under...