Search: Syria Insta-Symposium
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...
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...
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...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...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...
23 Mar SCSL Symposium: The Relationship between the Court and the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission
[Joseph Rikhof is an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Common Law of the University of Ottawa. Until his retirement in 2017 he was also a senior counsel at the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Section of the Canadian Department of Justice. This essay was initially prepared at the request of FIU Law Review for its micro-symposium on The Legal Legacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone by Charles C. Jalloh (Cambridge, 2020). An edited and footnoted version is forthcoming in Volume 15.1 of the law review in spring 2021 .] The book “The Legal Legacy...
30 May Futureproofing Human Rights Symposium: Insulting Language as Ground for Inadmissibility – Thin-Skinned Accountability?
...flaw: by adopting and publishing an inadmissibility decision detailing a complainant’s insults, it is the Court (or Commission) itself that publicizes the offensive remarks, which would otherwise remain out of public view in almost all instances. This lack of necessity is also underscored by the fact that human rights bodies could opt to simply strike the offending language, a power the European Court has included in its rules with respect to parties’ representatives. When rejecting a complaint because of offensive language, these mechanisms are declining to hold themselves and States...20 Jun Berman Book Symposium: Multiscalar Legal Pluralism and Justice
[Hari M. Osofsky is Associate Professor and 2011 Lampert Fesler Research Fellow, University of Minnesota Law School and Associate Director of Law, Geography & Environment, Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences] This post is part of our symposium on Dean Schiff Berman’s book Global Legal Pluralism. Other posts can be found in Related Posts below. It is an honor and a pleasure to have the opportunity to participate in this conversation about Paul Berman’s exciting new book, “Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law...
19 Aug Introduction to the Symposium: The Panorama of Informers Up Close
...we are all informers, no?: cellphones in hands, social media as our vehicles, always recording, shearing and exposing, all the while, cancelling and liking, amid the indelibility of the internet. We are delighted that four distinguished scholars and brilliant readers – Sergey Vasiliev, Saira Mohamed, Mia Swart, and Nesam McMillan — have immersed themselves into the panorama of our words. Their thoughts will follow ours, sequentially, in this symposium, and we will conclude it all with our own responses. Photo attribution: “Panorama Mesdag” by Mark A. Drumbl and Barbora Holá...
15 Nov Symposium on Erin Pobjie’s Prohibited Force: The Meaning of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter
...under article 103 of the UN Charter. These applications reflect that the potential utility of type theory lies not in providing the one correct answer in every specific instance but in opening dialogue and providing a shared language and framework to elucidate the meaning of prohibited force. This can advance its clarity and strengthen the norm, contributing to diplomatic efforts and the development of international law in new domains. But the prohibition of the use of force carries a symbolic meaning which should not be dimmed by a focus on...