Search: crossing lines
25 Nov The Israeli Settlements Debate: Is the Creation and Enforcement of the International Norms a Multilateral or Bilateral Issue?
...bilateralism path comes with a caveat. No red lines of international legality should be passed as these are most notably marked by jus cogens norms. Moreover, States should be aware that the bilateralism path is slippery and can ultimately undermine humanity’s efforts to establish law and order in the international scene, having wider implications on the incentives of States to obey rules and decisions promoted by international multilateral bodies. To the extent that States know that, irrespective of what is decided in international fora, governments can get out of the...07 Sep Departing from Peace-time Standards – the Prosecutors’ Perspectives
...courts are incapable of trying those accused of terrorist acts. The positions of proponents and opponents fall mostly along party lines. Conservatives favor some form of special-purpose tribunal to the unprecedented challenges. Progressives play down the novelty of the al Qaeda threat. But what do experienced professionals think? In this case, this means prosecutors with relevant experience. On Monday, the New York City Bar will host a discussion to illuminate this question. What has been the experience of trying accused terrorists in federal district courts? Former US Attorney Mary Jo...
08 Aug The Trial Judgment in Yekatom and Ngaïssona: A Judgment of Many Firsts Built on Case Management (Part 1)
...been a team effort (including legal officers) along the lines of the Guidelines for ICC Judgment Drafting (Annex to the Chambers Practice Manual, see especially paras. 25 et seq.). A second example is the decision of the TC to “render any potential decision on sentencing pursuant to Article 76 of the Statute simultaneously with its judgment under Article 74 of the Statute” (Decision on Sentencing Procedure, para. 2). It has been the preferred option at the ICC so far to hold a separate sentencing hearing, which prolonged the proceedings (for...
16 Jul Your Guide to Ecocide – Part 2: The Hard Part
...be outright criminalized, full stop? I had similar reactions at the start of my studies, and have had many conversations along the same lines. In this post, I will explain why international environmental law (IEL) does not contain that type of outright prohibition and why it engages in balancing, and then I will map out some of the resulting options for a crime of ecocide. Each option raises its own problems, so we are left with imperfect choices. It is possible that someone – perhaps some reader of this post...21 Oct Borderline History at Borderline Jurisprudence: Some Thoughts on Anne Orford’s International Law & the Politics of History (Part II)
as I said before, solve the Orford-Skinner or the Orford-Hunter Debate. Like all Great Debates, we may end up reading and re-reading them for many years to come. But I do hope that in these lines I may offer a different perspective on how to approach them: not as the expression of a necessary methodological incompatibility between our disciplines, but as a pool of wisdom from which to extract valuable lessons in the construction of our interdisciplinary common future – one where historians see law as language and where lawyers...
25 Feb The Nature and Implications of Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territory: Part I
...obligations towards the Palestinian Territory must be assessed going forward. Israeli Belligerent Occupation of the Palestinian Territories 1967-1994 Israel first established effective control over the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem—then widely referred to as the “Palestinian territories”—during the 1967 “Six Day War,” an IAC between Israel and several Arab States, including Egypt and Jordan. Much as today, the international legal status of those territories was ambiguous in 1967. The Palestinian territories constituted those parts of the former Mandate of Palestine that lay outside the 1949 armistice lines...18 Apr In Praise of the Bluebook
...bad. Yeah, I groan when I see a page that contains two lines of text and 30 lines of footnotes. But it’s still better than having to mark my place in an article, find the bibliography, and scan an endless list of references listed in 9-pt. font. 3. Citing articles as 2000a, 2000b, and 2000c is ridiculous. Do I really need to waste my time (1) finding the right group of authors in the long list — is it Finkel? Finkel and Groscup? Finkel et al.? — and (2) searching...15 Oct Kavanaugh Appointment Foreshadows Looming Crisis for the Rule of Law
...Bar Association, which had previously rated Justice Kavanaugh “well qualified” felt it necessary to re-open its evaluation in light of the issues of “temperament” raised by the Senate hearing; the Senate did not wait for the outcome of this re-evaluation before moving to a final vote. This most recent spectacle illustrates a longer trend through which votes on Supreme Court appointments have over the years generally tended to become more and more divided on party lines (see: here and here.) In some cases, this has been due to party politics...17 Feb Outraged Moderates and DoD Notes from 9/11
...same time – not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]” (as discussed on p. 334-335 of The 9/11 Commission Report and in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack). In addition, the documents confirm the contents of CBS News’ Sept. 4, 2002 report “Plans For Iraq Attack Began on 9/11,” which quoted Rumsfeld’s notes as stating: “Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” These lines were not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report or Woodward’s Plan of Attack, and to my knowledge, have not been independently confirmed...
29 Nov Also Not the ICC Arrest Warrants we Were Waiting For: On the Six Warrants in the Libya Situation
...the crimes committed in Tarhuna, I had personally expected some of them to address other geographical regions and target higher-level officials such as individuals expressly incriminated by the FFM in its reports, including Khalifa Haftar, the head of the LNA. In November 2023, the OTP outlined four key lines of inquiry, namely (1) 2011 violence, (2) detention facilities, (3) crimes related to the 2014-2020 operations, and (4) crimes against migrants. So far, other than in relation to Tarhuna, four warrants have been issued for crimes committed during the 2011 revolution...