Search: crossing lines
20 Jan No Case to Answer? Show Me the (Standard of) Proof!
...Presiding Judge Tarfusser stated: “For all these reasons, the Chamber, by majority, hereby: Decides that the Prosecutor has failed to satisfy the burden of proof to the requisite standard as foreseen in Article 66 of the Rome Statute.” (Acquittal ruling, p. 4, lines 14-16) This statement is curious, as the burden of proof contained in article 66 concerns the threshold relevant to proving guilt, not whether the accused has a “case to answer.” Article 66 reads: 2. The onus is on the Prosecutor to prove the guilt of the accused....25 Jul Emerging Voices: The Old Woe of Contemporaneity and Cartographic Evidence in a New Bottle
[Arpita Goswami currently serves as an Assistant Editor to China Oceans Law Review, and is a Graduate Assistant at the South China Sea Institute, Xiamen University, P.R. China. The views expressed here are her own and have no connection whatsoever to the above mentioned organizations.] The recently concluded Bay of Bengal Maritime Arbitration Case between India and Bangladesh offers interesting insights into the application of the judicial pronouncements to the factual situation contemporaneous with it for determining the boundary lines and the usage of cartographic evidence in the same. This...
09 Jul Symposium on Art, Aesthetics and International Justice: Honouring the Samians? Aesthetic Strategies of International Legitimacy in Three Athenian Decrees (IG II2 1)
...as translated by Lambert and Rhodes. As a norm endorsed by the Athenian people, its main purpose was to “decide that the Samians shall be Athenians living under whatever constitution they wish” (Σαμίος Ἀθηναίος ἐ͂ναι, / πολιτευομένος ὅπως ἂν αὐτοὶ βόλωνται, lines 12-13), letting them “use their own laws, being autonomous” in accordance with previous agreements. It is clear that the inscription ultimately translates a unilateral decision, favouring Athens and its interests. The Samians are only allowed to perform their rights and duties as the result of an act of...08 Mar Dr. Hugo Storey Responds to John Tobin
...ducks the bigger issues of how in such cases is the decision-maker—in order to decide whether the case is one of persecution—to draw lines in sexual orientation or religious orientation or political orientation cases in which the factual scenario presupposes that on return the individual concerned will conceal or avoid or abstain from manifesting such orientation more publicly? Tobin rightly seeks to address such issues more squarely than H and P do, particularly in the context of discussing same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. On these two issues, he appears concerned...19 Jun Berman Book Discussion: Notes From a Fellow Traveler
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. This is a great book, and I am almost completely on board with the orientation here. Paul is right on the money in navigating between the territorial sovereigntists on the one hand and the cosmopolitan universalists on the other. The critique of the universalists is especially key insofar as it persuasively rebuts a standard sovereigntist fallacy (along the lines of, the sovereign state may be imperfect,...
23 Mar Judge Pal with Jefferson Davis in Tokyo
...canned coffee to refresh visitors in the heat and humidity. On its front, the memorial showcases four lines, in English, pulled from the very last line of Pal’s nearly 250,000 word dissent. These four lines are engraved on a silver plaque. These, however, are not Pal’s words. They are the words of another. Pal had placed them in quotes in his dissent but also refrained from attributing them to their actual source, namely, the original speaker. The source of these words may come as a surprise. It did to me,...
11 Mar Ukraine: How to End the War
...conflict. This would presumably enter into force at its choosing, when it has secured the territory it is really aiming for. A cease-fire would leave the invading armed forces in control of large swathes of Ukrainian territory beyond the Donbas, for instance along Ukraine’s Southern coastline around Odessa. Freezing the lines of control would effectively divide the country, potentially forever. Hence, any peace settlement would need to tie a cease-fire and the various other elements of the agreement to a front-loaded withdrawal of Russian forces. In addition, there would need...
03 Sep Back to the Drawing Board of the Partition Plan: Vice-President Sebutinde’s Erroneous Account of Palestinian and Israeli Claims of Title to the Territory of Mandatory Palestine (Part Two)
...possidetis juris would require a return to the borders specified in the Partition Plan, and not just to those established later on as armistice lines (the Green Line) after the “violent struggle” (Shalev) between Israel and its Arab neighbours (note the claim by Peter Schuller, p. 284, that the critical date for determining title to territory in this case would be 1947). Even if many UN resolutions suggest an end to the conflict based on the Green Line and are thus predicated on a return to the pre-1967 borders, the...15 Apr Questioning Political Commitments
...things along the lines of perceived credibility, which was supposed to be the dependent variable. With respect to “substance,” I thought two quite different concepts (normativity and precision) were crammed together, and that a two axis chart might have been better were they forced to share the space. As to “organization,” I found the ordering contestable: why commitments to future negotiations should be scaled higher than one-time commitments lost me at first, and tended to make sense only if it was shown varying with substance. As to “autonomy,” this was...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...