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Search: crossing lines

13 Jun

...what you do. Bright lines I suspect require good faith compliance with legal rules - center of the rule rather than exotic analyses. I would note the transposition of time is difficult because the court-martial mechanism of the US during WWII was subject to significant unlawful command influence that was part of the reason for the reforms of the UCMJ in the 1950's. Military law specialists can walk you through that. The case of the Admiral's sone who was hung from the yardarm in the 19th century comes to mind....
13.06.08 | |

22 Nov

...forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are...
22.11.06 | |

21 May

...to an armed conflict, IHL requires that they remain in place until the conflict ends with a surrender, peace treaty, or battlefield victory. So it would be a very poor legal strategy for anyone actually involved in the process (as to be distinguished from someone commenting from the sidelines) to build a strategy around an assumption that the courts will find that this is an NIAC or IAC. Rather, the safe position to take is that US policy is equally valid in either case, as Koh's statement indicates. Howard Gilbert...
21.05.11 | |

08 Jun

...You can find it here: http://972mag.com/what-is-ngo-monitors-connection-to-the-israeli-government/90239/ That said, it is always amusing to see Steinberg accuse others -- in this case, nearly a thousand others -- of bias. People in glass houses and all... Gerald Steinberg Heller pulls out Fox News and the "exploration of the possible ties". Next, we will go to the latest evidence that Malaysian Airlines 370 was hijacked by little green men from Mars. Priests do faith; academics are supposed to use verifiable information and falsifiable explanations. Kevin Jon Heller That, my friends, is what we...
08.06.14 | |

01 Jun

...capacity the offender was acting. I’m always suspicious of terms like “most” or “few.” The real question is who (big states or little ones?) believes that. The Kuwaiti proposal was that “any person, whether acting on his own initiative or on behalf of a government, commits an offence...” I don’t see how that doesn’t effect state responsibility. On the one hand, international law is holding more and more people individually accountable for actions done under orders. On the other hand, along the lines of the United States’ reason for not...
01.06.10 | |

04 May

...Manual the final word? Can you slap a prisoner to make him think you mean business? Can an interrogation go on for 24 or 36 hours? Lines can be drawn. Yoo drew them in ways that many found unacceptable. Obama has drawn them at the AFM. Forget about law for a moment, where does morality demand that they be drawn? Benjamin G. Davis I like to stay away from the morality part of this because settling moral debates is beyond my limited competence. I focus on law, cases and authorities...
04.05.11 | |

06 Nov

...capture of persons who are DPAA. Jens Iverson Thanks for all of the comments. Marty, that is a great discussion, worth a read (or re-read). Thanks for the link, and your comments there. With regards to Emmerson's report (alternate link here, the UN websites are odd today for me: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/UN_Drones_Report.pdf ) reading behind the lines, I think he agrees with the ICRC. It's true that statements of law like "If the criterion of continuous combat function is not met, then an individual who is otherwise affiliated with an armed group...
06.11.13 | |

30 Oct

Chris Borgen Roger: I agree with your analysis in your third paragraph. I think that the result is not only jurisdiction stripping (I think that occurs in the part saying that the Geneva Conventions may no longer be argued in the courts of the U.S.) but, more importantly, Congress stepping into the interpretive process. We know that Congress, in certain circumstances, can take jurisdiction away from federal courts but I think that telling courts how to interpret the law will be challenged on Separation of Powers lines. Bills trying to...
30.10.06 | |

30 Dec

...a signature strike setting as opposed to an individual strike because of the possibly more problematic intentionality even in LOAC for the criteria used in signature strikes (from what we read). At some point the lines for outrage for the 20 dead children at Newtown and some X number of children dead as collateral damage cross and that equilibrium point is reached. That point might be at 20 (Newtown) and 40 (drone strike). Or 20 (Newtown) and 400 (drone strike). Or 20 (Newtown) and 4000 (drone strike). But if the...
30.12.12 | |

06 Sep

...the Indian Ocean, and the South Pacific, was that an IAC or a non IAC, and what the heck does the South Pacific have to do with Gettysburg? In Vietnam when divisions of the NVA marched down the Ho Chi Minh trail and engaged US forces in the South, was that a NIAC because superficially they pretended to be Viet Cong, or was the an IAC because they were really part of the regular army of a country? When they established supply lines through Laos, and the US bombed those...
06.09.10 | |

15 Mar

...would skirt the CLCS process -- seems farfetched. I really doubt that all other states would agree to any end run around the Convention process that they have so long and so fully endorsed, in name and in practice (via submissions to the CLCS). Nor, I suspect would the U.S. itself regard the outer limits line as something to be agreed upon through a series of bilateral arrangements. States regard the setting of outer limits lines -- lines between the continental shelf and the Area -- as unilateral acts (to...
15.03.10 | |

14 Sep

...on Ali Soufan's 9/13 interview on PBS Frontlines. http://www.saltlaw.org/blog/2011/09/15/truth-on-torture-2-ali-soufans-fbi-interrogator-913-pbs-frontline-interview-and-more/ I declined to read Cheney's book. The interviews on television of him were quite enough. Best, Ben Benjamin G. Davis The link to the 60 minute interview of Ali Soufan is now up and it is riveting. It is here - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7380678n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox Cheney in his interviews was so chummy with Rumsfeld. Two civil suits are going forward against Rumsfeld by American citizens. Here is a piece about State Criminal Prosecution of Rumsfeld that might apply as well to Cheney if his...
14.09.11 | |