Search: crossing lines
28 Sep Human Rights as Human Rights: Generating Enforceable Human Rights Standards by Shifting the Intrastate Solution from Moral Rhetoric to Strategic Legal Discourse (Part II)
...these elements, and for which the citizenry can help to hold its government accountable, is the United States’ 2018 “zero-tolerance policy” concerning the separation of immigrant families upon entering the country. In writing, the policy intended to criminally prosecute 100% of immigrants crossing the United States-Mexico border with their children and without prior authorization. In practice, the policy not only deterred immigration, but punished children for action taken by their parents. This punishment included separating children from their parents and siblings for an indefinite period – sometimes for months at...27 Oct The Washington Post’s Three Article Series on “The Permanent War”
...to go to Congress to get legislation and, in effect, a political announcement that the two political branches have reached agreement on policy and law in these contentious areas, political and policy stability is much weaker. This particularly so given that the default position of any opposition party is to criticize-on-autopilot, especially when votes in Congress have not locked at least some of them in, including perhaps Congressional leadership, and reduced their ability to kibitz from the uncommitted sidelines. If this “pivot” or at least indifference by Democrats under a...14 Jun Proposed Legislation Seeks VCCR Compliance by the United States
...ability of our consular officers to see him, provide assistance, and monitor his condition. Similarly, the United States invoked the VCCR to seek access to the three American hikers detained in Iran after accidently crossing an unmarked boarder in 2009. In 2001, when a U.S. Navy surveillance plane made an emergency landing in Chinese territory, the State Department cited the VCCR in demanding immediate access to the plane’s crew. . . . This bill has the support of the Obama administration, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense,...
20 Jul U.S. and Allied Involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian War: The Belligerent Status of NATO States and Its Implications
...crossing the “red line” of becoming a co-belligerent—a threshold that would “very clearly” be crossed by supplying Ukraine with tanks or aircraft. The Polish prime minister has similarly explained that Warsaw will not unilaterally transfer “offensive weapons” to Ukraine because “[Poland is] not a party to [the Russo-Ukrainian] war.” Legally, the belligerent status of several NATO states is significant because participation in an armed conflict alters a state’s legal relations with enemy belligerents and neutrals. Most importantly, the parties to an armed conflict possess expansive authorities to employ armed force...
31 May IHL Application in the Context of a NIAC: An Issue in Ecuador?
...this post, I argue that crossing the threshold of a NIAC (non-international armed conflicts) with the State endorsing this qualification very quickly can be problematic in relation to some aspects, especially for the resulting facilitation of rules of engagement. The application of IHL rules pertaining to NIACs is triggered on the basis of two cumulative criteria: the intensity of the conflict and the degree of organization of the belligerent non-State party. As stated above, it seems that in the case of Ecuador, this threshold has been reached. The army is...14 Oct The Human Rights Quagmire of “Human Trafficking”
...pursue a border control agenda under the guise of promoting human rights. The Trafficking Protocol and its companion Smuggling Protocol have set a transnational duty to end all forms of unauthorized border crossing and conscripted states in regions of origin to abet the developed world’s efforts to stymie international migration, in particular by routinized implementation of generic deterrence schemes. Broad brush deterrent schemes of this kind tend perversely to promote human smuggling—and even trafficking—since they make unassisted migration that much more difficult, even as they do nothing to open up...
15 Mar Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian Border Crisis and Ius ad Bellum Part I: Background and Key Findings
...3 836 arrivals. In October 2021, the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that it processed approximately 1 289 international protection applications with only two applicants receiving refugee status. Simultaneously in August 2021, the number of intercepted crossings skyrocketed at the Polish-Belarusian border. From 1 January 2021 to 11 November 2021, Poland reported 33 000 illegal crossings. Poland responded by declaring a state of emergency at the frontier zone, the construction of barbed wire, and the redeployment of law enforcement and military forces. The most intense incident was reported on 8...06 May Jus Post Bellum Symposium: Omission Liability and Jus Post Bellum
...Since states ought to protect civilians from atrocity, they have the right to do so (up to and including crossing international borders if necessary under some versions of the doctrine). The structure of the RTP doctrine is the same; it imposes a soft form of moral liability for states’ failure to act — their omissions. At least it does if you take seriously the idea that there is a responsibility to protect. If a state violates this responsibility, then it is responsible for its omission. This is precisely why RTP...21 Jul Emerging Voices: Cyber Operations and the Prohibition of the Threat of Force
...be; conversely, the Tallinn Manual (p.45) considers it as amounting to a use of force. Could it be qualified as a threat of force? Stuxnet produced physical damages to an Iranian nuclear plant, and thus violated the principle of non-intervention and the sovereignty of the targeted State. Nothing prohibits qualifying as a threat of force an action crossing the border of the threatened State. For example, in 1996 a North Korean submarine ran aground on a South Korean beach, and the former denounced it as an act of war (ICB...