Search: crossing lines
19 Mar Comparative Free Speech About Bong Hits
This morning the Supreme Court will hear Morse v. Frederick, a case about a high school student who held up a banner advocating “Bong Hits for Jesus” at a school function associated with the passing of the Olympic torch through Juneau, Alaska. The school principal, Deborah Morse, refused to allow Joseph Frederick to display the banner, and he was later disciplined for his conduct. Given that several of the justices are strongly committed to the principled use of comparative constitutionalism, I’m confident that something along the lines of the following...
16 Mar The Best Option: An Extraordinary Ukrainian Chamber for Aggression
In an excellent recent blog post at Just Security, Tom Dannenbaum identified four options for prosecuting Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine: [T]he International Criminal Court, an ad hoc international tribunal (whether along the lines proposed at Chatham House or pursuant to a General Assembly resolution), a domestic court exercising territorial jurisdiction (in Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine), or a domestic court exercising universal jurisdiction. All four options have their costs and benefits. The ICC would offer economy of scale, given that the Prosecutor has already initiated, at the request of 41...02 Apr What do we mean by the Transnationalization of Private Law?
...states the operation of different non-national sources of law operating side by side: fundamental principles, customs, treaties, general principles, and party autonomy. It is clear that in the legal order between states, we acknowledge immanent or informal law formation along these lines even if treaties may often be preferred and the other sources have suffered here also because of 19th Century exalted sovereignty ideas. But treaties are there foremost to clarify, be more specific or remedy as indeed bilateral investment treaties (BITs) for the protection of foreign investment normally do....
08 Jul The Sum of Four Fears: African States and the International Criminal Court in Retrospect–Part I
...‘[march] in lock step with the permanent members’. The most recent example of the Prosecutor and the ICC’s supporters’ cozy relationship with the Security Council, and its insidious effects, concerns the ongoing disputes regarding President Al-Bashir’s claim to Head of State immunity (debates that have become somewhat moot since his removal from office). Over the past decade academics have fiercely debated the status of President Al-Bashir’s immunity, and so when the issue finally came before the ICC Appeals Chamber in 2018 the Prosecutor was presented with a number of lines...01 Feb A Response to Sean Watts by Geoffrey Corn
...Watts offers. However, I am not convinced that modifying the bright lines produced by the presumptions of the law of war in order to address the factual over-breath at the fringe is worth the cost of opening the door to altering the group based presumptions that define who may participate in hostilities. In my view, his argument is analogous to an argument that a police officer or a district attorney need not be advised of Miranda rights prior to custodial interrogation because doing so is really just adherence to empty...