Search: crossing lines
12 Jun Weekday News Wrap: Tuesday, June 12, 2012
...former was ordered to target Iran’s nuclear program last week by President Obama. NPR posts an op-ed about the troubling hypocrisy in the US’ recent leaks about its targeted killings and cyber warfare programs while prosecuting more government officials under the Espionage Act of 1917 than all previous administrations combined. Inter Press Service reports that the US has halted talks with Pakistan on NATO supply lines. North Korea has denied any plans for a third nuclear test. Thousands are reportedly showing up in Moscow for the first mass protests against...
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...05 Jan Firm Whites and Runny Yolks in WTO Law
[Tomer Broude is a Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law and Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the following post continues our conversation on Shaffer and Pollack’s When Cooperation Fails] Mark Pollack and Greg Shaffer well deserve the praise that the previous commentators have given them for their study of the transatlantic law and politics of GMOs, “When Cooperation Fails”. Empirically, the book is a model of qualitative research, in some parts following the lines of Greg’s superb Defending Interests. The theoretical dimensions of the book masterfully...
15 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: Deadly Agents Functioning as ‘Humanitarian Actors’
...authorities have systematically blocked or severely restricted the entry of humanitarian relief into Gaza, drawing international condemnation. In response to this criticism, Israel introduced a militarized “aid mechanism,” under which GHF began operations in May 2025. Preliminary reports on GHF’s operations reveal disorganized, opaque aid distributions, potentially even defined as war crimes, confirming long-standing concerns about the privatization and politicization of humanitarian assistance as it was highlighted in the WGM’s 2021 report. These developments are yet another striking example of blurring the lines between military and humanitarian actors, eroding trust,...17 May Book Discussion “Outsourcing War and Peace”: Too Much Jurisdiction? – Contractor Liability After Brehm and Ali
...than because it can. Thus, both Brehm and Ali raise the dark side of expansive calls for contractor liability—that, in the quest for accountability, we might tolerate departures from existing legal and prudential constraints on federal jurisdiction, and thereby blur lines that only serve their purpose when they are clear. To be sure, Brehm and Ali are outliers compared to the far more notorious cases that Professor Dickinson surveys (and over which the case for civil and/or criminal liability in U.S. courts is far stronger), but that’s exactly the point....
20 May Re-discovering the Origins of Bilateral Investment Treaties
...could be used in combination with their more modern versions (viz. theBITs), to attract the latter’s dispute resolution mechanism, notably investor-State conciliation and arbitration. Such an operation would be in keeping with the 1978 ILC Draft Articles on MFN clause, the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and arbitral precedents. Synthesizing Article 10 of the Draft Articles on the MFN Clause, the ICJ’s take in Ambatielos I case, and arbitral tribunals’ findings along the lines of Ambatielos II case, an MFN clause of a treaty can attract the...
06 Apr About Time: Statutory Limitations and Crimes against Humanity
...shall not apply to crimes under international law that are by their nature imprescriptible (thus including crimes against humanity). Nevertheless, Principle 23 adds that, “when it does apply, prescription shall not be effective against civil or administrative actions brought by victims seeking reparation for their injuries”. Along the same lines, the 2005 UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Laws establish that “where so provided for in an applicable...