Search: crossing lines

...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,...

...to say, as a pro bono gift of Sullivan & Cromwell. Tiananmen took place while all of us were there; it was discussed at length, but the conference declined to make a joint statement, if I recall correctly. I think that was the right decision – no one at the meeting was authorized to speak on behalf of their organizations, to start with. Somewhat more disturbing was that not everyone at the conference appeared to think that the Chinese protestors had a defensible cause. The fault lines of the human...

...U.S. military has essentially no role to play in detaining alleged terrorists who are within the United States (outside is another matter, but that may be eventually shot down as well). I am beginning to think that the law enforcement approach is more practical and attractive. I don’t think, however, that Congress or the President agree with this approach and I doubt that the law enforcement approach is constitutionally required. *UPDATE: For a more detailed and thoughtful analysis along the same lines as this post, see Orin Kerr’s analysis here....

Notwithstanding its recent efforts to avoid recess appointments with 12 second sessions, the Senate will return in full next Monday. For international lawyers, the big question is whether UNCLOS finally gets a vote for the Senate’s advice and consent. As I noted here and here, the SFRC voted UNCLOS out of Committee last fall largely along party lines. But it’s been all quiet since. Indeed, I’ve heard from a couple of sources that the window for Senate A&C to accession is closing, if not closed. What I don’t know is...

...Here are some tips in that vein: You must teach at least once during your PhD: even if you are fairly certain you do not want to have a career in academia afterwards, do it, just to be sure you do not like this part of the job. And, if you are potentially interested, you need to be able to establish a track record for when you do start applying for all those jobs. Take pedagogical theory seriously: in most disciplines, we train as academics without any training on how...

...be any fixed telephone lines, from which he could call anyone to choose a lawyer. Although the visit did not take place in the particular room in which he is being detained, it is clear that he would not be able to keep privileged documents in a secure location. 37. When asked whether he would want someone, such as his family, to arrange for a Libyan lawyer for the domestic proceedings, he responded that he would. 38. Mr. Gaddafi has been interviewed by the Libyan authorities in connection with allegations...

...constraint to some national security harm (see David Cole and Jules Lobel’s new book for the argument that it’s the violation of law, rather than conformity with it, that has done the damage). The argument is more along the lines of, anti-terror efforts require boldness; legalization results in timidity. I don’t buy it. Either this isn’t a war, in which case the rule of law as usual is presumptively a good thing; or we’ve been lacking the leadership that would overcome the timidity. Goldsmith recognizes the first possibility. “When a...

...singing along to The Clash’s 1979 anthem “London Calling,” which features the lyrics “Now war is declared — and battle come down” while other lines warn of a “meltdown expected.” [snip] “He didn’t like Led Zeppelin or The Clash but I don’t think there was any need to tell the police,” Mann told the Daily Mirror. Lucky for Mann he wasn’t listening to the Sex Pistol’s “Anarchy in the UK” or anything by Gang of Four. He’d be at a black site undergoing “interrogation” as we speak… Hat-tip: Daily Kos....

...role, but that is all. It is what I call a thirty percent solution. Solving a problem such as climate change depends on many other factors as well. Thus, my main thought leaving Copenhagen was exactly along the lines that Kal suggests — namely, to revisit the issue of geoengineering, which I last wrote about more than a decade ago. Geoengineering raises many questions and concerns. But if countries fail to limit their emissions significantly — and if severe climate change occurs as a result — then geoengineering may emerge...

...that ought to engage the minds of lawyers and asking, inter alia, that those lawyers develop a better understanding of technology. As she correctly observes, the book may help to phrase the questions we should be asking about technological development. It is for all of us to engage across disciplines when considering possible answers. Markus Wagner looks at Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems and rightly comments that more could have been said in the book about the inherent difficulty in assigning responsibility in complex decision-making systems. He must be right that...

...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....

...IHL regulate autonomous weapon systems? Are prohibitions better or worse than prescriptive authorities? Should IHL regulate via rules, standards, or principles? Finally, (6) why should IHL regulate autonomous weapons? How can IHL best prioritize among its foundations in military necessity, humanitarian values, and the practical reality that the development of such systems now appears inevitable. In asking these questions, my essay offers a critical lens for gauging the current scope (and state) of international legal discourse on this topic. In doing so, it sets the stage for new lines of...