Search: crossing lines
06 Jul LJIL Symposium Vol 25-2: Beyond Constitutionalism – Pluralism’s Promise
...order and seeks ‘hard guarantees in the form of legal norms that protect the interests of the different actors’ as well as hierarchies with clear lines of authority. Otherwise, the necessary support for international cooperation would be undermined. De Boer is in good company here – not only in that of the many constitutionalists populating the field today, but also of those pluralists who, afraid of the potentially radical implications of their idea, opt for some ultimate relief through a common legal frame. Such a frame is indeed immensely appealing...13 Apr Catherine Powell at HuffPo on Koh and Customary International Law
...to the concern that customary international law is anti-democratic: Indeed, customary international law bears the hallmark of democratic legitimacy. The U.S. is a key participant in the consensus-building process inherent in the creation of customary norms. Thus, these legal norms are fashioned with the input of U.S. elected and appointed officials, who represent and answer to their constituents at home. As Dean Koh acknowledges, Congress may override a customary international law norm where Congress’s intent is clear, thereby addressing any concern regarding democratic oversight. Across party lines, the Executive Branch...04 Jun So What Is the Legacy of Tiananmen, Twenty Years On?
...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...06 Mar HILJ Symposium: Getting to the Right Answers about Rights
...really emerged several decades later. Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History 6 (2010) (arguing that 1970s were the key period). We ourselves have no particular expertise in this area, but our emphasis on reciprocal interaction between the national and international levels of law-making provides evidence that might be deployed in sorting out these claims. Roberts helpfully suggests new lines of inquiry in which quantitative analysis can help to play a role. One might, he notes, apply our survey methodology to the various proposals articulated in the 1930s...18 Jul Was the Hamdan Court Reading Rick Pildes?
...the same result if we had a Democrat Congress? The Harvard piece, along with a 2004 essay with Sam Issacharoff, also maps well onto Hamdan in extracting a process-based, institutionally-focused tradition in wartime decisionmaking from the Court. The Court has threaded the poles of rights-based idelaism on the one hand and deference to executive unilateralism on the other, looking instead for the reassurance of bilateral agreement between the political branches. The Youngstown story is of course well known along these lines. Less familiar is Pildes’ retelling of Milligan and Korematsu....
16 Apr Symposium on Confronting Colonial Objects: International Law as Colonial Object – The Language/Materiality Dichotomy and the Coloniality of Cultural Takings
...organize the world along lines of social or racial inclusion and exclusion and to legitimize and domination and suppression” and (2) that they were “more pluralist at the time than admitted”, thus challenging the argument that “takings occurred in a legal vacuum”. There is a solid methodological reason for this dual role understanding, as it allows Stahn to avoid the inter-temporal problem: the idea that legal phenomena should be studied under the law as it existed at the time of their occurrence, not the time of their evaluation. This means...
03 Nov Genocide at The Hague: A Transitional Justice Reckoning?
...from strategic state interests and geopolitical alignments. For example, as Jacobs observes, key Western actors supporting Ukraine’s case against Russia, like Germany and the US have been notably less vocal about Gaza at the ICJ. In contrast, while South Africa and Nicaragua have played visible roles in the Gaza litigation, their engagement with Ukraine’s case has been muted, neither appears to have intervened formally. Such inconsistencies reinforce the perception that legal accountability is applied selectively along political lines. The ICJ is not the UN General Assembly: its authority rests on...
24 May Policy Recommendations to Meaningfully Mitigate Civilian Harm in Military Operations: A View from the Netherlands (Part I)
...investigation and response processes, and should be described in the Article-100 Letters (a constitutional requirement to inform Parliament about the deployment of Dutch military personnel, after which a Parliamentary debate occurs). By outlining these parameters prior to agreeing to participate within a coalition context, participating States agree on baselines of how they understand CHMR efforts prior to military engagement and where red lines are drawn. These standards can reflect access to intelligence and information prior to targeting missions and should reflect CHMR throughout the joint targeting cycle. States should also...
20 Aug Muddying the Waters Still Further: A Response to Steven Kay and Joshua Kern
...of the claim that there was a breach of Article 2(4) is underscored by the fact that units of the Arab Legion were stationed in mandate Palestine (west of the Jordan River) under British command and guarding British supply lines as Britain withdrew in May 1948. The fusion of Jordanian and Palestinian sovereignty I stand by my claim that the Jordanian Act of Union of 1950 fused Jordanian and Palestinian sovereignty between 1950 and 1988. However, Kay and Kern claim that “given that Jordan’s occupation arose from a breach of...