Search: crossing lines
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...
18 Mar ENMOD: Dodo, Dormant or Presciently Divine?
...is a 1977 convention that prohibits its contracting parties from engaging in “military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party” (Article I). It is the treaty at the source of Principle 17 of the UN International Law Commission’s Principles on the Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict, and Rule 3.B of the ICRC Guidelines on the Protection of the Natural Environment in Armed Conflict. The International...
15 Sep The Illusion of Reciprocity in the History of International Law: Conquest and Civilisation in Johnson’s Lessee v. M’Intosh
...It is evident, from these lines, that Marshall (and the rest of the Court) were caught in the middle of an extremely delicate situation. A situation in which they justify the legal title acquired with conquest and, at the same time, recognise conquest as an inevitable fact which (even if they wanted) they would have had no competence to declare illegitimate. Taking into account the role of the Supreme Court in shaping US history, a different ruling could have had the potential to undermine the legal validity not only of...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...
08 Aug Ecocide and Article 2(4): Envisioning Environmental Aggression as “Use of Force”
...“use of force” under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and the need to interpret it in tandem with recent ecological violations. Although, there is a dearth of scholarship arguing on similar lines, the imminency of the issue cannot be over-emphasised. The need for a robust framework including state liability in cases of ecocide is imperative, otherwise the biggest perpetrators of ecological destruction i.e. nation states will go unpunished. As the climate crisis deepens and states continue to deploy environmental destruction as a weapon of war, the existing legal architecture,...05 Mar Lozano v. Montoya Alvarez: The Latest Supreme Court Treaty Interpretation Case
...Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U. S. 217, 226 (1996). Lozano has not identified a background principle of equitable tolling that is shared by the signatories to the Hague Convention. To the contrary, Lozano concedes that in the context of the Convention, “foreign courts have failed to adopt equitable tolling . . . because they lac[k] the presumption that we [have].” Tr. of Oral Arg. 19–20. While no signatory state’s court of last resort has resolved the question, intermediate courts of appeals in several states have rejected equitable tolling…. I...29 Mar Symposium: Cogan Reply to Pauwelyn
...forms of noncompliance that may be beneficial, but I do not consider them at length. Professor Pauwelyn first claims that I go “too far by underestimating the flexibilities and exit options that exist within the system of international law.” What I describe as noncompliance, he sees as “flexibilities and exit options perfectly permitted and accepted within international law.” I wish more people thought along those lines, and I wish it were that international law were more like what Professor Pauwelyn describes. Unfortunately, international law and international legal scholars appear to...
13 Feb When War Bets on Protest: Iran’s Civilians in a Double Bind
...warned that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States would “come to their rescue,” declaring the U.S. “locked and loaded.” Days later he urged demonstrators to “KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS” and promised that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” while describing a reinforced posture and, later, a “massive armada” headed toward Iran, ready to act “with speed and violence, if necessary.” Those lines are not just rhetoric. They sketch a theory of change: external force creates openings; civilians convert disruption into political rupture. Public reporting has...
19 Apr Symposium on International Conflict and Security Law: A Research Handbook – Human Rights: Between Universalism and Relativism
...questioning of the liberal pursuit/aim of human rights would be central to the development of this new universalism. Engeland’s contribution is noteworthy since it displays the comprehension of the intractability of the issue and thus resists the urge to offer any magical solution to the same. Rather through an open proposal to reframe the debate on universality, it attempts to initiate a new understanding of principles of liberal peace and security, thus provoking new lines of inquiry. It is hoped that the same shall stimulate development of new thought in...