Search: crossing lines
18 Apr Symposium on International Conflict and Security Law: A Research Handbook – The Extra-Legal Foundations of International Conflict and Security Law: the Importance of Identifying Globally Protected Goods and Collective Interests
...foundational principle of the international legal order. The authors skillfully point to the substantive values which are involved in the rule of law when adapting its content to the field of international peace and security: compliance, transparency, and accountability of international decision-making. These values, which constitute the qualities required for a normative order to be stable, certain and predictable, are therefore essential to the consolidation of the international community. Both formally and substantially, the rule of law encompasses authoritative guidelines to limit the discretion of the authorities who are called...07 Nov Leticia & Pancho: The alleged historic precedents for unwilling or unable in Latin America, explored (Part I, Leticia)
...to attack non-state actors in cases of unwillingness or inability of the host State, but rather requested each State to deal with the threats they encountered inside their own borders. In fact, this understanding of a limited set of options available to deal with rebel forces acting across national lines is precisely the legal discussion at the heart of the Mexican and American positions during the 1916 Punitive Expedition, and exactly the reason why I find its inclusion on Deeks’ chart so surprising. But more on this in Part II....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 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...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...
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...21 Jul A Few Thoughts on Immigration Reform (R.I.P.)
The chance for major immigration reform during this session of Congress has apparently passed, according to this Reuters item here and an editorial in yesterday’s Times. Although I teach and write in immigration law, I have found this year’s high-profile debate on the subject pretty unedifying. This is in part because it has been mostly about politics rather than law. The politics may be unpredictable, with positions that cut deeply across party lines, but they are also enveloped in unreality – the unreality of controlling immigration. As Tamar Jacoby (a...
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...