Search: crossing lines
25 Jun Out of Place? Being Anti-Colonial in Law School
...Eurocentric legality, or at least European epistemology, a critique that cannot be subversive. Despite our anti-colonial credentials, we’ve practically essentialised international law, implying throughout our scholarship that even colouring within the lines is emancipatory. In those moments of doubt, I reorient myself to the subject of the critique. Mainstream international law itself is inchoate, but not in the same way as TWAIL. The critique has been around for a little over a generation, ignored for much of its early years and only now taking shape. I describe TWAIL as embryonic...25 Jul Are You Smart Enough to Be a German Citizen? I Am . . .
...have to allow into your home in Germany, if asked?” I thought the Germans might have some practice under which “the postman” would enjoy entry at will, rather than the (correct answer) your landlord. So it looks pretty much a sham along the lines of the US naturalization exam, except that this one is multiple choice and requires a lower percentage of correct responses (50% v. 66% in the US). Obviously, you can pass the test without being German in any real sense. But easy as it seems to us,...17 May More on Israel’s Support for Apartheid
...1979 for the top-secret test of a new missile system. During Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli army took South African Defense Force chief Constand Viljoen and his colleagues to the front lines, and Viljoen routinely flew visiting Israeli military advisors and embassy attachés to the battlefield in Angola where his troops were battling Angolan and Cuban forces. There was nuclear cooperation, too: South Africa provided Israel with yellowcake uranium while dozens of Israelis came to South Africa in 1984 with code names and cover stories to work on...
29 Oct Third Time Lucky? ICC Appeals Chamber Directs Prosecutor to Consider Mavi Marmara Incident for a Third Time
...time. This recent Appeals Chamber Judgment confirms that the Prosecutor must reconsider her decision on the Comoros’ referral, by 2 December 2019. These proceedings have exposed some troubling internal fault-lines within the ICC system, and tested the very rationale of the Rome-Statute as well as the limits of judicial over-reach.It is in this context that this post identifies three problematic aspects of the Appeal Chamber’s recent decision. 1. Internal Tug of War? Despite the questionable basis for enabling repeated re-litigation of the matter in light of the terms of the...28 Oct Does Japan’s Pledge to Shoot Down Chinese Drones Violate International Law?
...evidence of the drones’ threat to bolster any attack it makes. On the other hand, is China overreacting to call those Japanese threats an “act of war”? I suppose that is technically true if one accepts that China’s drones are flying over Chinese airspace. Still, it is hard to imagine that downing a drone (where no one is hurt or killed) could have the same significance as downing a manned plane. I think Japan is trying to test China, and draw lines on matters that wouldn’t necessarily escalate into armed...13 Jun Should There Be an International Treaty on Cyberwarfare?
...self-defense. The prospect that one State may assume a cyberattack falls below a use of force or armed attack threshold while the victim State perceives it as above those lines is not a happy one — it could lead to an unintended escalation of an incident into a larger armed conflict. Add to this the possibility that a victim State may respond by attacking an innocent third State (or non-State actor) because it holds the mistaken belief (on its own or via a successful false flag operation) that the innocent...
18 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: From Contract to Combat – Individual Criminal Liability of PMSC Personnel and Its Integration into Emerging Treaty Frameworks
...roles over lower-ranking soldiers, illustrating the blurred lines of authority and the operational integration of PMSC staff into state-military frameworks (see here and here). In the words of the Bemba decision of the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber, superior responsibility ex article 28(a) may arise when the forces are structured like a conventional army (see para. 456). This convergence of functions and command dynamics has led scholars such as Kuwali (p. 109) and Frulli (pp. 454-466) to argue that PMSCs should be treated, for purposes of accountability, analogously to formal military units....