Search: crossing lines
16 Apr Obama Releases Memos; Promises Impunity; Misunderstands Estoppel by Entrapment
...assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs. It...10 Jan Saving the UN from Itself (and Others)
...don’t really question the immediate ends of UN programs or the ultimate ends of the UN itself but rather how these policies are implemented. I take Julian’s criticisms to be largely along these lines. The other form of criticism– the critique of ends– has had a fairly loud voice (though not necessarily broad following) in recent US politics. These attacks are usually not aimed at the immediate ends of UN policies (say, separating warring factions in Country X) but rather at a sense that the real aim of the UN...24 Feb Medellín’s Influence on the Judicial Application of Treaties
...the authors fail to specify the lines between the bifurcated categories with adequate precision. As I have written elsewhere, treaties regulate three types of relationships: horizontal relations between states; vertical relations between states and private parties; and transnational relations between private parties that cross national boundaries. See David Sloss, Treaty Enforcement in Domestic Courts: A Comparative Analysis, in THE ROLE OF DOMESTIC COURTS IN TREATY ENFORCEMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY (Sloss ed., 2009). US courts never had a major role in enforcing horizontal treaty provisions. From the Founding until World War...
06 Aug Emerging Voices: The Use of the ‘Proxy Argument’ in the Al-Bashir Case–A Riddle for the Law of International Organizations
...international personality “disappears” under the ICC institutional veil. This theory is also connected with the claim that the ICC’s “statutory framework” should be applied “as a whole” to Sudan (para. 45 of the 2009 decision) and it definitely has effects on the primary obligation. In the context of international responsibility, the idea that member states act as quasi-organs is used to escape courts’ jurisdiction. As mentioned by Jordan (p. 90), the ECtHR would be lacking jurisdiction ratione personae (on the lines of the Behrami and Saramati case). All in all,...03 Nov Richard Perle, Dove?
...invasion of Iraq was illegal: In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: “I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.” President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq – also the British government’s publicly stated view – or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law. But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence...
19 Feb Moving Towards a Settlement of the Conflict in Ukraine
...red lines. Europe might not be an effective counter-weight, given the disdain of the Trump Administration for its former close allies across the Atlantic. However the format of the talks develops, any mediation effort would in the end need to be backed up by a Contact Group of Supporting States. In addition to the US, UK, Germany, France and Italy, this might include traditional supporters of mediation like Norway, Sweden, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, and states closer to the Russian Federation, perhaps like Belarus, China, India, South...07 Sep Events and Announcements: September 7, 2019
...as many proposals as possible, but preference will be given to scholars who did not present last year and to works that have not yet been accepted for publication. We also workshop early stage projects. If you are interested in presenting on an early stage project, please let us know the working title and a few lines about the idea you are pursuing. Finally, if you are willing to be a commentator, please let us know. UN Audiovisual Library The Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs...
30 Oct Fourth Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Understanding the Nakba through Arab Drama – Documentation and Symbolism in al-Taghreba al-Falastinya
...Palestinians can never obtain real or full self-determination) Eghbariah argues that the Nakba regime maintains the structure of oppressive fragmentation by developing a variety of legal constraints preventing refugees from returning to their lands or reuniting with family members with a different legal status (p.986). This is reflected in several heartbreaking scenes that litter the last few episodes of the series, such as Masoud’s attempts to cross the armistice lines to get some oranges from their old farms or when Rushdi sneaks into 1948 lands to search for his mother. ...18 Apr Stay in Your Lane! When Political Scientists Become Bad International Lawyers
...carefully argued piece descends into complete gibberish when it tries to explain how “international law” can be a tool for the United States to constrain and manage China’s activities in the South China Sea. And if Beijing tried to extract economic gains from contested regions [in the South China Sea], Washington could facilitate a process along the lines of the proportional punishment strategy it helped make part of the World Trade Organization: let the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, determine the gains of China’s illegal actions, place a...