Search: crossing lines
13 Sep Forced Relationships: Prosecutorial Discretion as a Pathway to Survivor-Centric Justice
...expressly considering the survivors’ stance. In establishing the elements of the crime of other inhumane acts, the Appeals Chamber noted that being labelled a “forced wife” by perpetrators subjected survivors to mental trauma (para 193), but did not contemplate any long-term consequences of their judicial determination to the same effect. Along similar lines, the ICC found the “imposition, regardless of the will of the victim, of duties that are associated with marriage, as well as of a social status of the perpetrator’s ‘wife’” determinative (Ongwen CoC para 93), rather than...03 Aug Space Cadets… (International Legal Rhetoric Edition)
A while back, I wrote an article on how states use the rhetoric of international law (specifically self-determination) as part of their broader foreign policy initiatives. Li Hong, the Secretary-General of China’s Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, has an op-ed in today’s China Daily that embeds law-talk (in this case the international law of outer space and multilateralism more generally) in an essay that (I think) is really trying to send a signal about the trend lines of China and the U.S. as space-faring nations. He starts by invoking international...10 Sep Samuel Moyn on the History of Human Rights and the Human Rights Movement
...the dissidents of Eastern Europe. These strategic idealists in the US were up against, well, Kissinger (who later got religion, to judge by a couple of lines in one of his memoir volumes, in which he acknowledged that he had underestimated the power of legitimacy in foreign relations, meaning that itsy-bitsy line in the Helsinki accord). I got involved directly in field missions for Americas Watch in 1983, but it was clear that the reason they had resonance was because of Jeri Laber’s pathbreaking work for Helsinki Watch in Europe....28 Jan Guest Post: Colangelo–Kiobel and Conflicts of Law
...posit a variety of false conflicts along these lines: One type of false conflict might latch onto the international law character of the norm at issue, particularly if it is a jus cogens norm—say, the prohibition on torture—to argue that by force of international law that norm applies everywhere, and therefore necessarily presents a false conflict of laws. A weakness with this type of false conflict argument is that while jus cogens clearly contain prohibitions on certain violations of international law, they do not clearly contain private rights of action...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...
30 Jul The Justiciability of the Precautionary Principle in the Tagaeri and Taromenane et al. v. Ecuador before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
...enforceable obligation. In paragraph 227, the IACtHR went further by stating that Ecuador failed to “adequately guarantee” the precautionary principle in declaring a national interest in exploiting oil in their territories. This shift raises profound questions about whether the Court is stretching the meaning of a principle into a self-standing, justiciable legal standard. Recontextualizing the Precautionary Principle Legal theorists, drawing from Dworkin’s work, often distinguish between rules and principles. Rules tend to be rigid, binding commands, while principles function as flexible guidelines shaping the interpretation of rules. Traditionally, principles like...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...
25 Jul Missiles and Messages: Characterizing the Use of Force between Iran and Israel
...which of the two should carry greater weight. This question becomes particularly complex in protracted conflicts characterized by recurring hostilities. In such contexts, immediacy, as a backward-looking concept tied to a prior armed attack, may risk transforming a lawful act of self-defense into an unlawful armed reprisal. Conversely, imminence, as a forward-looking notion, may be used to justify anticipatory self-defense in the face of a perceived impending threat. The cyclical nature of violence in some conflicts—marked by intermittent pauses between escalations—can blur the lines between reprisal, anticipatory self-defense, and lawful...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...