Search: crossing lines
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...
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...
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...
15 May EU Corporate Human Rights Due Diligence Obligations: From Means to Results
...least adequately mitigate them. This makes it clear that duty of vigilance cannot be fulfilled by a tick box exercise. Along these lines, Article 9 requires that the corporation sets a complaint mechanism for legitimate concerns regarding the adverse human rights impacts of the corporation’s activities. As for the duty of care counterpart of HRDD in the Commission’s Proposal, concerns have been raised on the nature of the obligation it establishes. Indeed, national law considers duties of care as obligations of means/best efforts: if the defendant proves that they were...
02 Dec For the Biden Presidency, Promoting Human Rights in Asia Aligns Well with US Strategic Interests
...policy would be problematic. Nowhere is this more evidently true than in the strategic hub of Asia. The far-flung continent was a priority of President Barack Obama, whose famous “pivot to Asia” included “six key lines of action”: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment; forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights. Clearly, promoting human rights was considered integral to a broader, and interconnected, nucleus of US strategic interests in...
10 Oct Reimagining Palestine in TWAIL Scholarship
...The hesitation of academics to confront tangible aspects of settler-colonialism is consistent with their worldview, he explains. Doctrinal and critical scholars alike unite in the near beatification of the Westphalian tradition, a system that relies on the negation of indigenous and non-state sovereignty. In this context, even calls for Palestinian self-determination appear timid, contingent on colouring within the lines of Israeli administrative zones. As I’ve argued elsewhere, this leads TWAIL scholars to an intellectual and ethical cul-de-sac. We admit the profane origins and practices of international law—from a TWAIL perspective,...