Search: crossing lines

...acknowledges that decentralized digital systems cannot be effectively governed through top-down state intervention or private self-regulation alone. Embedding Human Rights in Decentralized Governance  If blockchain governance requires new institutional models to ensure accountability, the same holds true for human rights. Historically, human rights law was designed to hold centralized entities—primarily states—accountable for violations against individuals. But blockchain challenges this premise: it disperses authority, embeds decisions in code, and blurs the lines of legal responsibility. In this context, human rights protection must also evolve to operate within polycentric systems. Just as...

...of the nation’s population). In his opinion, however, Justice Thomas suggests that the judiciary should begin to draw such lines and should, in particular, recognize that “treaties by their nature relate to intercourse with other nations (including their people and property), rather than to purely domestic affairs.” Justice Thomas acknowledges that “the distinction between matters of international intercourse and matters of purely domestic regulation may not be obvious in all cases.” Even so, he concludes that “hypothetical difficulties in line-drawing are no reason to ignore a constitutional limit on federal...

It’s a happy new year (of sorts) for U.S. Human Rights Groups concerned about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur. For the last several years, groups such as the Save Darfur Coalition have pushed state and local governments to divest from companies that invest or do business with Sudan. Their efforts have produced some impressive results –since 2005, 22 U.S. states have divested their assets from Sudan, either along the lines recommended by the grassroots Sudan Divestment Task Force, or through some other model (the movement also has a private...

...making a prediction of risk from the assurances misses multiple critical lines of inquiry. It concentrates on just a few superficial criteria, and overlooks several key points and the overall context. Certainly, the State Department may have taken these factors into consideration in its internal, confidential evaluations and not mentioned them in its report to Congress, but the report lacks clarity and transparency in this regard. The fact that the State Department chose to only ask four brief, vaguely-phrased, and backwards-looking questions before making predictions on the likelihood of misuse...

...famously stands for the proposition that such individuals may properly be tried before military tribunals. But the Supreme Court’s Quirin opinion also addressed the question of citizenship because among these unlawful combatants was a naturalized U.S. citizen, Hans Haupt. The Court found that because he had passed “behind [U.S. military and naval lines] in civilian dress and with hostile purpose,” Haupt’s claim to citizenship did not entitle him to civilian legal process. Haupt, a U.S. citizen, was ultimately executed after trial by military tribunal. The Supreme Court thus came nowhere close to...

...Review. For detailed guidelines about the award, including a link to our rules and regulations please visit the website here or contact us at: hracademy@wcl.american.edu. Calls for Papers/Abstracts: The Junior International Law Scholars Association (JILSA) is holding its annual meeting on Friday, January 22, 2016, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. JILSA is an informal network of junior scholars at mostly American law schools who get together annually for a self-funded workshop. Junior faculty and fellows interested in presenting at the meeting should email proposals to MJ Durkee...

[Simon Lester is the President of WorldTradeLaw.net and a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute.] This post is part of the Yale Journal of International Law Volume 37, Issue 2 symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Over the past two decades, there has been an effort by many trade law academics and others to define the boundaries of international trade rules in a way that disciplines trade restrictions, while allowing sufficient policy space for governments to regulate in legitimate ways. Rob...

...for Children: Progress, Gaps, and Future Directions for Accountability” was co-hosted by Save the Children, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Leiden University. It convened leading voices from UN agencies, accountability institutions, civil society organisations, and scholars who work daily on the front lines of these questions. The timing was not incidental. Four years have passed since a similar gathering inspired the 2021 report Advancing Justice for Children: Innovations to strengthen accountability for violations and...

...and Kooijmans recognized that in a post-9/11 world containing failed states, state practice strongly supports the view that an expansive reading of Article 51 to include non-state actors is appropriate. Sunday’s operation was another example of state practice undertaken with the belief that the boundaries of the battlefield are not determined by geopolitical lines but rather by the location of participants in an armed conflict, whether the participants are states or non-state actors. This continues to be the standard for determining where the law of armed conflict is properly applied....

...commanders for leading an attack on African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.) However, a successful prosecution requires the prosecutor to prove that the peacekeepers were “entitled to the protection given to civilians . . . under the international law of armed conflict” and that “the perpetrator was aware of the factual circumstances that established the protection.” To prove these elements, prosecutors often point to the peacekeepers’ distinctive uniforms, colors, and emblems to argue that the attackers knew that they were attacking protected peacekeepers, not an enemy force. Blurring the lines between...

...counterterrorism policy — that is, a war on terror — is as important as the White House believes it is, then it merits the blessing of the legislature and ought not to exist merely at the discretionary whim of some future president. On the eve of midterm elections that could reverse Republican control of at least one house of Congress, (see here, here and here) one would think that this would be a particularly propitious time for the Bush Administration to work with Congress along the lines Anderson is suggesting....

Russia’s lower house of Parliament has passed a resolution denying that the Soviet Union committed “genocide” in Ukraine during the 1930s. The resolution states: “There is no historical proof that the famine was organized along ethnic lines. Its victims were million of citizens of the Soviet Union, representing different peoples and nationalities living largely in agricultural areas of the country.” Interestingly, the resolution does not appear to deny (as it could not credibly do anyway) that the Soviet Union leadership was responsible for a great famine in the 1930s Ukraine...