Search: crossing lines
22 May Should Courts Be Back-Stopping Political Citizenship-Stripping Decisions? Not Without Accounting for the Problem of Statelessness
...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...
09 May New Technologies Symposium: How Law and Autonomy (Should) Interact in War and Peace
...actions, the chapter could have discussed further the inherent difficulty in assigning responsibility in complex decision-making systems. Such decisional structures could easily become what I have previously called systems of organized irresponsibility. The lines of responsibility between those who program the software, those that decide on the deployment of an AWS and those who program mission parameters into systems with autonomous capabilities are likely to be difficult to discern. This is especially the case when the underlying technology – as is the case with AWS – makes it virtually impossible...31 Oct Global FEMA?
...costs away from those who cause them. Compensate folks for building houses on floodplains or sand dunes and they’ll just build them again. These problems would presumably be compounded at the international level. So maybe the endpoint is more in the way of today’s state-federal partnerships than in the way of world-government FEMA. FEMA itself is starting to do some thinking vaguely along these lines; here is a news item from earlier this week about an EU-IOM-Namibia agreement that institutionalizes disaster relief in advance. Other such arrangements will surely follow....
07 Mar Seychelles, the United States, and Transitional Justice: Big Lessons from Little Countries
...the army and police, blurring the lines between the two, and started a People’s Militia where neighbor spied on neighbor and civilian members used army-supplied guns and equipment to intimidate those perceived as not sufficiently supportive. Militia membership was a way to show allegiance to the regime. Dissidents were harassed, detained, tortured, or disappeared, their families often forced to self-exile to the United Kingdom or Australia. Victoria, Mahé, Seychelles—March 5, 2021. The Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC)—a truth-seeking body devoted to investigating alleged violations of human rights during...
30 May Options for a Peace Settlement in Ukraine: Option Paper V – Dispute Settlement Mechanisms and Peace Agreements
...arrangement would be particularly useful given the part-domestic and part-international nature of any likely agreement. It would offer the opportunity of dealing with disputes related to the domestic aspects of the agreement first in a domestic setting (utilising both political and judicial dispute settlement mechanisms) before referring any unresolved matters to an international body. Such an international body could, in parallel, deal with any disputes arising from the international aspects of the agreement. Alternatively, one could consider a hybrid body, for example along the lines of the Joint Supervisory Body...01 Jan Divesting Federal Foreign Affairs Power? The Sudan Accountability & Divestment Act
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...
21 Jun The Inadequacy of the US State Department Report on Arms Exports Assurances: Part I
...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...20 Sep Events and Announcements: September 20, 2015
...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...
21 Jun The Inadequacy of the US State Department Report on Arms Exports Assurances: Part II
...refute this concern, the Report should have examined all foreseeable and relevant factors that would affect that determination. And given the gravity of the decision, and the failure to pursue various foreseeable lines of inquiry, the Report is indefensible. In fact, we can recall that some reporting claimed that the internal State Department cables between the non-political departments reached a drastically different outcome on the assurances than the Report given to Congress does. We know that a State Department employee who was a contributing author on the first draft of...28 Jun YJIL Symposium: The Seal Products Dispute and the Boundaries of Trade Law
[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...