Search: crossing lines
08 Jan Liberia’s TRC Begins Work
The beginning of Charles Taylor’s trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone is obviously big news, and those who are interested in the trial should check out the live-blogging and analysis here. But Taylor’s trial should not overshadow an equally important event related to the civil war in Liberia — the launch of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The commission was established along similar lines to South Africa’s post-apartheid body. Since 2003, Liberia has inched forward, helped by the presence of thousands of peacekeeping troops. The conflict saw the...
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...05 Feb AJIL Symposium: Is the Vienna Convention Hostile to Drafting History? A Response to Julian Davis Mortenson, Part 2
...as internally inconsistent. This contention, however, builds on a misunderstanding of the role of the international legal scholar. Treaty interpretation is an activity that engages many different kinds of agents, including, for example, international legal scholars, judiciaries, state organs and representatives, and state counsels. Not all agents are subject to the same societal constraints, of course. Depending on the capacity of a treaty interpreter, consequently, different lines of action are typically expected. So, for example, is a person acting as state counsel expected to choose the line of action that...27 Dec Sundays with Stendhal 10: On Epigrams
The Baron could not produce epigrams; he required at least four sentences of six lines each to be brilliant. (The Red and the Black, part II, chapter 34, “The Hotel de La Mole.” Sometimes, alas, I fear this is me.)...
16 Feb UK Okpabi et al v Shell: UK Supreme Court Reaffirms Parent Companies May Owe a Duty of Care Towards Communities Impacted by their Subsidiaries in Third Countries
...Okpabi, and more than 42,000 individuals from the communities of Ogale and Bille in the Niger Delta, alleging that oil spills from the respondents’ pipelines caused severe environmental damage, affecting their land, livelihoods, water sources and health. They sued Royal Dutch Shell plc (Shell), UK-based parent company, and its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which operates the joint venture between Shell and the state-owned oil company. But the responsibility of Shell, and the jurisdiction of UK courts over the case, was contested by their legal counsel. Both the High Court and the...
03 Feb The Appeals Chamber Invents Conditional Post-Acquittal Release
...integrity of its process.” The drafters have already made that value judgment, concluding that the integrity of post-acquittal release requires the acquitted person to be released unconditionally unless exceptional circumstances justify keeping him in detention. That is a perfectly sound position: although an accused person has rights throughout the criminal process, those rights are at their absolute highest following acquittal. At that point in the process, it makes complete sense to structure release along the binary lines contemplated by Art. 81(3)(c). It is problematic enough that the AC decided to...18 Oct US Delegation to Dubai Internet Negotiations To Be Larded With (Dominated By?) Industry Reps
...be talkshop, in which included non-state representatives get the extra status that comes with inclusion on an official delegation and some access to state representatives. That would be a bump for lesser known entities like “dotGay LLC” (also on the delegation). But the real dealmaking remains an exclusively intergovernmental undertaking. The other would be along the lines of corporate sponsorship of Olympic competitors. That would be much more robust kind of involvement – the state provides the nameplate but nonstate actors are more like partners than hangers-on. Ultimately it may...
09 Aug Doing Justice to History Symposium: Doing Justice Through History
...the MRTA armed groups as an armed conflict under international humanitarian law, and 2) it decided to study the history of the conflict in the context of Peru’s history of structural inequality. Thus, the TRC concluded that the Peruvian armed conflict had had a two-tiered explanation: the most immediate cause, it said, was the decision of the Shining Path (and only the Shining Path) to launch an assault on Peruvian democracy. At the more structural level, however, the Shining Path sought to “exploit old historical fault lines, that are transversal...02 Apr HILJ Online Symposium: Greg Shill Responds to Christopher Whytock
...judgments. Instead, the problem—as I argue there and in Part III.A—is a federal statute and uniform act (28 U.S.C. § 1963 and the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, which is law in 47 states) that effectively dictate the same result. Both laws establish a registration procedure that streamlines the enforcement of judgments across district and state lines: the plaintiff records the judgment with the court clerk and then proceeds to enforce, subject only to sharply limited defenses (e.g., defective process). Given that Part III.B.1 argues that states are not...
03 Nov Third Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Subverting Otherness Against Oppression – Decolonizing International Legal Scholarship Through the Music of Bob Marley and the TWAILers
...educational and religious systems of Western civilization, the ideological pillars of the imperialist colonial order: Building church and university Deceiving the people continually This part calls for epistemological independence, in terms similar to the famous lines from ‘Redemption song’: Emancipate yourself from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds ‘Ambush in the Night’ continues the argument against the status quo of colonial and imperialist domination. The song shows Marley’s skepticism and distrust not only of his friends, but of Babylon’s operations in general (political theories, ideologies, educational or...