Search: crossing lines
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...
22 Mar SCSL Symposium: The Important Contributions of the Special Court for Sierra Leone on Amnesties and Immunities–Reinforcing Foundational Principles of International Criminal Law, Part II
...of its creation and its pedigree, was an “international court” along the lines of similarly created (although not identical) institutions – the ICTY, the ICTR, and, of course, the ICC. For this reason, it found that it fit squarely within the Yerodia exception. Likewise, in its 2019 decision in the Al Bashir case, the ICC Appeals Chamber resolved the case similarly. Although Jordan had argued before the Appeals Chamber that the ICC was a ‘foreign’ court, and that it could not exercise jurisdiction over Al Bashir who was a sitting...
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...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...
15 Dec Justice for Children Part 1: Progress Made, Gaps Remaining
...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...
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...
28 Jan International Law’s Invisible Frames Symposium: Concluding Remarks
...in which the reconstruction of the past event is made. Thus, while adjudicators and investigators examine evidence regarding past events, their examination involves lenses that are affected by current circumstances (like current emotions or contemporary norms of attention). Furthermore, cognitive processes employed by judges or military investigators are vulnerable to well-known biases (such as confirmation bias, which is highlighted in Krebs’s chapter). Buis rightly underlines the role of emotions in IHL. Indeed, recent social cognitive studies underline the role of motivation and emotions (labelled as ‘affect’) in a broad range...04 Sep Executive Discretion and Congressional Indecision
...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....14 Jun Steinberg and Zasloff on Power and International Law
...in the last century. While views of the relationship between power and international law are diverse, and many approaches straddle heuristic lines, they can be grouped into four intellectual movements: classical legal thought; realism (of which there are three variants); law matters (sociological, rationalist-institutionalist, and liberal views); and constructivism. Each major intellectual movement may be seen as a reaction to the ideas that preceded it, and each may be better understood in the context of international developments contemporaneous with their emergence. In recent years, each major movement has evolved to...