Search: crossing lines
19 Sep When the World Looks Away: How the Iran–Israel Conflict Diverted Focus from Ukraine
...killing at least ten people and multiple assassination attempts targeting President Zelensky, the recent Iran–Israel conflict stands as a powerful case study in how emerging regional crises can dominate headlines and divert international attention away from Ukraine’s ongoing fight for survival. This split focus provides Moscow with a strategic window to escalate, while Europe and a Trump-led United States juggle diplomatic priorities. The global order, long anchored in deterrence and alliances, is being tested simultaneously on multiple fronts. As tensions in the Middle East have absorbed much of Washington’s and...
25 Oct What Black Widow Can Teach Us About Human Trafficking Law
[Samantha Franks is an associate at a law firm in Washington D.C., where she specializes in international trade. She is a former Frederick Douglass Fellow, a former Fulbright postgraduate scholar, and a current member of the Department of Health and Human Services Office on Trafficking in Person’s working group.] For many fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 2021 release of Black Widow felt like a breath of fresh air. After twelve years on the sidelines, the film finally gave the first female Avenger, portrayed by Scarlett Johansson, a story of her...
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...
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...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...05 Mar AG Holder’s National Security Speech – Text
...this work, as well as the special role of the Department of Justice in protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. Before 9/11, today’s level of interagency cooperation was not commonplace. In many ways, government lacked the infrastructure – as well as the imperative – to share national security information quickly and effectively. Domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence operated in largely independent spheres. But those who attacked us on September 11th chose both military and civilian targets. They crossed borders and jurisdictional lines. And it immediately became clear...
24 Aug Error 404: Responsibility Not Found? Evidentiary Dilemmas in Attributing Cyber Operations
...met before the ICJ and rarely, if ever, before other fora (p. 80-81). In the Bosnian Genocide case, the ICJ was asked to uphold the more relaxed test of “overall control” proposed in the Tadić Appeals judgment (1999) of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Under that test, conduct such as the US’ in Nicaragua could have given rise to attribution. Yet the Court upheld the “effective control” test as reflecting customary law, arguing that more lenient tests would blur the lines between private and State action (¶¶402-404)....09 Oct Omit Needless Words
...paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts…. Many expressions in common use violate this principle…. In especial the expression “the fact that” should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs. So how do the top law journals perform under the microscope of William Strunk and E.B. White? In the countless hours of drafting and editing, do the top scholars and top student editors adhere to this elementary principle of composition? The results...19 Dec Bali High?
...of bold transformation that many think is needed, given the severity of the climate problem. Moreover, the difficulties in negotiating the Bali Roadmap do not bode well for the treaty negotiations that will now commence. Despite the Bali decision, many countries (the United States foremost among them) still appear unprepared for serious negotiations – certainly, not until after the US Presidential elections next year. To make real progress, what is needed, above all, is US domestic action, along the lines of the Lieberman-Warner bill that was reported out of committee...
24 Mar The Potential of Gender Persecution in ICC Case Abd-Al-Rahman: A Twofold Opportunity to Interpret its Customary Status and Intersectional Discrimination
...para 54). Intersectionality fulfils this role enhancing ICL interpretations as it involves the application of customary IHRL standards such as the prohibitions of gender-based violence and discrimination. Intersectionality is not a substantive standard to be implanted in ICL, but a tool to interpret complex discrimination processes underpinning violence through contextualization, capturing the dynamics and lines of force of discrimination (MacKinnon 1023-4). Intersectionality does not involve any concept foreign to ICL but is inherentto it. It addresses concepts such as the prohibition of discrimination and gender-based violence that (as above-mentioned) have...