Search: crossing lines
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...
07 Oct Killing in the Name: Three Legal Paradigms to Evaluate the Legality of US Actions in the Caribbean (Part I)
...signs of acting under its effective or overall control. All these facts support the conclusion that these conducts cannot be legally qualified as being to the prejudice of Venezuela and are thus not governed by jus ad bellum rules on account of not being directed against another State’s political independence or territorial integrity. Or, rather, that the use of force regime is inadequate to assess the legality of the strikes for a lack of identity ratio materiae. Along the same lines, attention should be paid to the communication emanated from...
07 Feb Overfocusing on Prosecuting Aggression Risks Impunity for Ukraine’s Swelling Dock of Alleged War Criminals
...any tribunal—international, hybrid, or otherwise—any time in the near future. Rather, the international community must turn its attention to the serious issue of the ever-expanding dock of Russian prisoners of war in Ukrainian custody accused of war crimes. While the ICC has made headlines for the Prosecutor’s bold issuance of an arrest warrant against President Putin, which has already made the Russian despot’s world significantly smaller, the Court’s limited resources and system of complementary jurisdiction make it suited to try only individuals most responsible for widespread atrocity crimes in Ukraine....
02 Nov Third Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Game of Thrones and Hjalmar Schacht
...increase employment, or enforce reserve cash requirements on other banks. Rather, it functions as a private bank that provides credit to, among other entities, nearby city-states and kingdoms, much along the lines of the Medici Bank of the 15th century and the Fuggers of the 16th. By any standards, its lending is reckless. The profligate spending that all but emptied the treasury under King Robert Baratheon would have been impossible without a dependable stream of Iron Bank loans, none of which seem to have had the strings attached that we...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...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...
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...16 Sep Legal Accountability of International Organizations and Their Agents
...such as telephone lines, etc.? This is, after all, an investigation by a state DA, and not even a federal prosecutor. Although somewhat weirdly, given the politics at that moment, a local level investigation by a state DA of unimpeachable integrity and also a stalwart of the Democratic establishment – rather than a DOJ investigation by the then-Bush administration, turned out to be far more politically palatable. In any case, the weakened Annan did not do what might otherwise have been an inflexible and categorical response of the UN –...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.)...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...