Search: crossing lines
02 Nov Third Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Ground Control to Major Tom: The Role of International Law in the Rescue of Astronauts
...story of an astronaut named Major Tom’s journey into space and his loneliness because of the loss of communication between him and Earth. Thanks to Bowie’s soulful voice and the song’s haunting lyrics, listeners can feel the emotional loneliness of an astronaut travelling through the endless void of space. Furthermore, this song has become a cultural sign, reflecting the relationship between the marvellous imagination of humanity and the magnificent but frightening space, and the impact of the space race on society. If we moved from the world of music to...
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...
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...23 Jun New Rules for Cyberwar?
...the U.S. can defend itself by blocking cyber intrusions and taking down servers in another country. And, as in cases of mortar or missile attacks, the U.S. has the right to pursue attackers across national boundaries — even if those are virtual network lines. Under the new Pentagon guidelines, it would be unacceptable to deliberately route a cyberattack through another country if that nation has not given permission — much like U.S. fighter jets need permission to fly through another nation’s airspace. Uri Friedman over at the Atlantic Wire distills...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...
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...
08 May The Race Ceiling and the Transatlantic Slave Trade Resolution: What the UNGA Vote Reveals About International Law’s Epistemic Community
...genuine political solidarity across racial lines and should be recognized as such. The resolution’s passage reflects a real coalition, one that includes states whose scholars have built the TWAIL tradition– a tradition whose critique of international law’s colonial foundations is indispensable and whose contributions to exposing the racial architecture of sovereignty, recognition, and development remain foundational. To engage critically with TWAIL’s epistemic framework is not to contest its project. It is to ask whether that project has fully reckoned with the exclusions it risks reproducing within its own epistemic community....16 Mar Lubanga Decision Roundtable: More on Co-Perpetration
...liability in that context is more obvious: co-perpetration requires an agreement to commit a crime — a common plan — whereas modes of participation such as instigation, aiding and abetting, and contributing to a group crime do not. In light of that fundamental difference, it would in no way blur the lines between principal and accomplice liability to adopt the same contribution requirement for both. My view, it should be noted, assumes that Article 25(3)(d) is limited to contributions to a group crime that are made by individuals who are...08 Apr O’Connell’s “Who’s Afraid of International Law?” and the Koh Nomination
...5, 6, 7), by conservative students at Yale, and also by prominent officials from across party lines. A few days ago, Ted Olson defended Koh from the right-wing criticism. A letter in support of the Koh nomination that has been recently delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee includes signatories such as former Republican State Department Legal Advisers John Bellinger, William Taft, and Davis Robinson as well as former Democratic Legal Advisers David Andrews, Conrad Harper, Roberts Owen and Herbert Hansell. If I had to throw in my lot with...
18 Nov Fighting over the Spoils of the “Holy Land”: Attachment to Land as a Basis for the Rights of Ethnic Minorities?
...under Article 27 as forming part of enjoying one’s own culture, particularly for indigenous peoples and it has addressed several indigenous land claims under the norm. Still, as Kymlicka submits, “[c]onflicts involving ethno-national groups such as the Kurds, Kashmiris, and Palestinians pose a much greater threat to regional peace and security than the struggles of pastoralists or forest dwellers, yet […] the UN has no guidelines for addressing the[m]” (p. 390). Given the content of Article 27 ICCPR and the above-mentioned developments regarding (collective) land rights, the interplay of land...