Search: crossing lines

...access to clean washing water (far less potable water) remains a challenge. Covid-19 has exposed existing fault lines in ways that shine a light on the implications of inadequate water supplies. Atolls, Handwashing and Climate Change What has gone relatively unexamined is the impact of climate change on access to water and the additional vulnerability that countries already exposed to its effects are now facing in light of Covid-19. Any positive progressive realisation of access to water, although taking into account the particular circumstances that states might face economically, must...

...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...

...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...

...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...

[Tomer Broude is a Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law and Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the following post continues our conversation on Shaffer and Pollack’s When Cooperation Fails] Mark Pollack and Greg Shaffer well deserve the praise that the previous commentators have given them for their study of the transatlantic law and politics of GMOs, “When Cooperation Fails”. Empirically, the book is a model of qualitative research, in some parts following the lines of Greg’s superb Defending Interests. The theoretical dimensions of the book masterfully...

...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...

...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...

...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...

...can be definitively drawn between integral and marginal conduct associated with sexuality. Sexual orientation is expressed—and revealed—in hundreds, if not thousands, of subtle and obvious ways through appearance, speech, behavior, dress and mannerisms. Moreover, lines between what is “integral” and what is “marginal” conduct associated with sexual minorities in another culture prospectively drawn by Western decision makers have often failed to properly encompass accepted human rights standards, as the lower level decisions in HJ and HT amply demonstrate. Over a decade of my own research on sexuality-based refugee status determination...

...available for international law matters, choosing how to spend scarce negotiating capital becomes especially critical. This post outlines four ways states could structure their engagement with international law within the Global Mechanism. From Applicability to Practice The predecessors of the Global Mechanism, the UN Groups of Governmental Experts (operating between 2012–2021) and the Open-Ended Working Groups (2019–2025), approached international law largely at an abstract level. Their deliberations focused on whether existing law applies in the cyber context and whether new law is required to govern this domain. While meaningful progress...

...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)....