Search: extraterritorial sanctions
21 Apr Symposium: On the Promise and Potential of R2P
...for example, the difficulty in stretching the meaning of the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 1 to cover an extraterritorial State obligation to react to all war crimes, including those not derived from the Conventions. It exposes the issue with resorting to Article 41 of the Articles on State Responsibility, which lacks formal legal standing, to try to establish a State responsibility to react to atrocity crimes as violations of jus cogens norms. And it demonstrates the glaring absence of a multilateral convention on crimes against humanity, creating enormous gaps in...
17 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: Ukraine’s New Bill on PMSCs – A Possible Pandora’s Box for Operations Abroad?
...jurisdiction. However, no investigation against PMSC personnel has been initiated by the Court. Even in countries like South Africa where the legal framework contemplates special provisions for applying its regulations beyond its border, no steps have been taken to prosecute alleged violations against civilians. In the case of Ukraine, serious accountability gaps remain, as there is no clear legal provision ensuring extraterritorial application of the Draft Law on PMSCs. The aforementioned examples, along with dozens of other cases, illustrate that prosecution, accountability, and oversight of PMSC activities during armed conflicts...14 Dec Alaskan State Criminal Statute Applied in Canada
If someone sexually assaults a woman in Canadian territorial waters, where would you expect that person to be prosecuted? Why, in Alaska of course. Earlier this week the Alaska Supreme Court rendered an unusual decision in State v. Jack addressing the question of whether a state criminal statute against sexual assault could be applied extraterritorially to prosecute someone who committed the act in the territorial waters of Canada. I’m all in favor of prosecuting persons who commit sexual crimes in Canadian territorial waters. But the question is, by whom and...09 Jun Emailing Does Not Pass the Kiobel Test: US Court Dismisses ATS Case Against Anti-Gay Pastor
Distracted by #ComeyDay and other international crises, I missed this recent U.S. federal court decision in Sexual Minorities of Uganda v. Lively, dismissing an Alien Tort Statute lawsuit on Kiobel extra-territoriality grounds. While using unusually critical language to denounce U.S. pastor-defendant Scott Lively’s involvement in Uganda’s anti-homosexual laws and actions, the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts held: …Defendant’s status as an American citizen and his physical presence in the United States is clearly not enough under controlling authority to support ATS extraterritorial jurisdiction. The sporadic trail of emails sent by...
06 May Targeting a Social Group Through Mass Convictions in Turkey: A Brief Crimes Against Humanity Analysis
...under domestic law, as suggested by Dr. Yeşil. Moreover, these actions remain subject to customary international law and the extraterritorial reach of universal jurisdiction. The possibility that such conduct may be prosecuted through universal jurisdiction mechanisms or give rise to Magnitsky-type sanctions further underscores the significance of this discussion. The targeting of a social group numbering in the hundreds of thousands on the territory of a founding member of the Council of Europe should be regarded as a matter that calls for the attention and responsibility of the international community....
11 Jul The Rise of the Global Legal Order
...significantly lower. Over the course of her 300-year rule, the UK extracted approximately $45 trillion from India, leaving behind a devastated economy and populace. China was never formally colonised, but a succession of unequal treaties kept it subservient to European interests – like Egypt, a remote-control colony. These treaties concluded the formalities of Chinese defeat in the Opium Wars. They gave Britain and other European powers, and the USA control over freeports, extraterritorial jurisdiction, and control over economic and farming policies. They destroyed the Chinese economy to enrich Europe. Asia...
08 Aug Symposium on Unbroken Bond: Tracing the Ties Between African and Palestinian Anti-Colonial Struggles – Peoples’ Rights Without Borders? The Significance of the African Charter’s Liberation Ethos to the Palestinian Struggles
...the situation violates both the Charter and general international law. Any support or cooperation with an apartheid state contravenes both the AU Constitutive Act and the Charter. When the OAU was formed, it called for sanctions against apartheid South Africa and called on its member states to contribute 1% of their budget to the liberation struggle. Other countries suspended their diplomatic relations with South Africa, boycotted its companies, and refrained from doing business with South Africa. Second, the right to self-determination has an extraterritorial reach in the sense that States...14 Dec Wikileaks and the Pentagon Papers
...these two inquiries. Chief Justice Burger, dissenting: I agree generally with Mr. Justice Harlan … but I am not prepared to reach the merits. I should add that I am in general agreement with much of what Mr. Justice White has expressed with respect to penal sanctions concerning communications or retention of document or information relating to the national defense. Justice Blackmun, dissenting: I join Mr. Harlan in his dissent. I also am in substantial accord with much that Mr. Justice White says, by way of admonition, in the latter...
23 Mar Symposium on Prosecuting Heads of State for International Crimes: Will X Ever Stand Trial?
...of genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, he is still in a cell in Khartoum, and there seems to be no path towards his transfer. Existing examples of prosecutions against high-level officials include, as has been a matter of increasingly loud critique over the years, no officials from powerful Western states. Those being prosecuted were the opponents, the weak, the losers. They were never Westerners, never Europeans, Americans or Australians. That is the underlying issue of the current backlash by several powerful states, including U.S. sanctions which have debilitating...23 Jul Guest Post: The Security Council Resolution on the Iran Deal–A Way around the “Reverse Veto”
...at the mission of one of the P5 but gotten a “quick and dismissive” reaction. In the Security Council resolution endorsing the Iran deal, we now have something resembling Professor Caron’s suggestion. To see this, one must work through multiple paragraphs of Resolution 2231. To begin with, paragraph 7(a) terminates prior Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran. But the Resolution further provides that paragraph 7(a) itself can be undone – thus reinstating the prior Security Council resolutions – through what is effectively a modified voting procedure. Specifically, paragraph 11...