Search: extraterritorial sanctions

...brought them there, the court concluded that the “practical obstacles inherent in resolving the prisoner’s entitlement to the writ” while petitioners were detained in an active theater of war weighed against recognizing an extraterritorial constitutional right to habeas. Many things to say on the decision’s import and meaning, but here I’ll just start with two unrelated points. First, on the import. Whatever one thinks of the opinion on the merits, it may be easy to overstate its practical significance. The Obama Administration’s litigation strategy in all of its highest profile...

A quick note on the two latest case examples on the table in our ongoing detention debate. First, Mr. Al-Marwallah’s case is a prime example of why we shouldn’t make broad new detention policy based on the problems of Gitmo alone. Mr. Al-Marwallah may not be prosecutable for taking terrorist training pre-2001 since the criminal material support statute in effect at that time may not (emphasize may) have had the requisite extraterritorial scope. Any such lacuna in the substantive scope of the criminal law has since been corrected. Mr. Al-Marwallah,...

...of the UN and those of the troop contributing states (TCC). Siobhan states that according to a number of courts, human rights violations of a UN Peacekeeping force may be attributable to the TCC, and possibly to both the UN and the contributing state. In discussing this issue, she focuses primarily on the exercise of (extraterritorial) jurisdiction, rather than on attribution issues. The attribution question is however highly interesting. Siobhan refers inter alia to the Nuhanovic and Mustafic cases. In these cases, the Dutch Supreme Court held that in the...

...Afghanistan? Justice Kennedy’s ruling in Boumediene was nothing if not intensely functional in nature, so the parties’ briefs (and argument) devoted substantial time to discussing how the Kennedy criteria for determining when/whether the U.S. Constitution applies extraterritorially: (1) the citizenship and status of the detainees and the process for determining their status; (2) the nature of the sites of apprehension and detention; and (3) the practical obstacles to extraterritorial application of the constitutional right. As usual, the best account of the hearing can be found at Scotusblog. Yesterday’s upshot: U.S....

...— it’s unclear from the fact sheet — its new understanding of the use of lethal force applies only to the current conflict. Second, although I don’t imagine that the US much cares, the jus ad bellum-like targeting standards announced in the fact sheet do not necessarily satisfy the limitations on lethal force imposed by international human rights law. As I have pointed out ad nauseum on the blog (see here for an example), whether an extraterritorial use of force is legitimate under the jus ad bellum says nothing about...

...cases will be determined in the future according to the detailed statutory scheme Congress has enacted. Other cases may arise with allegations of serious violations of international law principles protecting persons, cases covered neither by the TVPA nor by the reasoning and holding of today’s case; and in those disputes the proper implementation of the presumption against extraterritorial application may require some further elaboration and explanation. UPDATE: In the annals of amusing moments in OJ history, looks like Julian and I had much the same thought at the same moment....

...especially at the U.N. Human Rights Council. The international community has minimally stepped in to fill the accountability vacuum, for example through attempts at bringing universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction cases; the establishment of the U.N.’s Sri Lanka Accountability Project; and the sanctioning of alleged perpetrators. Accountability measures at the international level should be amplified, particularly because many victims justifiably do not trust the Sri Lankan government to address rights violations. However, for long-term change in Sri Lanka, genuine, victim and people-centered TJ processes are needed in-country. For this to occur,...

...Roger Alford discussed how extraterritorial application of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act could jumpstart anti-corruption prosecution in other OECD countries, and Julian Ku posted about Germany v Greece in the Euro 2012. Peter Spiro asked whether the pending Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s SB1070 will make any difference and whether Julian Assange will live out his days in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Peter also pointed to the plight of persons of South Sudanese descent residing in Sudan who have become stateless after South Sudan’s secession. As always, Kevin...

...greater fidelity to traditional understandings of international law. (Harold Koh, the former Legal Advisor to the U.S. Department of State, made similar pleas around transparency during his May 7 speech at Oxford.) These are all critical points that Congress and others should be hearing, but I would like to shift the focus—away from U.S. responsibilities and on to the responsibilities of the States that consent to the use lethal force on their territories. This is part of the “drone” discussion (or, to be more accurate, the “extraterritorial use of lethal...

...the United Nations in a question of enforcing UN Security Council sanctions is the same as that between the United States and Egypt in the case of the extraterritorial application of anti-trust law. But to think that the two scenarios are governed equally by politics alone, is to miss something important. Post-national governance, to use the fashionable term, involves more than mere “multiplicity.” It depends on constitutional connective tissue between the various legal systems that are at play with one another. The plural theory of constitutionalism that I, for one,...

...populated space on its own territory, the state may lack control over these parts. Practice of human rights bodies suggests though that siege scenarios are unlikely to translate into reduced state obligations vis-à-vis the besieged population when undertaking military actions. Extraterritorial jurisdiction also appears to exist. Secondly, it is controversial whether human rights obligations for armed groups exist or not. Finally, there is the difficulty to determine the actual content of the right to food applicable during armed conflict. Obviously, the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill the right to...

...malaise about removing human judgment from the cycle of violence, including at the stage of executing orders. For example, Christof Heyns, then UN Expert on Extraterritorial Execution, called the use of force without reflection “mechanical slaughter.” One of the concerns expressed by Heyns, in comparing AWS with human soldiers, was precisely the lack of “ability of robots to distinguish legal from illegal orders.” The development of mechanical soldiers has, it seems, contributed to a greater recognition of the value of human judgment and common sense in human soldiers. Embracing that...