Search: extraterritorial sanctions
12 Apr The Coming Attack on Syria Will Be Unlawful
...the Russian gander. This is the most frightening aspect of Trump’s madness: although the Syrian military is capable of doing far more damage to American forces than Iraq’s or Libya’s militaries ever were, Russia’s military is one of the most powerful and technologically-sophisticated in the world. A hot war between Russia and the US could be literally catastrophic. None of this jus ad bellum analysis should be remotely controversial — at least not to those who don’t believe the US has the God-given right to use extraterritorial force wherever and...20 Apr Andrew Kent on the Case Against a Global Constitution
...the Quasi-War and Seminole War.” But Kent notes that simply because the Constitution does not govern extraterritorial uses of coercive force, it does not mean that the Founders considered such actions extra-legal. The law of nations constrained the U.S. government’s actions abroad. If you will recall this exchange between the Solicitor General Paul Clement and Justice Souter in the recent oral argument in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, you understand the gravity of Kent’s position. The modern application of Kent’s argument is that if the writ cannot be suspended, it does not...
21 Jul Universal Jurisdiction: Arguments for a More ‘Universal’ Double Criminality Requirement in France
...apply (here, and here). Although causing much controversy in France, double criminality is not practiced by other states actively exercising universal jurisdiction such as Belgium, Germany and Sweden. Whilst the principle is recognized as an essential safeguard to extraterritorial prosecutions before domestic courts, the present post shows that it is fulfilled in the specific context of universal jurisdiction over international crimes. Double criminality as a requirement for universal jurisdiction was first applied by the Court of Cassation in the Chaban case in November 2021. As a former reservist of the...11 May The Most Cited US Cases Related to International Law
...they make or domestic issues that they raise. So take all this with a grain of salt. Add any cases I missed in the comments, and we’ll turn this post into a wiki. Nonetheless, note that the most cited case US case related to international law that I found comes from the Second Circuit – U.S. v. Alcoa (extraterritorial jurisdiction) has been cited 714 times. BNC v. Sabbatino, the act of state doctrine case, came next with 501 references. Two comity cases, Hilton v. Guyot and Hartford Fire v. CA...11 May RFRA at Guantanomo Bay
...precedent in Rasul v. Bush, the district court ruled that RFRA applies to Guantanomo Bay. Here is an excerpt: The defendants argue that RFRA does not apply extraterritorially, specifically, to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay…. The defendants argue that Congress intended for RFRA to apply only to government action in the continental United States…. RFRA defines the government to include, inter alia, covered entities. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-2(1). In turn, covered entities means “the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and each territory and possession of...
07 Jan To Address Vaccine Hoarding Do Not Look to International Criminal or Human Rights Law
...as Germany, Canada, the UK, and others breach the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. He does, rightly, acknowledge that these instruments do not “have much teeth”, but without explaining why or what changes are needed to advance the fight for vaccine equality. There are significant questions about the extraterritorial reach of the CRC that are too complex for a blog post, but it is the lack of a significant enforcement mechanism that is the real problem....02 Apr Events and Announcements: April 2, 2019
...H St. NW, Washington, DC, USA. For registration information, see here. For those who cannot make it in person, the event will be webcast for free. For further information, see here. Announcements The Codification Division of the Office of Legal Affairs recently added the following lecture to the Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law (AVL) website: Mr. Alejandro Chehtman on “Extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction” (in Spanish). The Audiovisual Library is also available as an audio podcast, which can be accessed through the preinstalled applications in Apple...
13 Apr The Apartheid Reports: A Paradigm Shift on Israel/Palestine (Part II)
[Dr. Smadar Ben-Natan is an Israeli and international lawyer, and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle. She studies the intersection of international law, human rights, and criminal justice in Israel/Palestine, and has published on Israeli military courts, POW status, torture, and extraterritorial human rights.] [A previous version of this commentary was published in Hebrew by the Forum for Regional Thinking, part of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. The author is a board member at B’tselem, one of the organizations discussed in this commentary.] Part I of this commentary...14 Nov FBI Concludes that Blackwater Shootings Violated Deadly Force Rules
...see an Iraqi prosecution after all since the Blackwater employees’ immunity wasn’t really all that broad. Alternatively, there are U.S. criminal statutes that might reach their activity in Iraq, but the most obvious candidate: the War Crimes Act, doesn’t seem to apply here, since these crimes don’t seem to rise to that level. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act may or may not apply, but that also looks murky since these were State Department contractors, not Pentagon ones. So I actually think, offhand, that the Blackwater employees face a greater danger...
28 Jun Suing Corporations for Violating International Law: A Step Forward
...that foreign corporations cannot be sued under the ATS; Nestle USA hoped to extend that bar to domestic corporations as well. The company presented only two questions for review. One was whether “general corporate activity” in the U.S. is enough to overcome the presumption against extraterritorial application of the ATS. The second was “[w]hether the Judiciary has the authority under the Alien Tort Statute to impose liability on domestic corporations.” According to Justice Alito, the second question — whether U.S. corporations can be sued — was “primary.” Not only...