Search: extraterritorial sanctions
26 Jun The Ljubljana-The Hague Convention: Where are we Now?
...The ICC has launched a new policy under which it will operate as a ‘justice hub’, supporting national authorities. At the same time, record numbers of states are pursuing domestic trials of international crimes on the basis of universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction. The vital role of inter-state assistance has never been more apparent: a robust legal framework which enables states to request and share information and evidence, access victims, witnesses and assets, and extradite suspects is essential if states are to effectively prosecute international crimes. The purpose of the Ljubljana-The...14 May Brookings Conference on Legislating Counterterrorism
...for going after terrorists themselves. But even as the administration wants to expand the reach of the strategy, the legal space for it threatens to shrink. And it is not especially clear that the administration understands that acceptance of certain things that parts of its foreign policy advisors would like to do – accept extraterritorial application of the ICCPR, for example – would have potentially grave effects on the legal rationales it offers for its targeted killing strategies. I see it as a potential clash within the Obama administration’s foreign...08 May Kiobel Insta-Symposium: Is Corporate Liability Jurisdictional?
...The question thus is whether the Supreme Court’s affirmance constituted a dismissal for lack of SMJ, or instead was a dismissal on the merits. Contextual clues in the Chief Justice’s opinion—in particular, the application of the presumption against extraterritoriality (PAE)—indicate that the Court went beyond the issue of SMJ and reached aspects of the merits. The Court concluded that “[o]n these facts,” the PAE barred relief in this case. There are certain limited circumstances in which a federal court may dismiss on the basis of threshold issues before ascertaining its...26 Mar It’s Official – and a Word on GCIV Art. 42
...the context of NIAC, Article 42 detention authority even in the more constrained context of IAC is dramatically limited, permitting only that detention as is “absolutely necessary” for the security of the detaining power. Is it “absolutely necessary” for the security of the United States that it be able to detain terrorist suspects picked up anywhere in the world under a legal authority that goes beyond its own sweepingly extraterritorial and often preventively focused criminal law? Guess we’ll find out if the administration advances the Art. 42 theory in court....22 Jul Should Mere Presence in the Forum State Be Enough to Trigger Universal Jurisdiction?
...the exercise of well recognized forms of extraterritorial jurisdiction, sometimes notwithstanding treaty obligations to enable themselves so to act. National legislation may be illuminating as to the issue of universal jurisdiction, but not conclusive as to its legality. Moreover, while none of the national case law to which we have referred happens to be based on the exercise of a universal jurisdiction properly so called, there is equally nothing in this case law which evidences an opinio juris on the illegality of such a jurisdiction. In short, national legislation and...11 Apr My Compilation of On-line Treaty Databases
...of the key features of my forthcoming book — The Oxford Guide to Treaties is a new set of treaty clauses. The volume includes 350 clauses taken from an array of existing treaties on 23 different treaty issues, such as the various ways treaty clauses may define a treaty’s object and purpose, delineate territorial and extraterritorial application, identify a treaty’s relationship to other treaties, or authorize simplified amendment procedures. I found some of these clauses the old fashioned way, using multi-volume hard-bound sets of books like those edited by Bevans...24 Jan Kevin Jon Heller Responds to Professors Darryl Robinson and Carsten Stahn
...think that the text of Article 17 supports such efforts, but the efforts are there nonetheless. So one of the basic goals of my Article is to demonstrate that it may well be counterproductive to insist that states prosecute international crimes as international crimes, given their legal and evidentiary complexity. Second, although Carsten seems to concede that international crimes are more difficult to prosecute domestically than ordinary crimes, he points out that they have their advantages, such as to offer ‘”a broader basis for jurisdiction (i.e. prosecution of extraterritorial acts),...21 Nov The Ninth Circuit’s Muddled Comity Analysis in Mujica
Last week the Ninth Circuit issued a controversial opinion in Mujica v. Airscan, Inc., that sharply limits the scope of human rights litigation. The claims in Mujica arose in Colombia and allegedly implicate corporate collusion with the Colombian military. Following Kiobel the common consensus was that Alien Tort Statute litigation would be severely curtailed based on the presumption against extraterritoriality. Not surprisingly, the Ninth Circuit rejected the Plaintiffs’ claims, finding that where the only connection to the United States was the Defendants’ nationality, the claims do not “touch and concern”...01 May A Return to “Diplomatic Asylum”?
...NGO activities in Egypt before being allowed to leave the country. I had always thought “diplomatic asylum” something of a misnomer, as often paired with the common misunderstanding that embassy premises are extraterritorial (as in, that the US embassy in Beijing counts as US territory, which in fact it doesn’t). Turns out that the term has some historical traction, even though the its operation now appears to turn on the inviolability of diplomatic premises under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and not any distinctive legal doctrine. Much of that...
16 Oct The Trump Administration and International Law: A Reply
...from the inside I “actually advised the Obama administration to change its interpretation and to recognize the extraterritorial application of the ICCPR;” I then argued with greater success both internally and externally for the view that the Convention Against Torture applies extraterritorially, a view that the Obama administration eventually adopted after I left. Given Eviatar’s recognition that I fought internally—with admittedly mixed success—for the United States to actually comply with international human rights law, I am bit puzzled by her suggestion that “prominent lawyers and legal scholars like [my]self could...