Search: extraterritorial sanctions
23 Jun Digital Clarity: Why International Law Needs Clearer Application in the Digital Space
...control over territory. Furthermore, States must ensure their cyber capabilities and operations comply with existing international obligations, including human rights law, international humanitarian law, and treaty commitments. The extraterritorial application of human rights obligations takes on new dimensions when State surveillance technologies can monitor individuals globally or when State cyber operations affect critical infrastructure providing essential services. In December 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted the Eleven Norms of Responsible State behaviour in cyberspace. Although these norms are voluntary, they are based on international law obligations. However, it is concerning...31 May IHL and International Human Rights Law in Non-International Armed Conflict
...long held (if, in my view, unfortunate) position that ICCPR doesn’t apply extraterritorially (which the report acknowledges), this seems a bit of a tough legal case to make. Beyond the trial situation (to which it seems CA3 would surely apply), as long as we’re choosing between legal regimes the United States officially rejects, why not pick APII, or API by analogy, as the more useful standard? Truly asking here. Responses to that question produced an interesting exchange on and off-line between Gabor Rona and Marty Lederman. With the relevant permission...
09 Nov Israel’s War in Gaza is Not a Valid Act of Self-defence in International Law
...aggression by Germany and Japan. Israel’s obligations in the law of occupation and international human rights law (applicable extraterritorially), which govern how it exercises its military authority in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, oblige it to secure public order and protect human rights. However, even if these obligations, especially those in occupation law (specifically, Article 43 of the Hague Regulations, part of occupation law) can be understood as a general matter to encompass an obligation to use force in occupied territory to neutralize threats emanating from there to...
05 Sep Iran’s Threat of Retaliation
...international efforts focus primarily on preventing the effects of such threats, rather than on addressing the threats themselves or sanctioning them. There may be an implicit understanding that deviates from the stricter conclusions of the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion. Specifically, the threat of force in response to the extrajudicial and extraterritorial killing of a high-ranking individual within domestic settings (even if they are considered leaders of terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU) might be viewed as a proportionate...04 Dec Did the Supreme Court Implicitly Reverse Kiobel’s Corporate Liability Holding?
...Chief Justice Roberts stated that ““[c]orporations are often present in many countries, and it would reach too far to say that mere corporate presence suffices [to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application].” The argument here is that although “mere corporate presence” is not enough, corporations with other, deeper connections might displace the presumption against extraterritoriality. (Since the Court in other places explicitly stated it was not reaching the corporate liability question, I am skeptical of this argument). Second, and more persuasively, you might argue that because the Supreme Court dismissed...
11 Oct Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: Trade, Resistance and International Law – Responding to Atrocities
...world states violate human rights, rule-of-law-abiding weapons manufacturers in the first world respond to the conscience of humanity by adhering to their extraterritorial human rights obligations (see, EU Criterion Two). However, when benevolent and civilised states commit atrocities, these actions are often dismissed as the unfortunate consequences of war. The suspension of arms trade is not even considered until the scale of the atrocities becomes too significant to ignore. When it’s raining bombs, trade becomes a passive factor against carnages and barbarisms of weapon-yielding entities, states or non-state entities or...08 Oct Guest Post: On ‘Humanitarian Intervention’, ‘Lawmaking’ Moments and What the ‘Law Ought to Be’–Counseling Caution Against a New ‘Affirmative Defense to Art. 2 (4)’ After Syria
...objectives are all valid and important. But is questionable whether they can be achieved best through a broadening of the options for military force. International law offers alternative paths to the use of force to achieve rationales, such as accountability, deterrence or sanctioning of jus in bello violations, i.e. preventive diplomacy, lawful countermeasures, international criminal justice, sanctions etc. Broadening the categories of the use of forces has trade-offs. It weakens these options and their underlying regimes (e.g. non-coercive and non-violent response measures under Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter,...17 Oct China’s Rising Geolegal Sphere
...ultimately complement the existing legal order, and is therefore “unlikely to undo the rules, norms, and structures that exist today.” Yet China’s greater legal role arguably now enables rather than constrains incentives to carve out zones of non-law in the maritime domain that are insulated against legal sanctions. Increasing geolegal power manifests as pressure on states to accede to China’s will, including its preference to resolve disputes bilaterally rather than through legal institutions. In 2012 the Philippines deployed navel assets to protect the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which provoked Chinese economic...13 May More on the Linkage Between International Trade and Labor
The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office has released some further details on its agreement with Congress to incorporate international labor standards into future U.S. free-trade agreements. Here are a couple important new institutional innovations. (1) Violations of international and local labor standards will apparently be subject to the same international dispute resolution mechanisms as the rest of the trade agreement. This is big: Panels will for the first time be empowered to determine violations of international labor standards and countries will be authorized to impose trade sanctions to punish violations. (2)...
07 Oct Rethinking Atrocity Justice: From Western Exceptionalism to True Universalism
...an unnamed senior leader in the context of arrest warrants being requested for Israeli leaders that “this court is built for Africa and for thugs like Putin.” Of course, the fact that the ICC ultimately did proceed to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant demonstrates that occasionally the wheels of justice move forward even in the face of resistance from key players in the West. Doing so, however, can come with a heavy price for those involved (see here, here and here regarding US sanctions on ICC...