Search: extraterritorial sanctions

This week on Opinio Juris, Kevin accused the ICC of fiddling while Libya burns, and relayed news in the Libyan press that Al-Senussi’s and Gaddafi’s trial will start mid-April. He also analysed whether Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s possible representation of LRA victims at the ICC would amount to a conflict of interest. Roger followed up on his earlier post about using trade remedies to enforce arbitration awards to argue that these remedies are WTO compliant. Kristen discussed sanctions against Russia and Julian asked whether the US’ spying on Huawei violates international law....

...the First, Second, Third and Fourth Oxford Statements to clarify rules of international law applicable in the use of information and communications technologies; Noting that ransomware (i.e. malware designed to encrypt data and render it unavailable unless a demand is met) is a global threat, having been employed at an escalating pace by a growing number of malicious actors, including states and non-state groups for financial or political purposes, often connected to criminal and other unlawful activities such as terrorism, human and drug trafficking, money laundering, sanctions evasion, and the...

...veto on Syria. This prevented the referral of Syria to the ICC in May 2014 as well as the adoption of numerous resolutions calling for cease fires and delivery of humanitarian aid. On Myanmar, China’s threatened veto blocked not only a referral of Myanmar to the ICC, but even Security Council debate over an arms embargo and sanctions following the upsurge of the ethnic cleansing campaign there in August 2017. For Myanmar this has left the ICC, intended to be the centerpiece of a “system” of international justice, restricted to...

...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...

...nukes unless they submit to international treaty regimes. The new U.S. strategy: friends like India get help in peacefully controlling their nukes, enemies like Iran and North Korea get ugly threats of sanctions even if neither India, Iran, nor North Korea are currently part of the international non-proliferation treaty regime. Second, being more of a foreign relations than international relations guy, I’m interested in the fact that the nuclear cooperation deal is being approved in the form of a congressional-executive agreement rather than as a treaty or even as a...

...and sanctions regimes — in relation to going further than them to actual armed intervention or not.) C. Recognition of belligerency in a civil war Perhaps the most interesting legal view on how one might undertake humanitarian intervention in Libya was that offered by international law professor Jordan Paust. He suggested that there might be a recognition of belligerency in a civil war, and that the US and others could recognize the belligerency as a legal matter and then side with the rebels as the legitimate legal government of Libya....

The Globe & Mail has a blockbuster report today concerning China’s willingness to supply weapons to Gaddafi’s regime during the rebellion: China offered huge stockpiles of weapons to Colonel Moammar Gadhafi during the final months of his regime, according to papers that describe secret talks about shipments via Algeria and South Africa. Documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show that state-controlled Chinese arms manufacturers were prepared to sell weapons and ammunition worth at least $200-million to the embattled Col. Gadhafi in late July, a violation of United Nations sanctions....

...international organizations, participation in 200 cases at the ICJ and PCIJ, in thousands of cases in human rights courts, in mediation, negotiation, and arbitration over ever possible right or claim relevant to states—and all in terms of international law. And these officials know there are sanctions for violating international law. If you were to ask the proverbial man on the street whether he has human rights or his country has inviolable national borders—most would say yes and know these are legal rights from beyond the state itself. One of the...

Russia is considering offering Western companies oil licenses in its Arctic waters. Reuters has an exclusive that the European Union is ready to ban imports of Iranian gas as a part of new sanctions in order to increase the pressure over the nuclear program in the Islamic Republic. A UN representative has told the Security Council there is little time to deal with rebels in the north of Mali and international assistance is needed. The European Union and several banks will stage a DDoS cyber-attack exercise in order to find...

...armed conflict with Al Qaeda and associated forces. Rather, he explained, the ICRC characterizes the situation as a “multifaceted fight against terrorism,” a fight whose methods range from financial sanctions, on one end of the spectrum, to the use of armed force, at the other. While there may be localized armed conflicts in places where military force is used, Kellenberger warned against the overly promiscuous application of international humanitarian law (IHL). He noted pointedly that IHL rules are less protective than the rules that would otherwise apply (which, I should...

...two economies, and accurately responds to customary principles of third-state responsibility. It shifts the focus to the purpose of these efforts –rendering occupation and genocide unprofitable. At the same time, the Bogotá Declaration is far from comprehensive. More measures should be considered in future texts, such as imposing financial sanctions that prohibit economic relations with individuals and entities complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation (as some countries have done to some extent), and the purchase of Israeli weapons. Further, the Bogotá Declaration makes no explicit mention of measures to prevent military...

...to, lawful sanctions), whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on that individual for such purposes as obtaining from that individual or a third person information or a confession, punishing that individual for an act that individual or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, intimidating or coercing that individual or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind; and (2) mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from— (A) the intentional infliction or threatened...