Search: extraterritorial sanctions

...crime, there must somewhere be a criminal or else it is merely a series of unfortunate events; if there is a criminal, he or she did not act alone, because these agents acted under instructions from a principal. So this is my concern: If it is politically unrealistic to consider going after Barack Obama and Harold Koh and Leon Panetta and Joe Biden, et al., and that is the reason for not pursuing criminal sanctions that follow upon criminality, well, one has to wonder when it will be politically realistic....

...Boğaziçi University Faculty of Law is holding a conference on “Justice and Reconstruction in Post-Conflict Societies”, scheduled for 5 and 6 July 2025 in Istanbul. The conference will critically explore the role of international law in shaping post-conflict transitions, with a focus on security, economic recovery, refugee returns, constitutional processes, sanctions, environmental justice, maritime disputes, and international courts. The deadline for abstract submissions is 27 April 2025. A limited number of funding opportunities are available. For further details on the call for papers, submission guidelines and important dates, please visit...

Here is a key excerpt from pages 36-39 of the March 2003 “Torture” Memorandum: Section 2340 defines the act of torture as an: act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control…. The key statutory phrase in the definition of torture is the statement that acts amount to torture if they cause “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.”...

...immigration-related agenda (though obviously the right side has a federalism-related one). On the other hand, the Court probably felt warmed up on the issue after the Whiting decision last term, in which it upheld a narrower AZ law relating to e-Verify and employer sanctions. The Court would probably have had to get to this at some point, so why not establish some certainty now. And a majority is probably not on board with the Ninth Circuit’s decision here, which enjoined all key parts of the law. This will be a...

...the awards pile up in the United States, Iran is signaling that its legal system can do the same thing. Now, I would not suggest there’s any moral equivalence in the sorts of suits for which sovereign immunity is being waived by U.S. courts and Alikhani’s complaint (he was detained for 105 days following his arrest in a sting operation involving the purchase of oil-field equipment in Florida for shipment to Libya allegedly in violation of U.S. sanctions). But, as a structural matter, once the United States decides to allow...

For Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad it’s all about Israel. The cartoons were not an act of freedom, they were a desperate act of hostages. This week Ahmadinejad used the cartoon controversy to blame the United States and Europe for “being hostages of the Zionists.” He then criticized the double-standard of the freedom to insult the prophet while imposing criminal sanctions on those who deny the Holocaust. “I ask everybody in the world not to let a group of Zionists who failed in Palestine … to insult the prophet. Now in...

...group of experts appointed by the security council, said it had “found substantial evidence attesting to support from Rwandan officials to armed groups operating in the eastern DRC”, including shipping weapons and money to M23 in breach of a UN arms embargo and other sanctions. “Since the earliest stages of its inception, the group documented a systematic pattern of military and political support provided to the M23 rebellion by Rwandan authorities,” it said. The report said the Rwandan government gave “direct assistance in the creation of M23 through the transport...

...(Via Instapundit) Closely examining the Darfur, Sudan, genocide, and making reference to other genocides, this Article argues that the genocide prevention strategies which are currently favored by the United Nations are ineffective. The Article details the failures of targeted sanctions, UN peacekeepers, and other anti-genocide programs. Then, the Article analyzes the Genocide Convention and other sources of international human rights law. Because the very strong language of the Genocide Convention forbids any form of complicity in genocide, and because the Genocide Convention is jus cogens (meaning that it prevails over...

...The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 reads: Art. 146. The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article… Art.147. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious...

...Court of Justice against Chile to regain access to the Pacific Coast it lost in a 1904 Treaty concluded after the War of the Pacific of the 1880s. Eric Posner has a column on Kiobel over at Slate. Eager not to be left at a competitive disadvantage after the EU lifted economic sanctions earlier this week, the acting USTR is travelling to Myanmar to discuss a framework agreement on trade and investment. The UK has signed a mutual legal assistance agreement with Jordan, which, according to the Home Secretary, includes...

...a foreign relations matter, the proposed legislation also raises the significant practical issue of pragmatic transnational norm advocacy. What is the most effective response for those in the West who wish to defeat this bill? Is it threats of economic sanctions, démarches from European diplomats, or pastoral letters from one (famous) clergyman to another? Is the best recipe for success a mix of carrots and sticks, or a soft appeal to reason and conscience? I for one have little doubt that on an issue like this someone like Rick Warren...

[Kristina Daugirdas is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School.] Absent a contractual relationship, individuals who have been harmed by the acts of international organizations rarely have access to institutions to hear their claims. National courts are often unavailable on account of organizations’ immunities. Some organizations have established alternative mechanisms to resolve such claims. The World Bank Inspection Panel is one example; the Ombudsperson for the ISIL and Al-Qaida UN Security Council Sanctions regime is another. Such accountability mechanisms must be deliberately designed, adopted, and implemented....