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Search: jens iverson

11 Apr

...considering “the balance of consequences,” one must question whether airstrikes are reasonably calculated to lessen, rather than intensify conflict, and thus, civilian suffering, in Syria. Our doubts about the legality of the attack are not, however, an end in themselves. Jens Ohlin sees the many opinions objecting to the bombing on either domestic or international legal grounds and concludes that “everyone seems to have lined up against humanitarian intervention.” Not us. We firmly endorse the notion of humanitarian intervention but fault the Security Council for not doing its job. Thus,...
11.04.17 | |

13 May

Picking up on Jens’ post about the Administration’s apparent lack of plans for holding detainees picked up in Iraq/Syria, I too found the Times report troubling. In part I suspect it was because I was immediately reminded of one of the findings of the many Pentagon investigative reports issued after the revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. detention facilities in Iraq. All apart from criticisms of changes in policy and legal interpretation, some of the harshest blame for the widespread nature of the abuse was the total...
13.05.16 | |

12 May

Today’s New York Times tells us that the Obama Administration currently has no active plan for holding Islamic State (ISIS) detainees captured on the battlefields of Iraq or Syria. The article makes clear that the lack of a plan isn’t because the Obama Administration hasn’t been thinking about the issue. In reality, the lack of a plan stems from the fact that the Obama Administration refuses to develop one. Why not? After the fiasco known as Guantanamo Bay, the administration apparently has no interest in getting into the...
12.05.16 | |

02 May

...(MSF) hospital in Afghanistan last year was a mistake and therefore not a war crime. Survivors demand an independent investigation. Jens posts his thoughts here. China and Japan both expressed a willingness to improve strained relations on Saturday after a rare meeting between their two foreign ministers in Beijing, though China said Japan should stop pushing the notion that China is a threat. India and the United States are in talks to help each other track submarines in the Indian Ocean, military officials say, a move that could further tighten...
02.05.16 | |

01 Nov

This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Jens predicted that the Ebola crisis will become a Chapter VII issue at the UN. The theme of the UN and diseases continued in Kristen’s update on a hearing on the UN’s Privileges and Immunities in the Haiti Cholera case. In other UN news, she summarized some of the issues discussed at a meeting on the Security Council’s methods. Kevin wrote on the Constitutional Court of South Africa’s decision in the Zimbabwe Torture Docket case, finding that international law did not prohibit universal-jurisdiction investigations in...
01.11.14 | |

07 Feb

...Ken Roth and Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt), so it feel less filtered than other media. Fake twitter feeds supply some comedy – check out those for Kim Jong-un, Newt Gingrich, and Henry Kissinger (along with the real Andy Borowitz). OJ’s Ken Anderson has a personal feed here, as does our current guest blogger, Jens Ohlin. It’s a pretty good way to stay on top of things. OJ is following almost 150 in all, which you can find here. Thanks to the almost 2000 of you who are following us....
07.02.12 | |

23 Dec

...of the Court’ (para 5). This part of the post considers the 2020 Panel’s composition and the primary basis upon which its conclusions and recommendations are made. Are diplomats qualified to gauge what international judges should earn? In keeping with the ToR, the 2020 Panel is composed entirely of diplomats: Ambassador Jens-Otto Horslund (Denmark) as chair, Ambassador Andrés Terán Parral (Ecuador) and Mr. Peter Lovell (United Kingdom) (Panel Report para 3). Of course, since the Court is entirely funded by State Parties, it is expected that states would want to...
23.12.20 | |

17 Jan

...law no longer the invisible college but visible and accessible was at the heart of Peggy’s contribution. Chris asked about the must-reads and key scholarly texts in international law over the last decade. Through tracing her own journey into international law, Deborah thanked Opinio Juris and the readers for the conversation. Kevin reflected on how blogging enhanced his career, and helped him to develop into the nicer, kinder blog version of himself he is today. Jens touched on the real-world impact blogging can and does have, while hoping for a...
17.01.15 | |

16 Jan

For 10 years, Opinio Juris has served as a forum for short-form legal scholarship. Many posts were short and simple, quickly flagging a particular development or issue and bringing it to the attention of international lawyers across the globe. But other posts were far more in depth, analyzing a complex legal issue with great subtlety and persuasion. What strikes me about the longer posts is that they often read like mini-articles, enhancing and enriching legal scholarship with shorter articles that might not–or could not–be explored in regular law...
16.01.15 | |

30 Jan

Today, the ICTY Appeals Chamber affirmed genocide convictions in the Srebrenica case, Prosecutor v. Popović et al. The full Appeals Chamber judgment is here. The PDF document is 792 pages (including a few short dissents), which is long-ish but certainly not extraordinary by ICTY judgment standards. In my opinion, the most critical part of the judgment relates to the connection between the defendants, their Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE), and the perpetrators who actually performed the killings. As you will recall, back in the old days when the JCE...
30.01.15 | |

13 Apr

As I write this, the ASIL annual meeting is conducting a well-timed, previously unannounced panel discussion about the legality of the missile strikes against Assad’s airbase in Syria. In addition to Harold Koh (Yale Law School), who has argued in support of humanitarian intervention, the speakers include moderator Catherine Powell (Fordham Law School), Jennifer Daskal (AU Washington College of Law), Steve Pomper (US Holocaust Memorial Museum), and Saikrishna Prakash (UVA School of Law).  I’m sure that it is/was a terrific panel and I’m sorry to have missed it. I want...
13.04.17 | |

23 Sep

Thanks to Kevin Govern and Duncan Hollis for providing the two previous posts (here and here) in this book symposium on Cyber War: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts. In my post, I want to explore the difficulties arising from causal investigations in cyber attacks. Everyone knows that the increasing threat of cyber attacks will place immense pressure on the operational capacities for various intelligence and defense agencies. Speak with anyone in military operations (from several countries), and their lists of security concerns are remarkably similar: Russia, ISIS,...
23.09.15 | |