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Search: jens iverson

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 | |

08 Sep

Russia has skillfully managed to devote military support to the separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Just how much support — and what kind of support — is unclear, since Russia formally denies that they are directly involved in the ongoing hostilities there. Ukrainian officials have insisted that they have specific proof that Russian troops and their equipment have not only crossed the border into Ukraine but have also engaged Ukrainian government troops. It is not unreasonable to speculate that, but-for the Russian assistance, the conflict would have concluded long...
08.09.14 | |

24 Dec

...the requirement and then used its refusal to justify disqualifying them. Interest and Availability These are legitimate requirements, but they are also implicit in Rule 44. Moreover, the (admittedly scanty) evidence indicates that the Registrar manipulated the availability requirement to select its preferred counsel. The Serbian barrister Aleksander Aleksic was disqualified because he serves as co-counsel in the ongoing Pankovic appeal, but the German barrister Jens Diekmann was included on the list even though he serves as co-counsel in the ongoing Sredoe Lukic appeal. And that is true despite the...
24.12.09 | |

15 Jun

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has returned to his country, defying a South African judge’s effort to prevent his departure on the basis of an International Criminal Court (ICC) order for his arrest. Jens has a post outlining the events here and a sampling of reactions from social media can be found here. Eleven Somali al Shabaab militants and two Kenyan soldiers were killed when the al Qaeda-linked fighters attacked a military base on Kenya’s...
15.06.15 | |

11 Sep

Let’s start with the Administration’s newly minted theory (h/t Marty Lederman for posting the operative statement) that the statutory 2001 AUMF authorizes the President’s announced campaign to use force against ISIL in Iraq and Syria. The AUMF does not plausibly extend to ISIL. In addition to the reasons my friends Jens Ohlin, Jen Daskal and others have already highlighted, let me add this: ISIL is not an “associated force” of Al Qaeda by the Administration’s own definition. In May 2013, former State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh gave a speech...
11.09.14 | |

13 Apr

...11:00 — 11:30 am Break 11:30 — 01:00 pm SESSION 2: Targeted Killings and the Rights of Non-Combatants Moderator: Professor William Ewald Professor Jens Ohlin, “Targeting Co-Belligerents” Abstract (pdf) | Paper (pdf) Professor Craig Martin, “Going Medieval: Targeted Killing, Armed Conflict, and Self-Defense” Abstract (pdf) | Paper (pdf) [revised] Commentator: Professor Alexander Greenawalt 01:00 — 02:00 pm Lunch 02:00 — 03:30 pm SESSION 3: Targeted Killing and its Political Implications Moderator: Professor Stephen Morse Professor Amos Guiora, “Targeted Killing: A Legal, Practical and Moral Analysis” Abstract (pdf) | Paper (pdf)...
13.04.11 | |

15 Jun

On Friday, the DC Circuit vacated al-Bahlul’s military commission conviction for conspiracy. There has been, and will be, much coverage of this decision, especially since the decision is a great candidate for a successful Supreme Court cert petition. Assuming that the federal government wants to appeal, which I can’t imagine it would not, the case would allow the Supreme Court to return to an issue — conspiracy as a substantive offense — that it has not addressed since Hamdan (which left many crucial questions unanswered due to the...
15.06.15 | |

10 Sep

A few minutes ago, President Obama addressed the nation to explain his new policy to contain and destroy ISIS. He is walking a fine line: more airstrikes but no direct ground invasion. Instead, he will fund, equip, and train foreign troops to engage in the ground fighting themselves. While this is a politically popular view (ground troops are always risky), it has serious operational deficits. The U.S. has a history of training and equipping foreign troops and the results are usually unimpressive. Too often the money gets diverted...
10.09.14 | |