Search: self-defense
21 Nov LJIL Symposium: In Defense of a (Relatively) “Empty” Conception of Self-Determination
[Brad R. Roth is a Professor of Law at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where he teaches international law, comparative public law, and political and legal theory] In “Beyond Empty, Conservative, and Ethereal: Pluralist Self-Determination and a Peripheral Political Imaginary,” Zoran Oklopcic gives an enlightening account of a set of related approaches to the international norm of self-determination of peoples. In this rendering, I have the honor of being cast as the representative of “Empty”: that is to say, my approach to international legal pluralism “empties” the self-determination norm...11 Apr Keeping up with the Drones’
doesn’t indicate is behind attacks on U.S. forces. That may just be oversight, or lack of information on McClatchy’s part. Maybe the same self-defense rationale exists there, too. But the Pakistani Taliban wasn’t a publicly designated (at least) terrorist group until 2010, and as I understand it is mostly focused on overthrowing the Pakistani government itself. So if it’s not self-defense, what is the international law justification for targeting them? The unattractive (and speculative) explanation is this. The President issued a broad finding authorizing the CIA to use lethal force...
21 Mar The Dangerous Ramifications of Recognizing the End of Nagorno-Karabakh
...Charter. As the Ethiopia-Eritrea Claims Commission found, “the practice of States and the writings of eminent publicists show that self-defense cannot be invoked to settle territorial disputes.” See Partial Award – Jus Ad Bellum – Ethiopia’s Claims 1-8, para. 10. This precedent is directly applicable to the Nagorno-Karabakh situation given that Azerbaijan invoked the right of self-defense to restore its territorial integrity in launching the 2020 war. The Commission also noted that “border disputes between States are so frequent that any exception to the prohibition of the threat or use...09 Jan Raising Questions on Targeted Killings as First Strikes in IACs
...in arguing that it is the need of self-defense against these non-state actors that justifies their killing. In the words of Harold Koh’s well-known 2010 ASIL Speech: “a state that is engaged in armed conflict or in legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force”. This position has been overwhelmingly criticized in legal academia, principally because it conflates the jus ad bellum question of self-defense, with the human rights question of arbitrary deprivation of life. Marko Milanovic expressed it best...01 Jun An Alternative Justification for Israel’s Attacks on Hezbollah in Syria
...two notable responses. The first is from the eminent U.S. Air Force General Charles J. Dunlap (retired), who utilizes an anticipatory self-defense framework to defend the strikes and explain the consequent lack of jus ad bellum scrutiny the Israeli strikes have received. The second is from Opinio Juris’s very own Kevin Jon Heller, who has criticized General Dunlap’s analysis by calling the strikes “precisely the kind of anticipatory self-defense that international law prohibits.” A purely anticipatory self-defense framework, however, may not provide the best, or at least not the only,...26 Jun Is Now a Good Time to Go Back to that U.S. War Power Debate?
...Rumsfeld, the AUMF contains the implied authority to detain war prisoners under its auspices because such detention was a recognized incident of the use of force under international law, then surely self-defense of one’s own forces (at least to the extent permitted by international law) should also be within the realm of implied statutory authority. The problem is, U.S. self-defense is not what most (or maybe all) of these recent incidents have involved. (For a nice list of recent actions in Syria, see here.) By the United States’ own account,...20 May The Unredeemable Republic of China: Why Professor Lung-Chu Chen’s Theory of Effective Self-Determination May Be Harmful to Taiwan’s Statehood Claim
...of the ICCPR and ICESCR respectively? Is it restricted to internal self-determination? Are the Taiwanese people entitled to the right to external self-determination? I restrict my note to the last question. In the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, it is noted that a right to independence (ie external self-determination) exists with ‘the peoples of non-self-governing territories and peoples subject to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation’ (2010 ICJ Report 404, 436, para 79), although declarations of independence have been made outside these two contexts. As regards the...18 Oct Iraq and the Defense of Political Necessity (Updated)
act of aggression. These are fascinating, if troubling, cases. On the one hand, I share the defendants’ belief that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. On the other hand, these “political necessity” defenses, as they are appropriately called, rarely if ever satisfy the formal requirements of the defense of necessity. At common-law, the defense requires six conditions be met: The defendant must have faced a “clear and imminent danger.” The defendant must have reasonably believed that his act would abate the danger he was seeking to avoid....31 Aug Syria Insta-Symposium: John Quigley on Intervention
...are apparently invoking self-defense, on a rationale that chemical weapons in the possession of Syria’s government might “fall into the wrong hands” and be used against the United States or against US-friendly states in the region, naming Jordan, Israel, and Turkey. Apart from this being too distant from the “armed attack” required by UN Charter Article 51, self-defense could apply only to the United States, absent a request from another state for “collective” self-defense, a request that could be valid only if the other state had been attacked. The possibility...