In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: self-defense

20 Jan

...could only target military objects or soldiers already threatening the lives of others but not those about to be deployed to the battlefield at a later stage. Excluding the very first shot from the application of international humanitarian law becomes even more problematic in situations of pre-emptive self-defense. After all, one would have to extend the restrictive imminence-standard under human rights law to the right to self-defense. Only then it would be ensured that action taken in self-defense also conforms to human rights law et vice versa. Otherwise, the defending...
20.01.20 | |

04 May

...self-defense in more recent years and somewhat significantly in law enforcement. In this vision, the SEAL in the room would be principally trained and operating in a law of war or self-defense vision which would make this a lawful kill while the actual mission that the CIA was putting them into would be construed as a law enforcement mission with its more restrictive rules. In other words, the CIA plays the Defense department types in this game by having the people doing the kill come from a legal training tradition...
04.05.11 | |

22 Dec

...act of self-defense should be proportional to the attack and that some skirmishes are of such a minimal security threat as to not require any response beyond the fighting of the skirmish itself. I am curious to see if this is a point on which other commentators will focus. (The Commission also noted that Eritrea never invoked Article 51 or notified the Security Council of its acts as self-defense until the Commission hearing.) The Commission then walked through the facts leading up to the Eritrean incursion into Ethiopia and reiterated...
22.12.05 | |

20 Apr

the subsidiary question: what must Israel do (or refrain from doing) as a result of self-determination, a peremptory norm which all States have a duty to promote? Whether or not the General Assembly specifically meant for the Court to address the obligations arising from the erga omnes nature of the right to self-determination, it is a reasonable reading of the question. Failure to address self-determination in the opinion The Court’s Advisory Opinion fails meaningfully to address the issue of self-determination. The eight operative conclusions make no mention of self-determination whatsoever...
20.04.26 | |

19 Sep

one hand, the SFRC seems to accept the Supreme Court’s preference for clear statements of the treaty-makers’ intent as to the treaty’s self- or non-self-executing status (whereas previously, I believe the SFRC and the Executive often assumed a treaty was self-executing unless they as the treaty-makers expressed a contrary intent). Thus, the inclusion of declarations of self-execution and non-self-execution mark a new Senate practice. And it may actually prove helpful going forward if it means that the Senate (and by extension the Executive) think through and express views on the...
19.09.08 | |

05 May

...the right of national self defense exercised here with an individual's right of self defense. Only the former can produce a state of armed conflict; and once it has, then individual right's of self defense become largely subsumed by the scope of the combatant's privilege: which is to kill and be killed in turn. So Koh, it seems to me, has this right, and the ROE and actions taken under the ROE to kill bin Laden on sight legal in that view. I wish our national security team had taken...
05.05.11 | |

08 Aug

use force for 'peace making'. Lacking a SC authorisation, the question is whether Russia's use of force can be justified by Article 51 or some ingenious customary law right. First of all, is this collective self-defence? Georgian attack on S-Ossetia per se is not an armed attack that Russia could respond to with collective self-defence, since S-Ossetia is not a State for the purpose of UN Charter and thus does not enjoy the right to be protected from military force by itself or by States that are willing to help...
08.08.08 | |

18 Mar

military would exercise its obligation of self-defense. Operationally, it is difficult to develop an effective response when we do not know who is responsible for an “attack”; however, the circumstances may be such that at least some level of mitigating action can be taken even when we are not certain who is responsible. Regardless whether we know who is responsible, international law requires that our use of force in self-defense be proportional and discriminate. Neither proportionality nor discrimination requires that we know who is responsible before we take defensive action....
18.03.14 | |

12 Jan

justifications for drone strikes from Afghanistan to Somalia. Within armed conflict, parties to the conflict have the right to use lethal force in the first resort against enemy forces, which includes, as detailed below, members of the regular armed forces, members of organized armed groups or civilians directly participating in hostilities. International law also recognizes the right of states to use force in self-defense in certain circumscribed circumstances. For the past several years, the United States has relied on both armed conflict and self-defense as legal justifications for targeted strikes...
12.01.12 | |

08 Mar

legal justification you need to respond in self-defense. An incident was used as sufficient provocation in the recent Israeli-Lebanese war, and it could have been used in Kosovo because of cross-border skirmishes. An interception presupposes that the other side has launched something first, which then justifies military action. Dinstein said the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor could have been met with an American interception long before they ever reached Hawaii. Self-defense does not require the consummation of the first strike. It’s not clear when a first strike begins, but it...
08.03.07 | |

21 Nov

[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...
21.11.13 | |

11 Apr

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...
11.04.13 | |