Search: self-defense
02 Jun Why Is Israel’s Blockade of Gaza Legal? (Updated)
...released; that is, it has already hijacked the aid in support of itself.). Certainly, it is relevant to determining whether there is authority to blockade the ports controlled by Hamas. 6. Even without Security Council Resolution 1373, the fact that Hamas uses the cargo for military use arguably makes it contraband, susceptible to seizure as prize under customary law, even without the existence of a state of maritime blockade. 7. Additionally, the more general self-defense rationale invoked by Harold Koh (thank you Ken Anderson) in favor of US targeted strikes...28 Jul Guest Post: David J. R. Frakt on the Al-Bahlul Amicus Brief
factual error. The brief states at pp. 16-17 that Mr. Al Bahlul made “statements in trial in his capacity as his own defense counsel.” It repeats the assertion that he was “Acting as his own counsel” or “Acting as his own defense counsel” multiple times, quoting from the transcript from a pretrial session on 24 September 2008. Allow me to set the record straight. I was Mr. al Bahlul’s defense counsel. He did not represent himself at trial, and the assertion that he was acting as his own defense counsel...04 May Was the C.I.A. Director in Charge of the Bin Laden Operation? Apparently so. Does It Matter?
Marty Lederman John: I posted a question about your first topic -- does IHL apply to actions of self-defense short of armed conflict -- in Kevin's post, but the comments section there appears temporarily to be down. No matter for present purposes, since this is, in the U.S. view, an armed conflict as well as an action in self-defense to protect against future attacks. Three other reactions to your post: First, I think you're too quick to assume that, if this was a joint operation monitored by CIA and originally...14 Jul The NYT on the CIA Targeted Killing Planning Post 9-11
...including self defense against terrorists. As then-Dept of State legal advisor Abraham Sofaer put it, the assassination ban does not apply to otherwise “lawful killings undertaken in self defense against terrorists.” I don’t know if this is open access online; it was published in the Military Law Review in 1989, and Judge Sofaer and others have told me that it was vetted with DOD and the White House as being US policy and interpretations of law. I am not aware of anything that has overturned it as US interpretation of...02 Dec Contextualizing the Debate on First Strikes
to both justify and regulate the use of force? One way of looking at Adil’s “first strike” proposal is as a solution to the problem of so-called “self-defense targeting” or “naked”/“robust” self-defense: it preserves the distinction between the jus belli branches by ensuring, in Daniel Bethlehem’s formulation, that “any use of force in self-defense [is] subject to applicable jus in bello principles governing the conduct of military operations.” Adil’s framework would, at least presumably, complicate the current White House’s efforts to distinguish between “the use of force in armed conflict...07 Jan The London Times Reports on Alleged Israeli Nuke Strike Plans Against Iran
...argues that the Charter has been adapted to allow for a much broader reading of the right of self-defense to encompass anticipatory self-defense or the rescue of a state’s nationals abroad, and for an approach to humanitarian intervention that would treat it as excusable if illegal. Though the mainstream legal position on preemptive self-defense has remained the same over the years, state practice is ambiguous: (1) the U.S. used Resolutions as well as a questionable theory of customary law of anticipatory self-defense to justify its military action in Iraq, and...
26 Oct Top Gun Maverick: International Law, Empire, and Nostalgia
...in a meaningful sense, the depiction of the jus ad bellum and jus in bellow are nonetheless instructive. The complete non-acknowledgment of jus ad bellum restraints on the use of force underscores the constantly expanding interpretations of self-defense, bringing states closer to anticipatory self-defense without consideration of necessity or imminence and helping to undergird Forever Wars. In contrast, the jus in bello conduct of U.S. forces is entirely compliant with international humanitarian law (IHL). The portrayal of U.S. forces as entirely compliant with IHL is critical to the film’s logic, and perhaps...
23 Jun Fantastical Opinio Juris and How to Find It
...statements therein made) to opine on whether the practice of extraterritorial self-defense against non-State actors absent consent of the territorial State was permitted or not by article 51 of the UNC. In prospecting for opinio juris a richer vein could not be found: States used legal justificatory discourse, expressed their own legal views, and weren’t coy on articulating what they thought was the definitive meaning, extent, and significance on the customary rules purportedly expanding (or not) self-defense. This seems to be the indicative of certainty about the articulation of legality...24 May The US’s Retreat from IHL (or, the Triumph of Ryan Goodman)
...were very much written with an eye to the near-to-middle future, in which the US will be increasingly unable to maintain the fiction that it is involved in a single armed conflict “with al-Qaida, the Taliban, and associated forces.” Differently put, the US seems to be anticipating a time in which it will no longer be able to argue that the US may use lethal force outside of areas of active hostilities on the ground of either self-defense or IHL, but will be able to invoke only self-defense. I think...