Search: self-defense
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...
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...
30 Oct Public Security and International Law: Comments on Bolsonaro’s War on Crime
...a self-defense presumption regarding law enforcement officers while in service. This post deals with the legality of this proposal under Brazilian and international law. According to a poll from September 2018 public security was the main concern of Brazilians (20%), alongside healthcare. Their priority is understandable. The country had 62,517 homicides in 2016 and appears at the top of the ranking on deaths caused by firearm. Brazilian police is both the most lethal one but also the most likely to be killed while in service. In this warlike scenario, Bolsonaro’s...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...29 Aug Stirrings in the U.S. Congress on Syria Could Highlight President Obama’s Startling Reversal on Congressional Authorizations
...minority view globally. Other possibilities would include: (1) collective self-defense at the request of Turkey, (2) a type of collective self-defense with the consent of the legitimate representative of the Syrian people (the "rebers"), (3) a NATO authorization, (4) a League of Arab States authorization, (5) possibly a United for Peace authorization from the GA (?), (6) a foolish attack on a U.S. naval vessel by Assad et al., (7) a policy-serving interpretation of UN art. 2(4). See my essay in the Pa. J. Int'l L. that you provided a...25 Mar Does the Tallinn Manual Allow States to Kill Hackers? Not Really.
...legitimate act of self-defense under Art. 51. On the contrary, the provision concerning self-defense — Rule 13 — is located in the section of the Manual that exclusively addresses the jus ad bellum. The Manual’s commentary to Rule 13 also continually emphasizes that what is at stake in an act of self-defence is whether the attacked state’s sovereignty has been violated. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the section of the Manual that discusses “attacks generally” specifically states (p. 105) that “[t]he law of armed conflict applies to the targeting of...10 Dec Star Wars, Indeed: US Navy Will Deploy Its First (Hopefully Legal) Laser Cannons to Persian Gulf
Ian Henderson Prof Ku, Thank you for the post. I am interested to know whether you think acting in self-defense has any bearing on the legality of using the particular class of weapon? Put another way, is a claim of self-defense relevant to the type of weapon used or only goes to the authority to use force in the first place? thank you Julian Ku Hi, I don't think the "self-defense" limitation on laser cannons is required by any legal rule I am aware of, except of course that the...
20 Feb Tertium datur: A Step Towards Squaring the Circle on the Current Meaning of Self-defence?
the use of military force under customary international law, govern the relations between ISIS and States? In the affirmative, the use of unilateral force against ISIS must be justified as self-defense. Such construction would be consistent with Article 51 interpreted as allowing a State to react militarily to an armed attack – including terrorist attacks – attributable to a subject of international law other than States. From this perspective, the military action against ISIS must keep a defensive character and comply inter alia with the principle of proportionality in the...