Search: self-defense

self-execution is a treaty interpretation question. Second, they have assumed that the modern doctrine of self-execution is essentially the same as the doctrine articulated by Chief Justice Marshall in his seminal opinion in Foster v. Neilson. The consensus view is wrong on both counts. Properly framed, the self-execution inquiry comprises two distinct questions. First, what does the treaty obligate the United States to do? This is a question of international law governed by treaty interpretation principles. Second, which government actors within the United States are responsible for domestic treaty implementation?...

...Marc Weller notes, “they accepted that there would remain differences in their interpretation of their respective legal status. However, they also agreed to what amounted to de facto recognition.” (ii) Association of Serb Majority Municipalities While the above speaks mostly about obligations that Serbia undertakes under the agreement, Article 7 obliges Kosovo to “ensure an appropriate level of self-management for the Serbian community in Kosovo”. Although these commitments were supposed to be elaborated further in the Implementation Plan, it remains unclear what constitutes “self-management” and even more so what is...

defense attorneys should hold Stewart “partly responsible” for her predicament. Her only “crime” was refusing to follow the Special Administrative Measures — the U.S. government’s Orwellian term for reserving to itself the right to monitor Stewart’s conversations with her client. Given that the the SAMs are specifically designed to undermine attorneys’ ability to zealously defend their clients (unless you think that defense attorneys are normally in the business of aiding and abetting terrorists), Stewart’s act of civil disobedience should be praised, not criticized — especially given that her act has...

...be limited to the range of situations in which self-defense has been recognized. I would be curious to see whether Afghan law or Canadian law includes this kind of self-defense, I doubt American law does that. As to self-defense in international law, my sense is that a civilian in this setting does not have that kind of self-defense unless they are in the levee en masse vision or there is something in customary international humanitarian law to which my attention has not been drawn. The extraterritorial application of a US...

"genocide" Obama refers to might be related to a claim of collective self-defense. Moreover, Iraq can engage in self-defense against a non-state actor in this circ., and consent to collective self-defense, even if the armed attacks occur partly within Iraqi territory. See, e.g., http://ssrn.com/abstract=2459649 Another issue involves classification of the armed conflict within Iraq and parts of Syria. Jordan Obama's more recent statement that this will be a "long-term project" does not fit well with a self-defense justification. Therefore, collective self-defense with the consent of the Iraqi Govt. is a...

...key question is “which people?” This has been at the heart of debates over what it means for a “people” to have a right of self-determination. My guess is that Medvedev believes that “people” refers to “South Ossetians” and that Saakashvili would say that it refers to “all the people of Georgia.” Unfortunately, international law has had a pretty hard time defining what a “people” is for the purposes of self-determination. As the Canadian Supreme Court put it (with admirable understatement) in the Secession of Quebec opinion, the meaning of...

Jordan Response... And an interesting question from Senator Wyden: will the Executive target U.S. citizens and aliens inside the United States under the self-defense and/or the law of war paradigms? There was no attention paid to the possibility of secret judicial review (checks and balances) of the list of targetable U.S. citizens, something mentioned here on Opinio Juris. Yes, quick action may be necessary as a matter of self-defense against ongoing armed attacks by non-state actors, but should there be some judicial review of the propriety of placement on the...

...my FSU J. Transnat'l L. & Pol'y article on Self-Defense Targeting.... (also available on-line at SSRN). Let's "talk" more about self-defense captures and detention. Anonymous Mr Chang presented his arguments at the annual international law conference of the US Naval War College held this past summer. You can listen to the presentation, and the reception that his arguments generated, by clicking on the picture associated with the particular panel of which he was a part by going here: https://www.usnwc.edu/Events/International-Law-Conference-2011.aspx Jordan Response... Kevin: I have read your draft article. Yours is...

...against demographic pressures from the mainland. In contrast to the “external” exercise of self-determination (in the form of secession) now being entertained in Crimea, territorial autonomy involves “internal self-determination”, or the grant of functions of statehood without the right to actually form or join a separate state. Beyond protections related to land and language, for instance, Åland has its own parliament, government, postal system, flag, and national anthem. Internal self-determination was endorsed in the UN General Assembly’s 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which accords such peoples “the...

...defence? Because affirmative defences admit that the defendant violated the criminal statute in question. As Gardner and Anderson put it in their treatise: An affirmative defense is any defense that assume the complaint or charges to be correct but raises other facts that, if true, would establish a valid excuse or justification or a right to engage in the conduct in question. An affirmative defense does not concern itself with the elements of the offense at all; it concedes them. In effect, an affirmative defense says, “Yes, I did it,...

own reasons to follow the treaty obligation while Oklahoma can decide not to or vice versa. State by state opting into complying with the obligation of the United States would seem the result - almost like the kind of vote by states on treaties the Bricker Amendment was seeking. These thoughts make me worry that I am facing a more radical vision here. At least before this, you had the Supremacy Clause idea covering treaties whether self-executing or non-self-executing. Roberts appears to be putting the non-self-executing treaties in a particularly...

their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” Now do you think the term “suitable to their conditions” limited the number of people who had access to arms for self-defense? MR. GURA: It was in England, but that was criticized by the framers. St. George Tucker’s edition of Blackstone – JUSTICE STEVENS: So you think that the Second Amendment is a departure from the provision in the Declaration of Rights in England? MR. GURA: It’s quite clearly an expansion upon it. JUSTICE STEVENS: So that’s not really...