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Search: self-defense

27 Feb

Secretary of Defense Mattis, albeit for other possible reasons that have not been made public. The brick that broke the kangaroo’s back seems to defense counsels’ belief that their private and privileged communications with clients were in fact being monitored by the government. Air Force Colonel Vance Spath, the man in robes* sitting behind the bench at the Guantanamo military commission’s U.S.S. Cole bombing case is at wit’s end: “I’m not ordering the Third Reich to engage in genocide. This isn’t My Lai.’ All he was doing was telling the...
27.02.18 | |

20 Jan

...the proposition as regards the law of self-defence. Action taken in self-defemce must certainly be proportionate; tis means that the measures taken to defend oneself against an armed attack must not be out of proportion to the end of repelling the attack. (Note: this does not mean that the victim State can only use as many forces in its defence as the aggressor has used in the attack; it means that the sum total of the uses of force employed in self-defence must not be excessive, so that it is...
20.01.07 | |

06 Sep

...War Powers Resolution" and that "Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution." But notice what the War Powers Resolution applies to (and only to) -- “the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities." Jordan There is insufficient attention here to the alternative self-defense paradigm. Covert action targeting persons in a manner that is lawful under the international law of self-defense (e.g., against a person who is DPAA, directly participating in armed attacks) is lawful whether or not it is permissible under Ttile 50, since...
06.09.14 | |

23 May

Jordan (1) The preambular portion of the AUMF states: "Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States." What constitutionally-based authority is such in case of armed attacks on the United States, its embassies abroad, its military abroad, and/or other U.S. nationals abroad? Importantly, the same preambular portion expressly recognizes a U.S. right to use military force in "self-defense." The President's constitutionally-based authority to engaged in self-defense under customary and treaty-based international law. See, e.g., Constitutionality...
23.05.14 | |

20 Jan

...engage in "regional action" (in my opinion, such as NATO action in Kosovo) while the Security Countil is veto-deadlocked. Some prefer that "anticipatory" self-defense be permitted when an armed attack has not occured yet but the attack is "imminent." Hardly anyone argues that "preemptive" self-defense should be permissible way before an actual armed attack is "imminent." And the problem with anticipatory self-defense is that it does not fit within the actual text of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. For some of these reasons, when Israel took out a nuclear...
20.01.12 | |

06 Apr

...to statehood -- particularly in the context of a people who, like the Palestinians, have a right to self-determination. el roam Kevin , Thanks for the comment . You may think and believe of course, that the Palestinians have the right to self determination, but this is rather a subjective criteria (not to be knocked down by itself of course). What I have been raising, are objective criteria, standing on their own ground, notwithstanding the subjective perception of no one involved or not. Look good at the map, try to...
06.04.15 | |

04 May

since been able to adopt procedures to better monitor the detainees and better facilitate attorney visits. Therefore, we would have no objection to the court ordering more than the number of visits that were suggested back in August. Get that? The mass suicide attempt and successful suicides were caused by defense attorneys providing internees with information about the outside world, not by the brutal and dehumanizing conditions at Gitmo. So now that new rules have been enacted to keep the internees in line, unrestricted defense attorney visits are permissible again....
04.05.07 | |

13 Sep

[Adam Irish is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at California State University, Chico.] President Donald Trump’s pronouncements that the United States needs to develop a “Space Force” were initially met with derision by national security establishment. In a letter to lawmakers, Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, wrote that he did not “wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations.” However, three Space Policy Directives, one speech by the Vice President, and one report by the Department of Defense...
13.09.18 | |

07 May

...proposed test diverges from its justificatory origins. The test’s first stage is described as mandatory and requires: “a humanitarian crisis [that] creates consequences significantly disruptive of international order – including proliferation of chemical weapons, massive refugee flows, and events destabilizing to regional peace and security – that would likely soon create an imminent threat to the acting nations (which would give rise to an urgent need to act in individual and collective self-defense under U.N. Charter Article 51) [emphasis added].” The test’s second stage – described as a criterion that...
07.05.18 | |

12 Apr

...of NIAC and a new interpretations of self-defense permitted the attack. If these two legal regimes (the law of self-defense and NIAC) are left rudderless, is human rights law strong enough to trump them both and correct this problem? And if not, is there reason to seriously consider 1) ensuring that an expanded concept of imminence does not gain international acceptability, 2) States coming together to explicitly prohibit the application of NIAC outside the territory of the State where the NIAC is occurring, and 3) ensuring that States conducting targeting...
12.04.13 | |

29 Jul

...where one party commits blatant violations, “continued equal treatment of all parties by the United Nations can in the best case result in ineffectiveness and in the worst may amount to complicity with evil.” (Brahimi Report) Peacekeepers also cannot use force except in self-defense or in defense of mandate. “Defense of mandate” may accommodate offensive use of force in some circumstances (e.g., to protect civilians under imminent threat), but peacekeepers certainly cannot lawfully conduct offensive seek-and-disarm missions. Because peacekeepers are not “used outside the humanitarian function to conduct hostilities,” they...
29.07.13 | |

28 Jun

...that a treaty is unnecessary. It instead advocates improved cooperation among international law enforcement groups. If these groups cooperate to make cyberspace more secure against criminal intrusions, their work will also make cyberspace more secure against military campaigns, American officials say. “We really believe it’s defense, defense, defense,” said the State Department official, who asked not to be identified because authorization had not been given to speak on the record. “They want to constrain offense. We needed to be able to criminalize these horrible 50,000 attacks we were getting a...
28.06.09 | |