Search: self-defense
12 Apr Guest Post: How International Law Could Work in Transnational Non-International Armed Conflicts: Part II of a Two-Part Series
...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...28 Jun Is it Time to Facilitate Cyberwar?
...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...12 Jan MG Miller Invokes – What’s Next?
As Peggy’s earlier post indicated, MG Geoffrey Miller today asserted his privilege against self-incrimination in order to avoid being questioned by the defense attorney representing a soldier pending trial for using military working dogs to abuse prisoners. Is this significant? First, as we know from press reports, MG Miller made this decision on advice of his military defense counsel, Major Michelle Crawford. According to her statement, MG Miller’s made this decision because he has been repeatedly questioned on this subject. However, he has never been questioned by the defense counsel...13 Sep The Legality of a U.S. Space Force
[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...07 May Something is Not Always Better Than Nothing: Against a Narrow Threshold Justification for Humanitarian Intervention
...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...30 Aug Of Fire and Fury: The Threat of Force and the Korean Missile Crisis
...of force include an element of political messaging. Whether they are routine exercises or exceptional maunvers, demonstrations of force send signals to specific adversaries or to general domestic or foreign audiences, or some combination thereof. Ultimately, whatever the content and political context of that signal, the purpose of demonstrations of force is to affect and shape the policy, preferences, and perceptions of the target state or audience. Demonstrations of force are not merely tools of self-defense and deterrence, but are also an exercise of political influence. As Thomas Schelling put...03 Sep Legal Restraints on the Use of Force in Combatting Mass-Casualty Terrorism
...not be reconciled easily, if at all, with the more restrictive view. But even in the face of that inconsistent practice, probably a majority of scholars and UN members continued right through the Cold War to insist that the only legal uses of force unauthorized by the Security Council were cases of self-defense against actual or imminent armed attack. In recent years, however, the Charter conceived as above all a formally hegemonic system of restraint on the use of military power to advance self-defined national interests has been buffeted from...29 Jul Emerging Voices: Distinction without a Difference – The UN’s Attempt to Fight A War Without Fighting A War
...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...25 Mar Medellin v. Texas: Another Set of Early Thoughts
...not self-executing, although it might be a stretch to say it holds as much. The Chief’s majority opinion does strongly reject the dissenters’ opposite presumption, and that is important in itself. But keep in mind that the Chief carefully distinguishes between the different ways that treaties may or may not be self-executing. The Vienna Convention is plainly self-executing in that it binds the Houston police to give warnings without further implementing legislation, and it may be self-executing in the sense that individuals can assert violations on their own in court...26 Jan Self-Interest and Compliance
decisions that comply with international obligations is based not so much on the effective threat of sanction but on the internalization of those norms into the judiciary itself (of course, internalization of such norms by the executive would also assist compliance). So, why is it that we see compliance by states that we know tend to act out of self-interest? Maybe because sometimes they view it in their self-interest to comply and sometimes because their decision-makers have been acculturated to believe it is the normatively “right” thing to do. And,...