Search: self-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...
08 Apr The False Premise Sustaining Israel’s West Bank Claim – Part II
...was delivered by a 13-1 majority: According to the Advisory Opinion of International Court of Justice in the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius, self-determination had emerged as a norm of customary international law between the years 1965 and 1968. These years coincided with the PLO’s self-determination claim to Palestine. And in the colonial context self-determination claims were also claims about sovereignty. It could, of course, be argued that the Palestinian people did not need to base their self-determination claim on customary international law, since the UN had already...
14 Jul Intervention in Civil Wars Symposium: Representatives of their Own Peoples–From National Liberation Movements to Opposition Groups
...been interesting to analyse this change of view. In relation to the second question, on the potential exercise of self-determination by these rebel groups on behalf of the Libyan and Syrian people, the answer does not seem to be easy, as Redaelli observes. On the one hand, in its external dimension, most authors have stated that the right to self-determination cannot be exercised outside the context of colonial domination, alien occupation or racist regimes. On the other hand, in its internal dimension, the right to self-determination involves the right to...11 Jun An Open Letter to the Israeli Government Condemning Annexation [Final Update]
entitled to determine their political fate in accordance with the right to self-determination. Furthermore, this prohibition applies to all territories occupied by force, even if it is claimed that force was initially used in an act of self-defense. The West Bank was taken by force in 1967. It has been consistently recognized by the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice as an occupied territory, in which the Palestinian people is entitled to fulfill its right to self-determination. This remains so even if bilateral...10 Sep Rawlsian Justifications for Humanitarian Intervention
...is meant as an argument of opting into “fair” distributions, by means of ones own self-interest (The veil of ignorance aims to extend this self interest to an a-historical situation). Although in later work, Rawls does seem to make concessions to more Kantian and communitarian claims, self-interest remains a primary engine of the original position-construct. There also lies the key issue with which I’m struggling: universal appeal of anything, and thus also ius cogens, seems very far away from the Rawlsian distribution theory. It is rather assumed that there are...
18 Oct Where De Facto States Come to Rest: The Approaching Demise of the So-called Republic of Artsakh
...are divested of the right to renew military operations even if the agreement does not introduce peace in the full extension of the term, as questions of title to territorial sovereignty may remain outstanding. When the parties to a conflict reach a ceasefire agreement, the absence of an impending harm frustrates the ratione temporis requirement of immediacy in self-defense as a feature of the broader requirement of necessity in lawful uses of force, pursuant to Article 51of the UN Charter. In other words, a ceasefire agreement creates a new objective...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...
02 Nov The Legality of a SADC Intervention in Cabo Delgado in the Absence of Mozambican Consent
...broad definition of such an attack, does not necessarily establish a basis for the use of force against a non-state actor. This assertion is based on three considerations. First, the term collective action in Article 6(1) likely refers to, at least in part, “collective self-defence” (discussed below). This is also directly established when considering that an armed attack may give rise to a right of collective self-defence; conversely, collective self-defence may be taken in in response to an armed attack. Second, arguments favoring Article 6(1) as a legal basis would...28 Sep A Treaty-Happy Senate?
...argument that the declarations actually constitute inadmissible reservations or are otherwise unacceptable). Second, from a U.S. law stand-point there’s the question of the Senate’s ability to make a declaration of self-execution, which I don’t think it has ever done before, at least not in the resolution of advice and consent itself (past SFRC reports have, of course, expressed opinions on whether the SFRC understood the treaty to be self-executing in one or more senses of that term, or otherwise dependent on ex-ante or ex-post legislation in some way). At a...