Search: self-defense
17 Oct State Practice regarding Self-Defence against Non-State Actors: An Incomplete Picture
...State may have a right of self-defence against non-state actors operating extraterritorially and whose attacks cannot be attributed to the host State.” This state practice was demonstrated by letters sent by 8 NATO members (Canada, Turkey, the UK, the US, France, Denmark, Norway and Belgium) and Australia to the UN Security Council, concerning use of force against ISIS in Syria, and on “numerous situations over the past two centuries” which included the Caroline incident of 1837, and the 1916 US “Punitive Expedition” in Mexico. I will have more to say...
23 Sep Statehood and Resistance: Scholars Reflect on the West’s Recognition of Palestine(‘s Existence)
...a radically disruptive act that sought to test the usefulness of international law in advancing the causes of anti-colonial self-determination. Yet, as Siba Grovogui explained, the dreams of post-colonial states are only permitted when they do not threaten entrenched hierarchies. In the case of Palestine, this has translated into four decades of European opposition to Palestinian self-determination. Europe’s belated recognition of Palestine will not alter the structuring logic of domination that continues to impede Palestinian freedom. On this occasion, three questions would be more useful and demand investigation and reflection....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...19 Oct Guest Post: The ICC intervenes in Georgia–When is a Peacekeeper a Peacekeeper?
...consequently, there will be no international crime of killing those peacekeepers (provided other IHL violations, such as a disproportionate attack, did not occur). Yet, aside from the purely evidentiary challenges and factual complexity of these cases, the Prosecutor’s investigation is also bound to raise more fundamental legal questions about the nature of peacekeeping. Given that many attacks occurred in different locations in the space of a few days (para. 164 and 176), the question is when individual self-defense (allowed for peacekeepers) reaches the threshold of direct participation in hostilities (not...
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...17 Sep Scottish Independence Insta-Symposium: International Law Should Matter–Thoughts on the Proposed Scottish Secession
...the decolonization context. Second, the right to self-determination in most instances authorizes a people to exercise its right to internal self-determination, which is typically reflected in a right to form a regional government and/or have other cultural, linguistic, and religious rights respected by the mother state. The right to self-determination, outside of the decolonization context, may lead to the secessionist type of external self-determination only in extreme instances where the mother state chooses to completely disrespect the people’s right to internal self-determination. According to the Canadian Supreme Court in the...28 Oct Contra CIA, Non-Self-Executing Treaties Are Still the Supreme Law of the Land
...the lawyers’ pre-raid analysis – meaning that even if one did not buy the “unwilling or unable” theory, or anything else about the raid, it wouldn’t have mattered. The UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions are non-self-executing treaties under U.S. law, the theory is, so the President is not legally bound. This view embraces a fundamental misunderstanding of the doctrine of self-execution, before and even after the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Medellin. A non-self-executing treaty under U.S. law is one that is not automatically enforceable under U.S. law without...
24 Jul Judge Mindua’s Separate Opinion in Al Hassan: International Humanitarian Law and the Right to Political, Legal and Cultural Self-Determination
...Mindua emphasises, was an exercise of the right of self-determination, which he describes as a pillar of international law [15]. In this way, Judge Mindua begins his analysis by focusing on a jus ad bellum in which the fight for self-determination is a legitimate and justified struggle. Judge Mindua then engages in a theoretical discussion about why non-state actors, such as Ansar Dine/AQIM, are subjects of international humanitarian law. Again, this theoretical question is not at issue in the case. The Prosecution only had to show that Ansar Dine/AQIM demonstrated...12 Mar Bradley Book Symposium: The Reality of International Delegations
...this approach. In that decision, the Supreme Court interpreted a key provision of the U.N. Charter obligating the U.S. to comply with International Court of Justice as non-self executing, thus relieving U.S. courts from any obligation to implement an ICJ’s judgment. In my view, the relevant language could have been interpreted as either self-executing or non-self-executing, but the structural tensions created by a self-executing interpretation tipped the balance. The decision of whether and how to comply with an ICJ judgment was rightly left to either the State of Texas or...