In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: self-defense

02 Nov

...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...
02.11.20 | |

23 Sep

...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....
23.09.25 | |

25 Sep

...State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to above in the elaboration of the present principle of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence. In their actions against, and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and to receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.’ Obviously, this provision was created in the context of decolonization, but if the right to self-determination is applicable...
25.09.20 | |

17 Oct

...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...
17.10.18 | |

08 Apr

...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...
08.04.19 | |

19 Oct

...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...
19.10.15 | |

18 Oct

...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...
18.10.23 | |

11 Jun

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...
11.06.20 | |

10 Sep

...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...
10.09.07 | |

28 Sep

...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...
28.09.08 | |

09 Dec

...“eigenvalue” of the differentiated language of law as such. Jerry L. Mashaw has convincingly argued that the doubts of the “lawness” of global administrative law stem from the same origin as the conventional ignorance of the generative power of administration that manifests itself in the emergence of the “internal administrative law” in the 19th century. With reference to administrative agencies that have to operate with an internal perspective of creating a layer of self-binding and self-reflexive rules on the one hand and with an outside view to other private and...
09.12.11 | |

12 Mar

...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...
12.03.13 | |