Search: self-defense
07 Sep When Will This Administration Acknowledge the Reality of International Law?
...an understanding that the failure to provide legal justification for any controversial action is a good way to lay the groundwork for public rejection. (To take one historical example, President Nixon’s failure to supply a legal justification for the bombing of Cambodia surely contributed to widespread condemnation of the decision notwithstanding a tenable self-defense claim.) But that’s all about domestic legality. Bush continues to refuse to bow down before the altar of international law. I count six instances in the speech of the phrase “our laws.” There is one mention...01 Sep Syria Insta-Symposium: Marty Lederman Part I–The Constitution, the Charter, and Their Intersection
...which self-defense and protection of U.S. nationals have been the most commonly invoked; and (ii) the operation cannot be anticipated to be “sufficiently extensive in ‘nature, scope, and duration’ to constitute a ‘war’ requiring prior specific congressional approval under the Declaration of War Clause,” a standard that generally will be satisfied “only by prolonged and substantial military engagements, typically involving exposure of U.S. military personnel to significant risk over a substantial period” (quoting from the Libya opinion). Largely for reasons explained by my colleague and Dean, Bill Treanor, I am...29 Sep The Invention of the Khorasan Group and Non-Imminent Imminence
entitled to act in self-defence against “bad dudes” no matter when — or even if — those “bad dudes” might launch an armed attack against the US. This isn’t even the Bush administration’s “anticipatory self-defence.” This is, for lack of a better expression, “hypothetical self-defence.” Apparently, the US government believes it is entitled to use force against a non-state actor anywhere in the world as long as it can imagine a future state of affairs in which that actor would attack it. The mind — and international law — reels....08 Feb Why I Disagree with Marty Lederman About Prosecuting Waterboarders
...the relevant law. Any other interpretation of the defense — most relevantly, that relying on an official statement made by the appropriate public officer or body is per se reasonable — renders the word “reasonable” completely superfluous. Reliance itself would be enough to invoke the defense. Differently put, the reasonableness requirement in entrapment by estoppel only makes sense if we leave open the possibility — however slight — that reliance on official advice can be unreasonable no matter how authoritative the public officer or body that issues it. Lederman, however,...02 Jun Case of the Month: United States v. Juvenile Male 1
...deny the power of Congress to legislate over Indian affairs or to curtail the scope of Indian self-government. But the Court declared that Congress had not done so in any clear fashion and thus found no congressional intent to limit Indian self-government. The Court stated that the tribes retained their right of "self-government [and] the maintenance of order and peace among their own members." Unless this power is limited by explicit legislation or surrendered by the tribe, Indian tribes retain exclusive judicial jurisdiction over reservation Indian affairs. Thus today most...24 Jan Appellate Jurisdiction Over Political Questions
...one person alone but from the rule of law itself. There are only two conditions in which a war is legal under international law: when force is authorized by the United Nations Security Council or when the use of force is an act of national self-defense and survival. The U.N. Charter, based on the Nuremberg Principles, prohibits war "as an instrument of policy." And the war in Iraq is just that — a war of choice. There is a common tendency among lawyers and military commanders to sneer at international...23 Apr Want to Prosecute the Lawyers? Cite Ministries — Not the Justice Case
...limits. [This is a tangent; feel free to ignore it.] Peter Orlowicz Don't affirmative defenses like self-defense or duress act to defeat criminal liability even when the mens rea for a given offense is present? Perhaps we don't want to extend those affirmative defenses for torture in particular, but to say "it is a basic principle of criminal law that the motive behind a crime is irrelevant to the defendant’s guilt" seems to oversimplify. B. Don Taylor III "...to say “it is a basic principle of criminal law that the...