Search: self-defense
06 Jun Resurrecting the Clean Hands Doctrine and Mapping its History at the ICJ
...this stage. Then, the ICJ opined that it has treated the clean hands doctrine as a defense of merits with “utmost caution”. More importantly, the ICJ then analyzed the conditions where the clean hands doctrine could be applicable, as argued by the US in their counter-memorial. It is critical that we pause here first. This is the first time that the ICJ has delved into a substantial analysis of the clean hands doctrine as a defense on merits, and has taken into account the various considerations that attract its application....
09 Jun A Not So Clean Break: ICC Jurisdiction after Withdrawal in The Prosecutor v. Duterte
...statutory provisions. Even if preliminary examination were to constitute a “matter under consideration,” the Defense maintained, it would have no bearing on the question of whether the Court could open an investigation post-withdrawal under article 12, as the Defense contested an applicable linkage between 12 and 127. Finally, the Defense contested the finding that the object and purpose of the Statute permitted the authorization of an investigation post-withdrawal, arguing that the object and purpose of the Statute is served by the one-year period between notification of withdrawal and its effect...
07 Apr The Role of Business in War: A Different Defense to Corporate Complicity? Part I: The Old Offense
[Maya Nirula is a dual-qualified international human rights lawyer with multi-jurisdictional experience consulting and litigating on issues of business and human rights] Introduction This is the first of a two-part series, the Role of Business in War. Part I: The Old Offense will evaluate the interaction between International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Human Rights Law (IHRL), and International Criminal law (ICL) in governing gross human rights abuses and corporate complicity. Part II: A Different Defense will examine a potential new defense to such complicity through the integration of IHL and ICL...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...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...
26 Feb The Pentagon/Anthropic Clash Over Military AI Guardrails
...immediate and immense subcontracting problems for any defense contractors relying on Claude, including Amazon Web Services, Palantir and Anduril, and could potentially, de facto, force the company out of the defense tech ecosystem. This would have repercussions not only in the US context, but also internationally as, for example, a number of European states, such as the UK, have large-scale contracts with these companies. Defense officials, including Secretary Pete Hegseth, have framed Anthropic’s safety conditions as operationally unrealistic. Military operations, they argue, unfold in grey zones. Therefore, DoD claims it...25 Feb Drones as Strategic Airpower and the Light Cavalry?
...piece from me next week arguing something I’ve developed at Volokh Conspiracy and here at OJ blog: first, that the administration’s lawyers need to step up to the plate and defend targeted killing using Predators and, second, the proper legal basis on which to defend it to the full extent undertaken by the Obama administration is the international law of self-defense, rather than simply the law of armed conflict, targeting combatants. In another piece coming soon (this one a book chapter in a Hoover Institution online collection of essays from...
22 Feb Of Anti-Colonialism and International Legal Pedagogy: Can we Visualise a Post-Westphalian World?
...to the nation-state that signed its royal charter. Consider that England even ceded Bombay to the EIC. Relevant for the discussion we had, the EIC also raised an in-house army that waged (many) wars. Vitoria announced war makes states. Swati Srivastava retorts: war also awakens sovereigns. Despite not possessing a monopoly over political power—as Westphalia insists—the EIC used war to expand its land holdings. Over time, it experienced a form of sovereign awakening, spurred by its tax and war activities in Bengal. Seeing itself as self-sustaining, it declared it possessed...05 Sep When Treaties Supersede Statutes
Anyone familiar with foreign relations law hears the common refrain that treaties almost never supersede statutes under the last-in-time rule. Until recently, it was certainly my understanding that the ancient Supreme Court case of Cook v. United States was the only significant example in which a self-executing treaty trumped an earlier conflicting statute. But my recent research on the last-in-time rule indicates that there are several examples in which that rule has been applied to give effect to a self-executing treaty that conflicts with an earlier federal statute. In particular,...
12 Aug Time for Codification? Tasking the ILC with Draft Articles on the Use of Force by States
...peacefully. However, this architecture leaves many questions unanswered. Is anticipatory or preventive self-defence permitted under customary international law? What qualifies as an “armed attack” sufficient to trigger Article 51? Can humanitarian intervention ever be lawful absent Security Council authorisation? What status do doctrines such as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) or “pro-democratic intervention” hold? In the absence of authoritative interpretive guidance or a comprehensive codification effort, States have often interpreted the Charter’s provisions in self-serving or inconsistent ways. The result is a legal landscape shaped not by consensus, but by...