Search: self-defense

...the U.S. may be wary of binding itself to any treaty when it need not do so. This is not the only time the U.S. seems to stand alone as one of the world powers who isn't a party to a widely ratified treaty, the Vienna Convention and the Rome Statute come to mind. The whole “self-executing” business comes from the idea that an international treaty is not binding on U.S. domestic law unless either Congress has enacted statutes to implement it or it is self-executing. I’m no expert, but...

...ground. My current thinking on this is as follows: (1) This remedial type of self-determination must necessarily encompass a limiting temporal element. In other words, after some undefined period of time passes after the end of the HR or SD abuses, the affected people's right to external self-determination would lapse, and revert to the regular right of internal self-determination. This is because practically every multi-ethnic state in the world has undergone times of internecine violence, and they would all unravel if suddenly every group that has been persecuted throughout history...

...Pres. Carter unilaterally revoked the Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan, and the Supreme Court declined to review this action on non-justiciability grounds. But the MDT was almost certainly a non-self-executing treaty -- there were no private rights of action under it (even for Sen. Goldwater), so Pres. Carter's revocation didn't have any effect on domestic law. Brian Has the US ratified any self-executing treaties without including a declaration/reservation to the effect that the treaty provisions are non-self-executing with respect to US domestic law? Brian ...I ask this question because my...

...this site: If Israel is in an actual armed conflict in which Hamas is an adversary, then it is also entitled to maintain a blockade, and stop vessels suspected of being blockade runners at whatever distance the blockading nation deems military feasible. Again, there is no right of self-defense on the part of a blockade runner, resistance making the vessel liable to being attacked/sunk rather than merely captured. Which in terms of your observation, there is a legal right to do X, but no legal right to resist X in...

...over the past several years. Influenced by the changing nature of defense and security (including examples such as US disengagement from Europe and Russia’s military assertiveness), the growing interest from individual countries and the emergence of collaborative projects like those mentioned above, Europe will likely see further drone proliferation in the coming years. Outlined in its 2016 EU Global Strategy Document, Europe is seeking a more strategic approach to security and autonomy. Part of this plan includes bolstering defense cooperation amongst member states and investing in defense industries. Two of...

...case was an invaluable part of ensuring Milosevic had a fair trial. In interviews with the amici, they noted that they preferred the role of amicus to being assigned as defense counsel. They pointed out that had they been assigned to represent Milosevic from the start, they would have an ethical obligation not to act without instructions. Given that Milosevic would have refused to instruct assigned counsel, they would not have had the opportunity they had as amici to file motions helpful to the defense without conflicting with their obligations...

...after all.) Perhaps it is not surprising that the ILC’s commentaries justify its rule on countermeasures by citing the comments it received from the WHO and UNESCO, both of which saw no reason to deny them such powers. One can only imagine the countermeasures that organizations like the WHO or UNESCO now see themselves as licensed to impose on the rest of us. Equally mysterious are the preconditions that the ILC appears to envision with respect IOs’ “self-defense” or their invocations of the defense of necessity. One wonders precisely what...

...other small set of problems around Syrian intervention: international law. The UN Charter says that one state can use force against another in two circumstances: (1) if the UN Security Council authorizes it, or (2) in national or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs, until the Security Council has time to act. In Libya, we had a UN Security Council Resolution authorizing military intervention. There is no such resolution here, and at the moment, slim prospect of obtaining one given Russia’s opposition to intervention. Is this plausibly self-defense, for...

...rarely encountered in war. What if the would-be defender was guilty himself of posing a threat? The likeliest case in war is that the combatant supposedly exercising self-defense at the same time poses a threat to his attacker. Normally, in this case we decide who actually has a right to self-defense by making a judgement about the difference in moral status. That the victim of an assault uses force to fight back does not give her attacker a moral right to defend himself. If we refuse to take moral status...

but I think unpersuasive. The United States today has its own troops on the ground in Syria – troops that were not present in 2013, troops stationed (at least some of them) as close as 50 miles away from the site of the chemical weapons attack. In the abstract, one might imagine this could lead the United States to offer some sort of self-defense justification (in defense of our own nationals). But given our troops are in Syria (to fight ISIS) without Syrian consent, and given Syria’s apparent determination since...

and custom, which provides that a state may only use force pursuant to a Security Council resolution under Chapter VII or in self-defense. For this reason, a conflict also exists between the P5’s duty to engage in humanitarian intervention (if a member of the P5 breaches the duty not to veto) and the duty not to use force absent self-defense or Security Council authorization under the UN Charter and custom. Resolving the Conflict through Jus Cogens In Chapter 4, I note that the conflicts recognized in Chapter 3 must be...

...round hole. As an interesting coincidence, I experienced this first hand on the day this online symposium began. Yesterday I testified (out of order) as the first defense witness in the Hamdan military commission trial. The defense requested that I offer my opinion on when the armed conflict with al Qaeda began. Interestingly, the defense is not (to my knowledge) challenging the government assertion that the terror attacks of September 11th initiated a state of armed conflict between the United States and al Qaeda (which I realize and pointed out...