Search: self-defense
08 Nov The Ethics of Serving as Appointed Counsel (Updated)
...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...
25 Mar Uniting for Justice: Group Referrals to the International Criminal Court
...referral, can be grouped in three categories: 1) State Party self-referral; 2) single State Party referral and 3) group/collective State Party referral. The last two of them can be termed as “third State Party referrals”. Self-referral takes place when a State Party itself refers alleged crimes committed on its territory or by its nationals to the Prosecutor. Self-referrals has emerged as the major way to seize the Court. Interestingly, drafters of the Rome Statute shared an assumption that self-referrals would be an exception (for an opposite view, see Robinson, 2011)....14 Mar Bradley Book Symposium: Response to the Commentary on International Law in the U.S. Legal System
...sovereign immunity. The symposium contributors have addressed a number of specific propositions in the book. Here are some brief comments on each of their posts: 1. David Moore contends that the Supreme Court’s decision in Medellin v. Texas need not be read as rejecting all multi-factored approaches to self-execution. I agree and did not mean to suggest otherwise in the book. I read Medellin as rejecting only the approach of the dissent, whereby the same treaty provision might be self-executing in some cases but not in others depending on how...30 Aug Symposium on Occupation Law: The Necessary Non-Normativity and Temporal Indeterminacy of Occupation Law
...avoid the questions of territorial sovereignty. Self-determination does not answer the question of the geographical unit in which it is exercised. Armenians, for example, do not principally have a preexisting sovereignty claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. Rather, they see Armenian control as an exercise of the self-determination of the Karabakh population. Similarly, Russia justifies its occupation not on prior title but on the self-determination of the Crimean population. International law rejects this argument, and regards Armenian control as an occupation, because the standard lines in which self-determination is exercised is the preexisting...
11 Oct Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: Unlawful Occupation as Ongoing Aggression – Rethinking Legal Responses in the Context of Palestine
...Self-Determination: The occupation must deny or obstruct the right to self-determination of the people under occupation. Hostile and Unprovoked Nature: The scale and severity of the ongoing presence in the occupied territory are both hostile and unprovoked, marked by, for instance, claims of a permanent foreign occupation, widespread loss of life, extensive destruction of property, or the displacement of vast numbers of refugees. These conditions are clearly fulfilled in the case of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, since its inception and perhaps now more than ever. The ICJ’s advisory opinion recognised...17 Feb The Treaty Supremacy Rule: Is a Partial Revival Possible?
...in international affairs might prefer such a constitutional design. However, Professor Stewart is certainly not in that camp, nor were the Founders. Third, one modern permutation of self-execution doctrine—the “no judicial enforcement” doctrine—allows state governments to impose sanctions on a criminal defendant in violation of supreme federal (treaty) law, without addressing the merits of defendant’s treaty-based defense. The Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause guarantees every state criminal defendant an opportunity to be heard on the merits of a federal defense to state criminal charges. Therefore, as I contend in Chapter...01 Apr A Response to Alonso Gurmendi: The ICJ Must Consider Israel’s Legal Rights to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem
...independence under the “sacred trust of civilisation” and its right to self-determination under the UN Charter”. However, Palestinian self-determination cannot negate Israel’s territorial claims or the principle of territorial integrity; at most they imply the existence of competing claims which must be addressed in a final resolution. Of course, the existence of self-determination rights does not dictate the precise territorial scope in which they can be exercised [nor does it mandate a separate state; see Reference re Secession of Quebec]. A conflicting Palestinian right would not necessarily detract from Israeli...08 Mar David John Frank Responds to James Hathaway & Jason Pobjoy
is not to disregard the obvious differences between LGBT asylum claims and self-repression. Asylum rights are enabling. Self-repression is disabling. Asylum rights are public matters. Self-repression is a private matter. And so on. All of this is important to spell out because it describes the world as we know it and the world as we believe it should be. In articulating the assumptions that allow us to justify LGBT asylum claims in terms of the traumatic consequences of self-repression, we specify the conditions under which such a justification makes sense...
18 Aug States of Justice Symposium: Politicised Referrals are Still Referrals Nonetheless
[K.K. Sithebe is a PhD Candidate at the University of Pretoria and a Research Advisor, South African Human Rights Commission.] Professor Oumar Ba’s States of Justice provides much needed scholarship on the subject of international criminal justice and self-referrals. Prof. Ba provides a meticulous account of how individual African states, particularly Uganda, have since exploited the self-referral mechanism as envisaged in the Rome Statute. Further, this fine scholar provides a detailed account of events, detailing the attitude of individual states and other parties, including the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, prior...