In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: self-defense

25 Mar

...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)....
25.03.22 | |

12 May

...program, have been strongly rejected by international legal opinion, which holds that the campaign does not satisfy the requirements of lawful (anticipatory) self-defence under Article 51 (see e.g. here, here, and here). Iran has retaliated by striking Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Iranian officials have stated publicly that any territory or airspace ‘utilized to support aggressors’ is a legitimate target, and an Iranian letter to the United Nations Secretary General explicitly invokes the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter. The Gulf states, for their...
12.05.26 | and |

12 May

...both directions. For Iran, properly characterizing the Gulf states’ conduct matters for calibrating its responses: derivative complicity in aggression may justify robust non-forcible countermeasures and claims for reparation, but not force; use of bases as a launch point for attacks would authorize self-defence action directed at the bases; direct participation in attacks can, in principle, ground full self-defence action. For the Gulf states, the central message is cautionary. Hosting foreign bases in itself does not make them belligerents, but allowing those installations and national command structures to become embedded in...
12.05.26 | and |

31 Mar

...deployments, similar emotions had been controlled by him. The appellant’s decision to kill was probably impulsive and the adjustment disorder had led to an abnormality of mental functioning that substantially impaired his ability to exercise self-control. In our judgement the adjustment disorder from which he was suffering at the time also impaired his ability to exercise self-control. Third, and finally, CMAC concluded (para. 114) that because Blackman could not form a rational judgment at the time of the killing as a result of his adjustment disorder, he was entitled to...
31.03.17 | |

30 Jul

...account their way of life and the potential impact on it. The IACtHR underscored the inextricable link between the Tagaeri and Taromenane’s territory and their survival as ecosystemic peoples. Their right to collective property, self-determination, and autonomy is contingent on preserving their land and strictly enforcing the principle of non-contact. Yet, Ecuador’s handling of oil exploitation in Yasuní Park revealed a glaring failure to uphold these protections. One aspect that is decisive to the finding of a violation of the right to collective property and self-determination is the nomadic nature...
30.07.25 | |

18 Aug

[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...
18.08.20 | |

17 Feb

...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...
17.02.17 | |

01 Apr

...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...
01.04.24 | |

30 Aug

...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...
30.08.17 | |

14 Mar

...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...
14.03.13 | |

27 Dec

...Finally, I suggest one recent law review article that considers one of the most important areas of technological innovation: self-replicating technology. But my St. John’s colleague Jeremy Sheff looks at a self-replicating technology that is already here and ubiquitous: the seed. Here’s the abstract: Self-replicating technologies pose a challenge to the legal regimes we ordinarily rely on to promote a balance between innovation and competition. This article examines recent efforts by the federal courts to deal with the leading edge of this policy challenge in cases involving the quintessential self-replicating...
27.12.12 | |

19 Sep

I stand behind my description of Yoo, but Julian’s thoughtful post deserves a less facile response. So let’s consider Yoo’s claim about Clinton’s violation of the War Powers Act. Here is Julian’s explanation of why Yoo’s attack on Clinton is not inconsistent with his defense of Bush: His complaint about Clinton’s violation of the War Powers Act is that Clinton didn’t bother to claim that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional (in fact, according to Yoo, Clinton actually accepted the legality of the War Powers Act). Instead, Clinton simply violated...
19.09.06 | |