Search: self-defense
27 Sep HILJ Symposium: Ozan Varol Responds
...interdependent military is capable of providing institutional support to a nascent democracy because its institutional self-interests often align with the conditions that Madison and others have identified as conducive to the genesis of a constitutional democracy: institutional stability, political pluralism, and national unity. Using comparative case studies, I explore how the interdependent militaries’ self-interested actions have counter-intuitively promoted democratic development and constrained unilateral exercises of power in emerging democracies, which Professor Landau has persuasively argued is the central challenge of constitution-making in a separate article titled Constitution-Making Gone Wrong, Ala....08 Dec A Brief Reply on the Legal Bases for Intervention in Syria
...Christopher Le Mon’s excellent article on very similar issues ‘Unilateral intervention in Civil Wars: The Effective Control Test Tested’ (2003) International Law and Politics 741. Jordan Turkey has already engaged in limited self-defense targetings inside Syria in response to Syrian armed attacks -- and to my mind, that triggers a de facto and de jure international armed conflict and the law of war paradigm as well as the self-defense paradigm. During an international armed conflict, at least, the chemical and biological weapons are a legitimate military target. Points made in...09 Oct LJIL Symposium Vol 25-3: Wording in International Law: A Response
...and which I – very selfishly – would enjoy elaborating on (after all, legal blogging is a structurally and emotionally selfish exercise). First, both Francesco and Michael seem to regret the overly pessimistic light cast by the paper on the current state of the profession and my alleged lamenting of the foundering of a profession that spends too much time varnishing and polishing its nails in a beauty salon. As indicated above, this editorial was solely meant to buoy self-reflection by drawing the attention to some growing habits which we...10 Dec Interview: Martti Koskenniemi on International Law and the Rise of the Far-Right
...have to say: ‘That is true. And I admire your self-confidence.’ But I also think that this self-confidence is part of the problem – because it is an unwarranted self-confidence. It is the cause not only of why so many people in the world suffer, but also why so many people have lost faith in managerial expertise. The problem is this: most people meet experts – such as myself – when they are asked to give solutions to the problems of the world. The expert will then have a 35...11 Nov Homage to California? (More on What Calexit Teaches Us About Secessionist Movements)
...secession would have clashed with a cornerstone of the UN, the territorial integrity of states. Outside of the context of decolonization, the right of self-determination for communities that are within already existing states is understood as a right to “internal” self-determination: the pursuit of political, cultural, linguistic, and other rights within the existing state (in this case, the U.S.). However, secession is not in and of itself illegal under international law (although it may be linked to an act that is breach in international law, such as a military intervention...
17 Oct A Visible College, 2.0: Israel, Hamas, and the International Legal Community
...right to resort to force automatically justifies whatever means are employed. The result is that world leaders and many legal commentators have suggested, perhaps accidentally, that the IDF’s exercise of Israel’s right to self-defence or Hamas’ pursuit of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination renders lawful the targeting of civilians, the perpetration of sexual violence against them, the taking of hostages, the denial of food and water to civilian populations, and their forcible transfer to conditions in which their basic needs cannot possibly be met. When made by world leaders,...22 Jan Assumptions Behind the Assumptions in the War on Terror (Department of Shameless Self-Promotion)
I have a new paper up on SSRN, appearing shortly in the Wayne Law Review, The Assumptions Behind the Assumptions in the War on Terror: Risk Assessment as an Example of Foundational Disagreement in Counterterrorism Policy. Here is the abstract from SSRN, with apologies from the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: This 2007 article (based around an invited conference talk at Wayne State in early 2007) addresses risk assessment and cost benefit analysis as mechanisms in counterterrorism policy. It argues that although policy is often best pursued by agreeing to set...19 Feb International Law and Kosovo’s Independence: Assessing Resolution 1244
...of the key language includes the following from the preamble: Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other States of the region, as set out in the Helsinki Final Act and annex 2, Reaffirming the call in previous resolutions for substantial autonomy and meaningful self-administration for Kosovo, Moreover, the operative paragraphs include the following: The Security Council… 1. Decides that a political solution to the Kosovo crisis shall be based on the general principles in annex...
17 Mar A Self-Reflexive Rebellion: Of Universality and False Empowerment of the Global South
...larger call for de-centering the dominant modes of doing international law research – whether that be the discipline’s epistemological limitations, english-centrism, cultural flattening, or teaching, to name a few. All of these conversations point to the structural asymmetries within the discipline which claims itself to be universal and yet, erases any semblance of the ‘other’. It makes sense, then, as a small act of rebellion for Global North scholars to pursue conversations in a different epistemic register; one that is considerably removed from the discipline’s principal locations of influence and...