Search: self-defense
23 May Development as Domination: Settler Tourism in Western Sahara and the Commodification of Occupied Territories in Trumpist International Law
...and beaches lie on occupied land, within a territory marked by ongoing military hostilities. Western Sahara – a former Spanish colony listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory since 1963 – has been the subject of competing claims by Morocco and Mauritania, who were largely motivated by its phosphate wealth, and the Algeria-backed national liberation movement “Polisario Front”. On 16 October 1975, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s Advisory Opinion on Western Sahara determined that the status of Western Sahara should be decided through the self-determination of the Indigenous Sahrawi people. In...26 Mar First Reaction on Medellin, Self-Execution, Etc.
[Mark Weisburd is the Martha M. Brandis Professor of Law at UNC Law School.] I find it difficult to read Medellin as institutionalizing a presumption against self-execution. If that had been Roberts’s intent, the form of his argument should have been, “We presume non self-execution, is there anything to overcome the presumption?” Instead, he analyzed the text, ratification hearings, and practice of other treaty parties to conclude that Art. 94 was not intended to create obligations for domestic courts. The conclusion seems reasonable to me – 94(2)’s according the Security...
16 Feb I Beg Your Pardon: Two Lessons from/for America’s Worst Days
...be found in rehabilitation, reconciliation and the last resort principle. Regarding the limits, some contribution can be found in both comparative criminal law and transitional justice. In these, for instance, we could also find an answer to our starting point: The discussion on self-pardon. Departing from the ‘bad examples’ of the self-amnesties adopted by Pinochet (law decree n. 2191/1978) and Fujimori (law 2647/1995) and before them by Mussolini, right after the coup which brought him to power (Royal Decree 1641/1922), the vast majority of scholars rejects the admissibility of self-clemency...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....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...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...