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Search: self-defense

31 May

...is already a viable “corruption defense,” and also that it might be useful to better specify the contours of the defense through explicitly corruption-related treaty language. Where we primarily differ is on the desirable contours of the defense. My scheme is self-consciously pro-state. It imposes serious consequences on the investor who engages in corruption. It is, as Professor Bjorklund accurately points out, supply-side in its focus, just as are the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its non-U.S. equivalents. This supply-side focus bothers Professors Wong and Bjorklund. It seems unfair...
31.05.12 | |

22 Mar

Mohammad Al-Oraibi, the presiding judge at the Anfal trial, has ordered the arrest of one of the defense attorneys, Badie Arif Ezzat, for criminal contempt of court. The charges stem from Ezzat’s criticism of the Dujail trial on Iraqi television, which Judge Al-Oraibi apparently believed was directed at the Anfal trial. Ezzat could face seven years imprisonment if convicted. Interestingly, the U.S. seems to have openly taken Ezzat’s side in the dispute: The Sunday session of the trial of six Saddam Hussein officials accused of crimes against humanity was canceled...
22.03.07 | |

27 Oct

...will be most contested? And why would it be a mistake to frame this case solely through the lens of countering terrorism?   Key Claims by the Defense Against Charges of Financing Terrorism in this Case The French Criminal code provides in article 421-2-2 “The act of financing a terrorist enterprise also constitutes an act of terrorism when it involves the provision, collection, or management of funds, assets, or any kind of property, or the offering of advice for such purposes, with the intention that these funds, assets, or property be...
27.10.25 | , and |

15 Dec

...case was met during my few days at the Austrian Human Rights Film Festival with either stony silence or (more commonly) open hostility. It hasn’t been a pleasant response — so why do I do it? There are many answers. The first is the one that defense attorneys always use, which is no less true for that fact: every defendant, even one accused of committing horrific international crimes, needs a good defense. Indeed, the more horrific the accusations, the greater that need. Everyone involved in the criminal justice system knows...
15.12.08 | |

06 Mar

A dispute is brewing between the Rwandan government and the ICTR over the fact that one of the Tribunal’s appointed defense attorneys is himself on Rwanda’s “most wanted” list of genocide suspects. The attorney, Callixte Gakwaya, is counsel for Yusuf Munyakazi, a former businessman who is accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Cyangugu and neighbouring Kibuye in 1994. The Rwandan government’s representative to the ICTR, Aloys Mutabingwa, claims ignorance of how Gakwaya’s ended up employed by the Tribunal: “We are surprised because the ICTR was aware that...
06.03.06 | |

03 Feb

...as sovereign nations, call upon the Canadian and United States governments to respect our decision to reject tar sands projects that impact our sacred sites and homelands; to call upon the Canadian and United States governments to immediately halt and deny approval for pending tar sands projects because they threaten the soil, water, air, sacred sites, and our ways of life; and, confirm that any such approval would violate our ancestral laws, rights and responsibilities. Article VII then goes on to establish a mutual defense commitment of sorts, wherein the...
03.02.13 | |

10 Jan

...military (violent) measures these social movements have resorted to as a result of the long-standing denial of the international legal right to collective self-determination possessed by Palestinians. For not only are such characterizations self-defeating, they serve to hide and distort more than reveal and inform. Patrick S. O'Donnell The last sentence should have read: "For whatever truth they contain and feebly express, such characterizations are, in the end, self-defeating, as they serve to hide and distort more than reveal and inform. David Bernstein leaders and members (e.g., Professor Bernstein’s telling...
10.01.09 | |

27 Nov

Two of the four men arrested on suspicion of witness tampering and manufacturing evidence in the Bemba case appeared before the Court today, along with Bemba himself. Not surprisingly, defence counsel for the defence counsel focused on the various ways in which the arrests will prejudice Bemba’s case: Meanwhile, defense lawyers for the accused stated that the new charges had harmed the defense case of Mr. Bemba, whose trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity started in November 2010. Xavier-Jean Keita, who represented Mr. Kilolo-Musamba, said the defense would...
27.11.13 | |

17 Oct

...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,...
17.10.23 | |

10 Jul

be “self-executing,” meaning that a private right of action is explicitly provided for in the treaty or the treaty has been implemented by a U.S. federal statute…. The Bank Defendants argue that the Geneva Convention is not self-executing and therefore does not provide plaintiffs with a private right of action. Plaintiffs concede that the Convention is non-self-executing, but argue that export prohibitions on chemical weapons enacted by the members of the Australia Group and some governments’ efforts to enforce laws against supplying countries such as Iraq with materials to manufacture...
10.07.06 | |

22 Jan

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...
22.01.09 | |

11 Nov

...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...
11.11.16 | |