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Search: self-defense

02 Mar

Benjamin Davis These are the three hypos that are presented to support the idea of a humanitarian necessity defense and the question is why the strict rule of IHL on these things. Here are a couple of thoughts. 1. approach a neighbor of a suspected Palestinian militant and request the neighbor to urge the suspect to surrender quietly to the security forces. What if the neighbor says no? Do the security forces say "Thank you and have a nice day."? The neighbor is presumably a civilian who does not want...
02.03.10 | |

21 Aug

The WSJ has an article on the U.S. Defense Department’s push for a criminal prosecution of Wikileaks for releasing U.S. government documents on the Afghanistan war. Several officials said the Defense and Justice departments were now exploring legal options for prosecuting Mr. Assange and others involved on grounds they encouraged the theft of government property. Bringing a case against WikiLeaks would be controversial and complicated, and would expose the Obama administration to criticism for pursuing not just government leakers, but organizations that disseminate their information. I agree it would be...
21.08.10 | |

14 Mar

...as well as direct threats by the latter to impose their order on the whole territory of Ukraine.” I am pretty surprised that Russia is endorsing this expansive view of self-determination, which I think could be fairly invoked by certain parts of Russia itself (Hello, Chechnya!). But I suppose the dispute here with the West could be understood as factual rather than legal. Most scholars would accept the idea that self-determination is appropriate in certain exceptional circumstances, such as decolonization or when facing the threat of genocide or other mass...
14.03.14 | |

10 Jun

...to be already published (e.g., publishing in Harv. Int'l L.J. on-line). Alec Stone Sweet I do not see the dilemma. Most good papers are mounted on SSRN or Selected Works and widely circulated before submission to peer review, and they will have been read much more than most blog entries. Bloggers might have delusions of grandeur, but a blog is not a journal. I don't see how self-posting anything on-line should preclude the latter's publication if it meets the journal's standards. Kevin Jon Heller "I don’t see how self-posting anything...
10.06.12 | |

19 Apr

...because prisoners do not have a legal entitlement to payment for their work, and the Due Process Clause protects only against deprivation of existing interests in life, liberty, or property…. Plaintiffs fail to state a viable claim under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. “For any treaty to be susceptible to judicial enforcement it must both confer individual rights and be self-executing.” A treaty is self-executing when it is automatically enforceable in domestic courts without implementing legislation. The ICCPR fails to satisfy either requirement because it was ratified...
19.04.10 | |

04 Jun

...may not have given an accurate or thorough explanation for a variety of reasons, including a simple misunderstanding of the law. In prior discussions with Marko, we debated the import of a state's claim of self-defense. My point then was that a state may say it is exercising its right of self-defense against a non-state actor without thoroughly explaining why that justifies the breach of territorial sovereignty of the state where that actor is located. That does not mean that self-defense rather than necessity or something other legal doctrine is...
04.06.10 | |

19 Oct

...Stafford also stated in the email that “The interrogator said I told my clients to kill themselves, and word was passed to the three men who did commit suicide.” Smith says flatly that he has no connection at all to the suicides, and he say the Defense Department, in charge of Guantanamo, may be trying to shift blame to him. It’s not only Smith’s ability to represent Gharani that has been destroyed: In the course of the investigation, the Navy has seized more than a thousand pages of documents from...
19.10.06 | |

07 Jan

...is attributable to defense challenges, it does seem appropriate to consider whether a General Court-Martial would have in fact been more efficient. The second justification that no longer seems meaningful was the purported need for a “quasi-secret” process to protect evidence and participants. Considering the Department of Defense has willingly provided information about the legal and lay participants in the process, there seems little difference on this point between the Military Commission and the Court-Martial. As for the protection of evidence, the concern was essentially hollow from the outset, as...
07.01.06 | |

28 Dec

Owen Pell at White & Case has a chapter in our book Holocaust Restitution entitled, “Historical Reparation Claims: A Defense Perspective.” The chapter in essence argues that a company that wishes to defend against historical reparation claims must have detailed knowledge about its company history. He writes, “A crucial lesson of the Holocaust asset cases is that companies must invest heavily in historical research so that they will have control and an intimate understanding of the facts.” (p. 331-32). Pell’s advice is sound for historical reparation claims. But if that...
28.12.05 | |

21 May

...that China has interfered with the Philippines’ right to navigation and other rights in areas within and beyond 200 nautical miles of the Philippines cannot be made without engaging in sea boundary delimitations. I have to admit I am not very persuaded by this analysis. In Prof. Talmon’s defense, the essay is very short and not an attempt to provide a deep legal analysis of the problem. But the idea that any challenge to the nine-dash line is excluded from UNCLOS arbitration is hardly obvious to me, since the basis...
21.05.13 | |

11 Jul

...molesters, people with infectious diseases, and the like — but who have not committed crimes. Congress should draw the national security court’s judges from a pool of current federal judges, the same process used for the special court we already have to issue intelligence warrants. The court would have a permanent staff of elite defense lawyers with special security clearances as part of its permanent staff. Defense lawyers trained in the nuances of taking apart interrogation statements, particularly translated statements, are crucial because often the legal proceedings will involve little...
11.07.07 | |

13 Jun

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has an op-ed in the WSJ announcing his opposition to US ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The op-ed is probably meant to soften the force of an earlier WSJ op-ed by former Republican Secretaries of State calling for US ratification. He is also testifying on Thursday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Rumsfeld’s opposition may make a difference since the question of ratification is really a debate within conservative and Republican circles (Democrats appear to be...
13.06.12 | |