Search: self-defense

Diane Marie Amann See IntLawGrrls tomorrow, Ken. Happy to help, Diane Kenneth Anderson thnxs! John C. Dehn Ken, I noted one time that he used the terms armed conflict and self defense in the alternative. In every other case self defense was related to the existence of armed conflict, with the latter providing the legal authority for the administration's approach. Is it your position that the use of force in national self defense can sometimes be accomplished without the constraints of the laws of war? Do you see this as...

...as a NATO coalition (as occurred with Kosovo) lends greater legitimacy (although even that is technically not sufficient under a strict reading of the U.N. Charter). But when a broad coalition or regional actor is unavailable, does that mean that countries must stand by and let mass atrocities, such as the use of chemical weapons (a necessarily indiscriminate weapon), occur? The answer is arguably no. While the U.N. Charter only clearly permits intervention in two scenarios: U.N. Security Council authorized action and article 51 individual or collective self-defense, the Charter...

...situation regarding Iran is far more complex because of Iranian direct support of Hezbollah and other groups in ongoing armed attacks on Israel and its stated objective re: Israel. I have an article on 51 self-defense and collective self-defense in such a context that has been accepted for publication by a journal and might obtain a short-fuse expedited review by a few others. It might be interesting here to address implications of the Obama doctrine and recent decisions regarding potential use of armed force against Iranian nuclear weapons production facilities....

...unilateral secession by California is authorized by the international law right of self-determination. This is a much more difficult point to analyze, but I think that neither California nor Oregon would qualify to exercise this murky international law right, at least with respect to seceding. The Canada Supreme Court’s decision in the Quebec case is probably most on point here. A state whose government represents the whole of the people or peoples resident within its territory, on a basis of equality and without discrimination, and respects the principles of self-determination...

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...

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...

...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...

...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...

...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...

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...

...of such elements in the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized in Article 51 of the Charter”. It is clear from the foregoing that resolution 377 (V) anticipates that military elements mentioned above could be mobilized for purposes beyond the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense on the recommendation of the General Assembly. The subsequent practice of the General Assembly also affirms the robustness of its prerogatives in respect for the maintenance of international peace and security under the “Uniting for Peace” resolution. By way...

...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...