Search: self-defense
15 Dec Why Ukraine and the International Community Should Demand that Russia Renounce Territorial Expansion
...Obligations: Russia recommits itself to never expand its de jure or de facto borders, either through aggression, accepting union with another entity, or any other means. It will never again invade or occupy territory, nor displace the sovereign authority of another outside its own territory. No additional numbers of military personnel under Russian control will leave Russian soil. 3.2 Interpretation: No conduct by any other entity shall be used as an excuse for a violation of this commitment, including preparations for self-defence against Russia. 3.3 Enforcement: This shall be enshrined...
05 May Symposium on the UNWCC: Defences and the UNWCC
...finding was exceptional; the only reported example of a successful defence argument in the 15 volumes. In another similar example where self-defence was attempted [Hangobl, vol. 14], involving an airman who had bailed from a faltering plane and found himself in Austrian territory in 1944, and a civilian who was part of the local defence force found him, the defendant reported that on seeing the airman reach towards his jacket, him shot him once as he faced him and once in the back as the airman turned to run away....
03 Jun Non-innocence Under Article 19(2)(a) UNCLOS: A Response to Cavalcanti de Mello Filho
...ICJ did in relation to Israel’s violation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination), when would a vessel transporting military equipment to that State be regarded as complicit or also engaged in the threat or use of force in violation of self-determination? This question, which is not the focus of this piece, is discussed in the legal opinion of ASCOMARE and is independent of the arguments made above. Regardless of what the threshold is or should be for a vessel to be regarded as violating principles of international...26 Feb International Law and China’s Domestic Reform – A Good Mix or Self-Defeating?
...group in particular — Zdenek Mlynar, Jiri Hajek, and Ladislav Hedjanek — seem to have developed the strategy of tying their advocacy directly to the Czechoslovak regime’s adoption of the Helsinki Accords into domestic law. The group called itself Charter 77, and its declaration expressly invoked both the human rights obligations the regime had agreed to as an afterthought, and the right of citizens themselves to monitor compliance with those obligations and report their findings to the world at large. Framing Charter 77 as a supportive response to Czechoslovakia’s adoption...
08 Jul The Sum of Four Fears: African States and the International Criminal Court in Retrospect–Part II
...strategy of soliciting self-referrals and ‘selective, self-serving readings of the Statute’s complementarity provisions’, the Court and its supporters have deliberately sought to abandon the ‘horizontal framework’ contained in the Rome Statute (‘rooted in State consent and deferential to the State’s primacy of action regarding criminal prosecutions’) in favour of a ‘vertical framework [where]… the Court enjoys priority over the national jurisdiction, incorporating notions of superior supra-nationality as an international body and implying a relationship of authority by intervening in the domain of domestic affairs’. Such a shift would be the...
20 Jan The United Nations General Assembly Request to the International Court of Justice for an Advisory Opinion: (Some) Reflections
...life; trust/self-determination; and temporariness. The tests are international humanitarian law (IHL)-based, but they also include non-IHL rules, such as those pertaining to annexation, self-determination, and others. I note that the commission only summarizes its understanding of the test drawn up by Lynk and others, but shifts its focus to two indicators: permanence and annexation. When treated separately, acting contrary to these fundamental tenets would amount to (mostly) singular violations. When grouped together, they are seen as creating an unlawful situation (although for Lynk, the violation of one would seem to...
02 Dec An International Law Analysis of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
...recognizes and seeks to undo differential colonial policies that privileged White economies over those of colonies; equally, PSNR concerns natural resources as a “means of subsistence” for a State and as a potential pathway toward economic freedom and self-sufficiency. Domestic economic growth is a sine qua non for the accrual of power and self-sufficiency in the modern international context, and as such, PSNR shares DNA with principles of self-determination and the right to development. In Resolution 1803 (1962), the General Assembly characterizes PSNR as a “basic constituent of the right...
15 May The Legality of Uganda’s Military Intervention in South Sudan
...(IHRL). In addition, there is also a serious question of whether such an intervention in a civil war is compatible with the principle of self-determination. Intervention by Invitation Intervention by invitation, or ‘military assistance on request’ refers to the deployment of armed forces by one state to the territory of another state upon the latter’s request. The request must reflect the expression of will and the consent of the requesting state (Rhodes Resolution, article 1). Intervention by invitation is generally lawful as a matter of jus ad bellum. Article 2(4)...
24 Aug Reframing Transitional Justice: Introduction to the Symposium
...doing things and one entry point—transitional justice could be reconceived in a more diverse, crisscrossing, and crosscutting fashion. For us, the perched figure exudes anxiousness. It is just so insecure, tattered and fraying, self-sabotaging … and … self-centered but (as is often the case with such characters) just so un-self-aware. We hope instead to think about a calmer and more empathetic transitional justice that, while sensitive, also can guide pacifically rather than prattle nervously. And the beans on the ground—seeds, perhaps dropped by the anxious distracted figure, seeds that fell...
10 Oct Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: A Thought Experiment – What if we Tried to Organise the “Rethinking International Law after Gaza” Conference in the UK?
...The Institutional Framework for Holding Events in the UK The UK prides itself on being an “open society” and academic comment receives a high level of protection in the law. Despite this, the previous government acknowledged that many scholars were self-censoring on a range of topics and that something needed to be done. This was one of the reasons Parliament passed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which, inter alia, created a new statutory tort that would allow students, academics and visiting speakers to bring civil proceedings against...