Search: self-defense
02 Nov The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and Contemporary International Criminal Law
...Mental Element of the Crime of Aggression and Mistake of Law One of the striking features of the Rome Statute is its criminal law “general part”, by far the most comprehensive of its kind ever found in a treaty. This includes, in Article 30, a default rule as to the “mental element” applicable to the “material elements” of the crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court. “Unless otherwise provided” (and the Statute is, itself, thin on “otherwise providing”), there must be “intent and knowledge” in respect of the material elements....15 Jun Four Russian Soldiers Convicted of Killing Chechen Civilians
...tribunals, Article 42 of the new Russian Criminal Code does not limit the defense of superior orders to orders that were not “manifestly unlawful” — orders whose illegality a reasonable soldier would have recognized. On the contrary, a soldier is entitled to the defense under Article 42 as long as he did not actually know that the order was unlawful, a much higher standard: 1. There shall not be deemed to be a crime the causing of harm to the interests protected by the criminal law by a person acting...
01 Apr Justice in Extreme Cases Symposium: The Harms of the Derelict Commander
[Saira Mohamed is Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law.] Darryl Robinson’s Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory Meets International Criminal Law offers a detailed and convincing argument for a mutually beneficial relationship between international criminal law and criminal law theory: just as criminal law theory can clarify and improve international criminal law, international criminal law can clarify and improve criminal law theory. Based in part on earlier published work, the book offers much to dig into, from a defense of deontic reasoning in international criminal...
30 Mar The Iranian School Strike: Excusable? A Violation? A War Crime?
...out. Second, there are indications that artificial intelligence (AI) played a role in the designation of the school as a military objective. If so, what does that tell us about the wisdom of outsourcing life and death decisions to a machine? That issue is at the heart of the Trump administration’s present dispute with Anthropic and its AI chatbot, Claude. It may be argued that machines are less fallible than humans. There is evidence, for example, that humans cause more accidents, per capita, than do self-driving cars. This analogy is,...
23 Aug There is no Palestinian Private Property That Stands Before the Will
on the agenda, and therefore the “proprietary” mechanism that allows the taking (without compensation) of private Palestinian land for Israeli settlements was recognized, as requested by the Minister of Defense and Israel’s Attorney General (AG). The Rehearing of the Saliha Case Following the original decision, the Minister of Defense and the AG requested special permission for a rehearing before an extended panel of justices of the Supreme Court. They were troubled with the bottom line of the judgment – the need to vacate the outpost. The AG believed that the...24 Aug ‘Makers of Military Drones Take Off’:
So says the headline of a WSJ news article today (Monday, August 24, 2009, B1, by August Cole), noting that unmanned aircraft – drones such as the Predator to us civilians, although the Pentagon seems to prefer UMV – are transforming not just the military, strategic as well as tactical considerations, but defense contracting. (PopSci ran a story a little while ago on the training of UMV pilots as well.) The WSJ article notes that the administration’s fiscal 2010 defense budget request “includes approximately $3.5 billion for unmanned aerial vehicles.”...10 Apr If Only the Gitmo Detainees Could Hold a Tea Party (Updated)
...and have the other side drop useful evidence in your lap, as might happen in a criminal case. In the cited article, the exculpatory evidence was acquired by a defense attorney in a previous criminal case that was supposed to be presented to a Military Commission. That was a criminal case, and the government fulfilled its obligation to the defense. The judge may order the government to turn over to the petitioner information that might prove favorable to that side. That might be similar to Brady material, but it would...