Search: self-defense
09 Mar Free Speech Curtailed Based on Government Security Interests
...significance of the government interest bears an inverse relationship to the rigor of the narrowly tailored analysis. In this case, there can be no doubt that the City’s interest in providing security to a gathering of defense officials is of the highest order. We also cannot ignore the fact that the City’s chosen method of providing security was part of a security protocol that was created by Department of Defense officials, NATO personnel, and various international defense agencies. Courts have historically given special deference to other branches in matters relating...14 Jun What do Appropriate Due Diligence Measures for Nonstate and Substate Partners Look Like? Part II: A Sample of US Practice in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan
...basis. The below case studies will also not get into an analysis of the degree of state responsibility or obligation that might be inferred based on the degree of US support to, or control or direction over, the groups in question. In addition, it is worth noting that the ODI-GPPi study itself is not purely focused on legal risks; it also considers how such mechanisms attempted to address other policy commitments, for example, to mitigate security risks or diplomatic consequences surrounding these forces. However, a substantial focus of many of...02 Mar YJIL Online Symposium: Response to Matthew Waxman
...to substantive IHL norms. My intuition follows the domestic criminal law framework of recognizing some defenses to criminal liability, which may apply to all or some specific offenses, but are kept separately from the definition of these offenses. This separation operates to safeguard the integrity of the law, leaving room for forgiveness in the particular exceptional instance in which an otherwise-condemnable act may be warranted. Of course, from a realist perspective, the ex post necessity defense functions much like an ex ante authorization. I was especially intrigued by Professor Waxman’s...
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.”...
17 Jun Unraveling Universal Civil Jurisdiction: A Novel Ground for Global Justice?
...of claims under that Act. However, this does not invariably hold true. In several instances, US courts have maintained the stance of immunity defense, notably in the lawsuit filed against Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Minister of Defense for Israel, in relation to the ‘Gaza Freedom Flotilla’ incident. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the action, citing that Barak was entitled to foreign official immunity. This decision was based on the grounds that his acts were performed in his official capacity, the sovereign government of Israel...04 Jan Padilla versus Yoo
...bar. Non liquet Oops, I didn't even notice that Scott Horton made that point already on his blog at Harper's yesterday! Just Dropping By I suspect, for example, Yoo will argue immunity and get a government-funded lawyer in his defense (although he may well spend some money to retain his own counsel and maybe those costs could add up). Actually, I suspect that even if the government doesn't provide a lawyer, Yoo won't have to pay a penny because many of the same people who paid Scooter Libby's defense bills...