Search: self-defense
25 Oct Due Process in Targeting
Jordan "[L]ethal" and "deliberate" targeting can occur many times per hour in the theatre during an international armed conflict or an armed conflict not of an international character. Obama's preference for "near certainty" with respect merely to "drone" targeting is not a requirement under the international laws of war or self-defense. Although the U.S. Constitution should apply with respect to everything the Executive does here or abroad, the question shifts to what does the Constitution require when force is used lawfully under the international laws of war and/or self-defense. For...04 Sep Who Knew Al-Qassam Was the Most Moral Army in the World?
...have been delegitimized by those who seem to deny Israel's right to self defense. The British Colonel clearly puts these false and exagerated claims into context by comparing the IDF's performance against other armies of the World. He even uses the UK and US, who have undertaken similar operations in populated areas against terrorist militants, as an example. Have the UK or the US been the recipient of such an outcry by so called "legal experts" etc as the IDF/Israel? Funny that they both killed a larger number of civilians...29 Jul Military Commissions Moving Ahead
Cross-posted at Balkinization UPDATE: Thanks to “Anon” in comments for sending along a link to the engrossed text of the military commissions bill passed by the Senate last week. I really hate to interrupt this great discussion about Kal’s even greater book, and hope to get into it myself before week’s out. In the meantime, I thought it worth noting that while most of Congress was focusing on health care, the Senate quietly succeeded late last week in passing its version of the defense authorization bill (S. 1390) containing a...17 Dec Steve Vladeck on WikiLeaks
Steve testified yesterday about WikiLeaks in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Here is a snippet of his testimony, which discussed five major flaws in the Espionage Act: Second, the Espionage Act does not focus solely on the initial party who wrongfully discloses national defense information, but applies, in its terms, to anyone who knowingly disseminates, distributes, or even retains national defense information without immediately returning the material to the government officer authorized to possess it. In other words, the text of the Act draws no distinction between the leaker,...20 Mar “In a World Where Arms Merchant Videos are Bad, They Dared to Make the Worst…”
Indian defense ministry’s annual air show. Do you: (a) buy expensive gifts for New Delhi’s generals; (b) treat the press to Kingfishers and samosas; (c) produce a Bollywood-esque video featuring bare-midriff girls, flower-draped missiles, and the catch phrase “dinga dinga dee?” Unfortunately for us, Israeli arms-maker Rafael chose C. Which means we may have just found the most atrocious defense video of all time… I don’t know if there’s a real substantive point here. Who am I fooling? I don’t have a substantive point here. Just check out the video....30 Nov Do IHT Death Sentences Have to Be Ratified — And If So, by Whom?
...— Saddam’s former Defense Minister — secretly assisted Kurdish efforts to overthrow Saddam: “Personally, I will not support executing Sultan Hashim,” he said at a news conference in Sulaimaniyah, a city in the autonomous Kurdish region 160 miles northeast of Baghdad. “If the court will carry out its verdicts without referring them to the presidency council that is something else,” he said. “But if they will refer them, then we will register reservations these verdicts.” He said the reservations would include executing former Iraqi army officers because many of them...19 Jan Morison on the Relationship Between the ATS and MCA
Samuel Morison, Appellate Defense Counsel with the Office of the Chief Defense Counsel, Department of Defense, has posted a superb new esssay on SSRN entitled “Accepting Sosa‘s Invitation: Did Congress Expand the Subject Matter Jurisdiction of the ATS in the Military Commissions Act?” Here is the abstract: The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) provides a federal forum for aliens to seek tort damages for certain violations of customary international law, including war crimes. In Sosa, the Supreme Court admonished the lower courts to exercise caution when creating new causes of action...
01 Nov Third Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Judgment at Nuremberg – Capturing the Complexities of Mass Atrocity Trials on Film
...Judy Garland), in violation of Nazi racial purity laws. When the prosecutor (played by Richard Widmark) introduces the footage of the Nazi death camps, it prompts an emotional and eloquent objection from Janning’s defense counsel (played by Maximillian Schell, who won a best actor Oscar for his performance). Janning accuses the prosecution of trying to implicate Janning—and by necessity, the German people as a whole—in the full horrors of the Holocaust without any evidence connecting them to the mass exterminations. That the film gives such an important role to defense...03 Dec Why the Benefits of WikiLeaks Far Outweigh Its Dangers
...diplomats may respond to WikiLeaks’ disclosures by self-censoring and by avoiding written communications. But it is difficult to believe that WikiLeaks will have any significant or lasting effect on the US’s ability to engage in diplomacy with friendly or unfriendly governments; after all, this is hardly the first time in U.S. history that diplomatic secrets have been disclosed. Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense, said it best a couple of days ago: Let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government...