Search: self-defense

19 May Guest Post: Official Act Immunity – Getting the Answers Right

...immunity is a substantive defense, then there is indeed a tension between the attribution point and the 2001 Draft Articles on State Responsibility, article 58 of which expressly states that its rules on attribution are “without prejudice to any question of the individual responsibility under international law of any person acting on behalf of a State.” If immunity is a procedural defense, however, one that does not go at all to individual responsibility but instead to available fora, then the purported tension – or what Bill calls a flat contradiction...

16 May Can Richard Goldstone Be Barred from U.S.?

...by one belligerent does not free the other belligerent from those laws. What was Israel supposed to do? Only launch proportionate attacks or rely on less indiscriminate methods of self-defense. B A Dear Kevin, You state Israel was supposed to (a) either launch proportionate attacks or (b) rely on less indiscriminate methods of self-defense. What proportionate responses were available? I think the Israelis were already proportionate inasmuch as they did not counter attack immediately but waited months for "international pressure" to work to get Hamas to stop firing rockets. How...

20 Jun “I Don’t Love My Country”

...dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that...

01 Sep UN Report Finds Israeli Blockade Legal (But Raid on Flotilla Excessive)

...way they did was one basic and crucial rationale: "This takes foremost into account Israel's right to self-defense against armed attacks from outside its territory". That is it. That is the sole justification of the blockade. Israel's right to defend itself. The fact that a very notable manual was written or that tradition has it that naval blockades were only imposed in IACs does not change this truth. The truth is that we should not force states to fight terror with one hand tied behind their backs. The fact that...

06 Sep We Still Don’t Know Where the CIA’s Public Authority Comes From

to engage in permissible measures of self-defense, as even noted in the preamble to the AUMF! The President's authority is based in his/her obligation to faithfully execute the "Laws," which include international law as part of the laws of the United States (which, in turn, include the international law of self-defense). Members of the CIA can be acting on behalf of the Executive and the United States and carry out lawful measures of self-defense under international law. Such lawful measures would not be "unlawful" killings or murder. jens David Ohlin...

31 Aug ACLU Sues Obama Administration Over Targeted Killings of U.S. Citizens

M. Gross Isn't there a gigantic standing issue with this suit? Jordan Response... For a view that the self-defense paradigm is different than both the mere law enforcement and the mere law of war paradigms and a view that targeted killings in self-defense can be permissible under international law (which, if so, can enhance presidential power, since the President has the constitutionally-based authority, and duty, faithfully to execute the law, which law includes treaty-based and customary international law), see http://ssrn.com/abstract=1520717 Jordan Bemused Response... Bemused " Isn’t there a gigantic standing...

22 Apr Have Laptop, Will Defend

P.S. O'Donnell I wonder if there is any significant difference in the "inequality of arms that exists between the prosecution and defense at the international tribunals" and the selfsame inequality which exists in the U.S. See, for instance, Angela J. Davis, Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Una Grim LOLz. The ICTR intern horror stories never cease. Una Oh, but apparently the computers provided for everyone who doesn't work for the Defense are old and constantly breaking down....

20 May The Rehabilitation of John Yoo?

The June 2008 issue of Esquire magazine has a feature piece on John Yoo by John H. Richardson, plus an on-line transcript of part of Richardson’s interview and an autobiographical sketch by Yoo himself. Although framed as a cautionary tale, the article clearly seeks to humanize Yoo. The reader gets a view of Yoo the professor, questioning students on what “war” is in an elegant blue suit offset by a shiny tie (sorry, unlike many Esquire articles there’s no brand name given or price tag). We learn about his personal...

10 Oct How to Get Quirin Right When Quirin Was Wrong

On Monday, the defense in the Al Bahlul case filed their reply brief. The case is important because it squarely presents the issue that was left hanging after Hamdan, i.e. whether the military commissions have jurisdiction to try inchoate conspiracy. It also raises the far deeper question of whether the jurisdiction of the military commissions is limited to offenses against the law of nations (the international law of war), or whether the military commission’s jurisdiction to try law of war offenses includes domestic offenses as well. The government has repeatedly...

26 Apr Russia “Suspends” Participation in Conventional Forces Treaty

Maybe Duncan or others can help me out here, but how exactly can Russia legally “suspend” its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, as the Washington Post reports today? Russia is unhappy about the planned deployment of a limited NATO missile defense system in Europe. Under the treaty’s Article XIX, the Treaty is of “unlimited duration”. Russia has “the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.” Under Article 57...