As Ken noted, it was my birthday when I started my blogging stint here, and as I wind down my stint here, I''ll observe another birthday. In a few weeks it will be the first anniversary of the Russo-Georgian war, which saw Russia conquere Georgian territory and cement its control on those parts of Georgia it already occupied. I trust...
Nothing in the Geneva Conventions suggests the remedy for Art. 49(6) transfers is the deportation of the transferred population. In response to my earlier posts, Kevin, Marko and other commenters argued that since the creation of settlements was illegal, the remedy is their undoing, a return to status quo ante. In a discussion with Marko in my previous post,...
The international insistence on banning natural growth in Israeli settlements is ironic because it is this population that is most clearly legal under the Geneva Convention. After all, babies are born, not “transferred.” The discussion must begin with the text of the Fourth Geneva Convention. We will assume that the Convention applies to the West Bank (the Art. 2 issue), that...
I thank Kevin for his extensive and thoughtful response to my post. You touched on many issues which I hope to address systematically in subsequent posts, such as the illegality of the settlers presence. I'm going to try to avoid getting into those issues right now, since this post (like yours before it) is already quite long. I apologize in...
The U.S. and Europe have been vigorously insisting that Israel stop all "settlement growth," including "natural growth." There has been some question as to what those terms mean. In a June 16 press briefing, Sen. George Mitchell said that Israel must stop “natural growth” in settlements, and specified that he means “births” as well. Here is the State Department's transcript...
I would like to thank the Opinio Jurists for having me on board for this short blogging stint. I've previously written here about piracy and universal jurisdiction. There is something about the vestigial romance of piracy that makes people enjoy talking about it. It is a fun topic. This time around I'll be writing more about a topic that people certainly...
[Opinio Juris is pleased to present this essay by Professor Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern Law School on the relationship between international law and anti-piracy efforts. Please be sure to click "continue reading" to read the whole essay.] The successful ransom by Somali pirates of a Ukrainian freighter laden with arms and armor is indicative of the broader failure of the...
Not a good week for U.N. peacekeepers. A confidential U.N. report described in this Washington Post story concludes that Pakistani peacekeepers in Congo have been helping steal that country's gold. According to the U.N., the blue helmets only helped local plunderers, while Human Rights Watch says they were directly involved in the looting. But that seems virtually harmless compared to...
One of the most fundamental norms in international law is that a state cannot acquire territory through the use of force. This is understood to be an implication of the U.N. Charter’s ban on force in Art. 2(4): if war is illegal, then benefiting from it should also be illegal. Few major norms are as widely agreed on. Indeed, many...
Speaking of releasing prisoners (see my post below)… a terrorist formerly held at Guantanamo bay died in a gunfight with Pakistani soldiers this week. He blew himself up rather than be captured, suggesting he had valuable intelligence to hide. The gentleman was released from Gitmo a few years ago. He immediately rejoined the jihad, terrorizing the Afghan-Pakistan border area. Notable...
Many international lawyers, particularly those involved in human rights, maintain that for certain serious international crimes, amnesty, exile, plea bargains and other forms of negotiated justice are impermissible. This is so even when the alternative to amnesty be the perpetuation of a murderous regime, or end a bloody civil war. In this view – I think the dominant one –...
