I haven't had enough time to blog about Philip Alston's excellent report on drone warfare, but interested readers should check out today's conversation between Scott Horton and Alston at Harpers.com. Here's a taste of one of Alston's answers: Of course, calling something a war crime doesn’t make it so–the question is whether it is recognized as such under international ...
A few days ago, I recorded a conversation for Bloggingheads.tv with Mark Leon Goldberg of the invaluable UN Dispatch. It was a wide ranging discussion -- and long, 45 minutes -- covering everything from the Gaza blockade to the definition of aggression to drone attacks. Something tells me, though, that the only thing people will remember is my description of...
I know Ken's busy finishing his book and can't yet reply to Marko's remarkable post. (And personal congrats, Marko, on the lectureship. Nottingham is lucky to have you!) When he does, I hope he'll address the criminal-law aspects of his belief that self-defense justifies targeted killings outside of armed conflict. I have two scenarios in mind, borrowed and adapted from...
Despite the increasingly desperate nature of the attacks on Judge Goldstone, I never thought an academic institution would give in to the hysteria: In response to an enquiry by the Alternative Information Center (AIC) about its reported removal of Judge Richard Goldstone from the Board of Governors, Hebrew University of Jerusalem responded by email that: "The Hebrew University of Jerusalem...
This would be amusing, were the Obama administration not backing Israel's insistence that any investigation into the attack on the flotilla be conducted (read: whitewashed) by Israel itself: When placed under journalistic scrutiny, the IDF is being forced to admit that its claims about the flotilla’s links to international terror are based on innuendo, not facts. On June...
I'm not about to get into a debate over whether there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza; you either think there is or you don't, and facts won't matter. So I thought I would simply post the following chart from that notorious left-wing propaganda outlet The Economist and let readers judge for themselves whether the blockade is designed solely to...
In addition to saying kind things about me, which I appreciate, Julian noted in his earlier post that Eric Posner has an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal that uses Lincoln's blockade of the Confederate States of America (CSA) to defend the legality of Israel's blockade of Gaza. I find the editorial very unconvincing, for two reasons. First, it provides...
I know that will sound like a provocative question, but it's not meant to be. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel justifies its interdiction of the "Freedom Flotilla" by reference to Article 67(a) of the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflict at Sea, which permits the attack of neutral merchant vessels that "are believed on reasonable...
Julian beat me to the punch regarding the news that Peter Erlinder, the William Mitchell law professor who is one of the leading defense attorneys at the ICTR, has been arrested in Rwanda for "genocide denial" -- code for "criticizing the Kagame government." There is no need to waste time criticizing the arrest; anyone who follows Rwanda knows that Kagame...
My friend and colleague Gerry Simpson has, along with other international-law luminaries, just published an open letter in The Guardian defending Judge Garzon's actions. Here it is (emphasis mine): As teachers and practitioners of international law we note that the validity and effect of an amnesty granted by national law in respect of international crimes has been addressed by ...
Winning Afghani hearts and minds, one dead civilian at a time: In the civilian deaths case, attack helicopters fired missiles and rockets into the convoy on a main road near Khod village, where U.S. Special Forces and Afghan troops were battling militants at the time, a summary of the investigation said. Commanders judged that the convoy contained...
I do have a question for Ken. As his post indicates, he believes that the US's right to "self-defense" justifies drone strikes against designated terrorists outside of armed conflict -- strikes that are governed by human-rights law, not international humanitarian law. Indeed, he writes that "if one takes the US’s independent self-defense view, then curiously, the CIA is on...
