Readers are invited to comment on Harold Koh's post on the legality of the Bin Laden operation. As always, we expect and anticipate that all comments will be substantive, responsive, and civil. The permanent contributors will moderate any comments that depart from this norm....
As discussions over the legality of the May 1 killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. forces heated up and international law and law of war experts provided a range of potential arguments for and against the lawfulness of U.S. action, we thought it would help public discussion to present the official U.S. position on the legal dimensions of the...
Jean d’Aspremont’s supremely kind comments on my article require little response other than an expression of appreciation. Jean’s knowledge in this field is second to none, and the differences in our perceptions of these topics are minute. But it is, perhaps, worth clarifying my position on the recognition of coup regimes and the question of a democratic entitlement in international...
[Jean d’Aspremont is Associate Professor of International Law and Senior Research Fellow of the Amsterdam Center for International Law at the University of Amsterdam] Brad Roth’s timely and insightful article entitled ‘Secessions, Coups and the International Rule of Law: Assessing the Decline of the Effective Control Doctrine’ published in the Melbourne Journal of International Law deserves the greatest attention. Twelve years...
[Brad Roth is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Law at Wayne State University] The effective control doctrine that, in different forms, has governed the recognition of states and governments is unappealing at its core. Based on the principle of non-interference in civil strife within established international borders, the doctrine’s essential logic is that, with regard to internal efforts to...
Many thanks to Duncan for his great post on Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s (DSK) potential immunity, and for inviting me to follow up. My short answer: status-based immunity (often referred to as “diplomatic immunity”) is not available. Conduct-based immunity (also called “official acts” or “functional” immunity) is not available either. Here’s why. The only type of immunity that would benefit DSK would be...
Can arguments for preemptive self defence under international law be regarded as a mirroring of feminist arguments for justified self-defence in cases of homicide by individuals who have experienced long-term domestic violence? This is one of the questions Dianne Otto raises in response to my MJIL article, ‘Feminist Reflections on the ‘End’ of the War on Terror’. In the article...
[Dianne Otto is a Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne, where she directs the programme on International Human Rights Law] Two of the challenging questions that Gina Heathcote asks in her wonderfully provocative article are: What is a ‘feminist’ approach to the regulation of the ‘use of force’ in international law? What light is thrown onto this question by...
[Gina Heathcote is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies] In my 2010 article in the Melbourne Journal of International Law (‘MJIL’), I explore two issues within a larger discussion of the impact of the war on terror on feminist scholarship in the international arena. The first issue is the role of feminist approaches in contemporary...
As a general matter, we agree with Professor Weber’s comments, especially in relation to development and climate change. While we have not in this article focused on developmental aspects of the global financial architecture, in fact, we both view this as the fundamental goal.[1] Development however is not a simple objective and no single set of solutions to the development...
[Rolf H Weber is a Professor for Civil, Commercial and European Law at the University of Zurich Law School and a visiting Professor at the University of Hong Kong] The contribution of Professor Douglas W Arner and Professor Ross P Buckley is an important piece to the lively debate about the (new) architecture of the global financial system. The exposé is...
[Douglas P Arner is Director of the Asian Institute of International Financial Law, Director of the Duke–HKU Asia–America Institute in Transnational Law and a Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Ross P Buckley is a Professor of International Finance Law at the University of New South Wales and a Fellow of the Asian Institute of International Financial...
