In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Middle East

02 Sep

[Stephanie Carvin is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She is the author of "Prisoners of America's Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo" (Hurst/Columbia 2010) and co-author of the forthcoming "Between Annihilation and Restraint: Law, Science Liberalism and the American Way of Warfare" (Cambridge University Press) with MJ Williams.] I have...

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02 Sep

[Charles Kels is a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. His views do not reflect those of the Department of Homeland Security, Air Force or Defense.] From a U.S. perspective, the core issue with a Syrian intervention is the interplay between international and constitutional law. Specifically, to what extent does satisfying...

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01 Sep

[Marty Lederman is a Professor at Georgetown Law School and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, and an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994-2002. This is the second part of a two-part posting.] In my previous post, I explained that the difficult and unresolved constitutional question has (thankfully) been avoided—at...

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01 Sep

[Marty Lederman is a Professor at Georgetown Law School and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, and an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994-2002] Most of the participants in this Insta-Symposium, and in earlier OJ posts, have understandably focused their attention on the question of whether a U.S. military strike...

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01 Sep

[André Nollkaemper is a Professor of Public International Law and Vice-Dean for Research at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam as well as the External Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands. This contribution is cross-posted at the SHARES Research Project Blog.] States that have decided to potentially engage in military strikes against Syria, or to...

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31 Aug

In a surprise announcement, President Obama announced today that he will seek congressional approval for his plan to launch military strikes against Syria.  This is a smart decision, both politically and legally, since it will force many of his congressional critics to reveal their preferences, and take a position on this very difficult issue.  If they approve the strike, the...

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31 Aug

[John Quigley is the President's Club Professor Emeritus of Law at Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University] It is hard to find a basis for justifying air strikes against Syria. The British Government has said that humanitarian intervention would be a lawful basis. Prime Minister Cameron’s office says that such a doctrine exists in international law, that it has...

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31 Aug

[Ian Hurd is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. This contribution is cross-posted at the Ethics and International Affairs Blog.] The debate sparked by Syria’s chemical weapons attack last week includes at least three separate controversies: 1) which (if any) international legal instruments govern Syria’s use of chemical weapons; 2) whether outside military action against the Syrian regime...

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31 Aug

[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor, NYU Center for Global Affairs, chair of the American Branch of the International Law Association International Criminal Court Committee, and member of the American Bar Association 2010 ICC Task Force] As the U.S. prepares, with or without coalition partners, for a potential military strike against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria , it is important to consider the...

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31 Aug

We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris over the next few days about the ongoing situation in Syria. We also are going to follow in our own footsteps from our Kiobel symposium, by inviting young academics and practitioners to submit guests posts for possible publication. We can’t guarantee we will publish every post submitted, but we...

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30 Aug

Good thing nothing much happened while I was away on summer vacation… So as I wrote here last spring, there’s no clear basis under international law for a U.S. use of force in Syria – no UN Security Council resolution, and no apparent claim at this stage that the United States is acting in self-defense. The only theory of legality in play seems to be the one put forward by the British government, right before Parliament voted to reject the use of force in Syria. Namely, that force may be justified as part of an emergent customary norm permitting humanitarian intervention (see, e.g., NATO intervention in Kosovo). The statement from the UK Prime Minister’s Office says a state may take “exceptional measures in order to alleviate the scale of the overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe in Syria by deterring and disrupting the further use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. Such a legal basis is available, under the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, provided” a set of conditions hold. Those conditions: (1) “convincing evidence, generally accepted by the international community as a whole, of extreme humanitarian distress on a large scale, requiring immediate and urgent relief;” (2) it is “objectively clear that there is no practicable alternative to the use of force if lives are to be saved;” (3) the force used is “necessary and proportionate to the aim of relief of humanitarian need…” But it just can’t support U.S. action here. Here’s why.
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29 Aug

It might be premature to declare the death of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention under international law, but there is no doubt that doctrine suffered a massive blow when the British Parliament voted against a preliminary motion in favor of military strikes on Syria.  To be sure, humanitarian intervention was not directly before the Parliament, but the UK government's international...

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