In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Foreign Relations Law

01 Feb

Nothing in the Human Right's Council's report is particularly novel; it's long been obvious that both the settlements and the transfer of Israeli civilians into the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Nevertheless, it's worth noting the report's most important conclusions: 100. The facts brought to the attention of the Mission indicate that the State of Israel has had full control of...

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30 Jan

[Jonathan Hafetz is an Associate Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School] A recent Washington Post story posits that the rendition of terrorism suspects has continued under the Obama administration. While the story fails to describe how renditions have changed since the Bush administration, it highlights several areas of concern. The story focuses on the prosecution of three European men with...

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29 Jan

Michael Lewis claims, in his very interesting post, that "it is fair to say that if Israel’s action in the 1967 war was justified by Article 51 (something that most states, if not most scholars, seem to agree with), then Article 51 'imminence' is broader than Caroline 'imminence'." I don't have time today to address that claim in any detail, but I...

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28 Jan

McClatchy reports that Israel now believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015 or 2016.  That is progress of a sort; Netanyahu had previously been claiming that Iran would have the bomb no later than late summer 2013 -- around six months from now.  But Israel is still insisting that Iran is only two or...

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23 Jan

[John B. Bellinger III is a partner in the international and national security law practices at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, DC and an adjunct senior fellow in international and national security law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as The Legal Adviser for the Department of State from 2005–2009.] Julian invited me to respond to his post...

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22 Jan

The indefatigable Glenn Greenwald has unearthed an even more appalling appropriation of Dr. King by the military -- a Department of Defense news article entitled "King Might Understand Today's Wars, Pentagon Lawyer Says."  The lawyer in question is none other than Jeh Johnson, former DoD General Counsel.  Here is what he says: In the final year of his life, King became...

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22 Jan

I am very rarely rendered speechless, but this appropriation of Martin Luther King by the Air Force Global Strike Command Programming Division (nearly) did the trick: The Department of Defense is a leader in equal opportunity for all patriots seeking to serve this great nation. . . The vigilant warriors in AFGSC understand they are all equal and unified in purpose to...

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22 Jan

As a gauge of the temperature of the American foreign policy establishment, it is hard to do better than the Council on Foreign Relations.  And that uber-establishment organization has recently released a pretty hard-hitting critique of the Administration's drone strike policy.  It is not a knee-jerk attack, but a substantive policy critique, part of which is that existing laws aren't quite...

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22 Jan

Former Bush State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger has a complicated op-ed arguing that the U.S. should be prepared to intervene militarily in Syria, even if its intervention is not strictly legal.  His argument is complicated because he rejects the idea that any intervention in Syria now, even with the agreement of the Syrian Opposition, would violate existing international law. The escalating...

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20 Jan

A few days ago, I criticized Judge Pohl's rejection of al-Nashiri's claim that there was no armed conflict between the US and al-Qaeda at the time of the acts alleged in his indictment — such as the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 – thereby depriving the military commission of jurisdiction over those acts.  Judge Pohl's decision relied almost exclusively...

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16 Jan

Okay, I'm exaggerating.  But only slightly.  As Wells Bennett notes today at Lawfare, Judge Pohl has rejected al-Nashiri's contention that the US and al-Qaeda were not engaged in hostilities (an armed conflict in IHL terms) at the time of the acts alleged in his indictment -- primarily the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 -- thereby depriving the military commission...

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14 Jan

[Peter Margulies is a Professor of Law at the Roger Williams University School of Law focusing on the balance of liberty, equality and security in counter-terrorism, and author of Law's Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration (NYU Press 2010).] The days of Donald Rumsfeld chiding “Old Europe” are gone, but targeted killing has renewed debate on counter-terrorism strategies between the US and...

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