Last month, Just Security published a long and thoughtful post by Rebecca Ingber with the provocative title "International Law is Failing Us in Syria." The international law she is talking about is the jus ad bellum -- the illegality of unilateral humanitarian intervention (UHI) in particular. In her view, the failure of the international community to use force to end the...
AJIL Unbound has just posted the contributions to a symposium entitled "Revisiting Israel's Settlements." The contributors are all superb: Eyal Benvenisti, Pnina Sharvit Baruch, David Kretzmer, Adam Roberts, Omar M. Dajani, and Yaël Ronen. The true highlight, though, is the essay that accompanies the symposium and will be published in the next issue of the American Journal of International Law: Theodor Meron's...
Last week, Asaf Lubin offered a compelling post at Just Security wondering why Israel's repeated attacks on Hezbollah arms shipments in Syria have not received the same kind of jus ad bellum scrutiny as the US's recent attack on a Syrian airfield. Today, Charles Dunlap provides his answer on the same blog: the Israeli attacks are clearly legal, so why would anyone...
I had the great honour last week of giving a presentation to ICC member-states about Art. 15bis and Art. 15ter of the aggression amendments -- the conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction. The presentation was sponsored by the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) and organised by Austria, part of a series of presentations designed to prepare delegations to participate in the...
Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce: Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recalled the scene at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, when the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was interrupted by the strike on Syria. “Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him,...
I read Jennifer Trahan's post yesterday with great interest -- but not surprisingly I disagree with it. Before I get to my disagreements, though, I think it's bizarre that we are all debating the legality of unilateral humanitarian intervention in the context of the recent US missile attack on Syria. It simply beggars belief to think that the attack was in any way motivated...
On Monday, my friend Beth van Schaack posted an excellent analysis at Just Security of the Syria War Crimes Accountability Act of 2017, a bipartisan Senate bill "[t]o require a report on, and to authorize technical assistance for, accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Syria." Beth summarises the most important aspects of the bill; in this...
The Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review has just published a special issue on the Nuremberg trials. It contains many excellent contributions, including articles by Hilary Earl, David Fraser, Greg Gordon, and Jonathan Bush. I have also contributed a short chapter, entitled "Taking a Consenting Part: The Lost Mode of Participation," which discusses a mode of participation developed by the NMTs...
Today, April 4, is the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is also the 50th anniversary of his speech "Beyond Vietnam," delivered at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. I wrote a piece about Dr. King and international law over a decade ago on Opinio Juris. I thought it would be...
In September 2011, Alexander Blackman, a Sergeant in the Royal Marines serving in Afghanistan, executed a Taliban fighter who had been incapacitated by his wounds.This was no spur-of-the-moment killing, as video recovered one year later makes clear. Here is the Court Martial's summary of Blackman's actions, as shown on the video: [The insurgent] had been seriously wounded having been engaged lawfully by an Apache helicopter...
Over the past couple of years, a number of scholars -- including me -- have debated whether IHL implicitly authorises detention in non-international armed conflict (NIAC.) The latest important intervention in the debate comes courtesy of Daragh Murray in the Leiden Journal of International Law. As the article's abstract makes clear, Murray is firmly in the "IHL authorises" camp: On the basis of...
Last week, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) sent shockwaves through the international community by issuing a report that -- for the first time in UN history -- claims Israel's treatment of Palestinians amounts to the crime of apartheid. Here is ESCWA's description of the report, entitled “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,"...
