As Chris notes below, it seems like there will be a showdown soon between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea over the right of freedom of navigation set out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and customary international law. It is tempting to see this as a problem of one side ignoring international law, and the...
Last month, Ashley Deeks claimed that France appeared "to be prepared to invoke the 'unwilling or unable' concept in the Syria context." France did indeed attacks ISIS targets in Syria. And it reported those strikes to the Secretary-General of the UN, claiming self-defence under Art. 51 of the UN Charter as a rationale for violating Syria's sovereignty. But then something funny...
It's been widely reported over the past few days that Russia has been bombing the Free Syrian Army under the pretext of joining the fight against ISIS. That development spurred an interesting post at Lawfare by Bobby Chesney about whether Art. II of the Constitution -- the Commander-in-Chief Clause -- would permit the US to defend the FSA, which it has been...
The UN General Assembly is set to vote once again (for the 24th consecutive year) on a Cuba-sponsored resolution condemning the United States' economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba. This resolution will probably get near majority support, and perhaps even unanimous support. Indeed, there are rumors that the U.S. government itself may abstain from voting against the resolution, which is...
A few days ago, I pointed out that Kate Martin's "broad consensus that there is a right to use military force in self-defense when the host country is unable or unwilling to stop the attack" actually includes no more than four of the world's 194 states. That consensus is not exactly broad -- and it looks even shakier now that Russia...
States whose nationals died in the attack on MH17 were understandably upset when Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have created an ad hoc tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the attack. Their idea to create a treaty-based court, however, is simply not helpful: Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will meet with her counterparts from Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine on...
Yes, the "unwilling or unable" test marches on. The latest step forward is a Just Security blog post by Kate Martin, the Director of the Center for National Security Studies, that cites absolutely nothing in defense of the test other than another scholar who cites almost nothing in defense of the test. Here is what Martin says in the context of the UK's recent drone strikes...
I thank Professors Ackerman and Golove for taking the time to respond to my earlier post on whether a future President could unilaterally withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal. But I remain unconvinced by the claims they made in their original Atlantic essay that a future President's unilateral withdrawal from the Iran Deal would be "lawless". Here's why I still think they...
Professors Bruce Ackerman and David Golove argue in this Atlantic essay that the next President cannot withdraw from the Iran agreement because it is a "congressionally authorized executive agreement." They argue that Senator Marco Rubio's pledge to terminate the Iran Deal on day one "would destroy the binding character of America’s commitments to the IMF, the World Bank, NAFTA, and the World...
Well, this is a tad embarrassing for the British government. A prosecution of a Swedish national for providing support to Syrian rebels fell apart when...
Regular readers might remember a debate here and at Just Security (links here) in which I and a number of others debated whether it was perfidious for Mossad to use a booby-trapped civilian SUV to kill Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah's intelligence chief, in a Damascus suburb. I am pleased to announce that International Law Studies, the official journal of the US Naval War College,...
My colleague Anne Orford has just received -- and deservedly so -- a very significant Australian Laureate Fellowship for a program entitled Civil War, Intervention, and International Law. The program is funded by the Australian Research Council from 2015 to 2020 and will establish an interdisciplinary research team based at Melbourne Law School. Here is a snippet from the description of the program: Professor Orford’s...
