In association with the International Commission of Jurists

National Security Law

18 Mar

Last week, the U.S. Senate held confirmation hearings for Vice-Admiral Michael S. Rogers to replace General Keith Alexander as head of U.S. Cyber Command.  It's interesting to see how both men received almost identical written questions in their respective 2014 and 2010 hearings.  More interesting perhaps are the similarities and variations in their responses with respect to how international law operates...

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06 Mar

I am looking forward to the contributions to our "insta-symposium" on Ukraine and international law. I don't have a tremendous amount to add at this point, except to point out that President Obama has been aggressive about accusing Russia of violating international law and about the importance of international law generally.  This has gone beyond merely charging Russia with violation...

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03 Mar

[I ended my previous post stating that I would next consider the options available to Russia, Ukraine, the EU, and the U.S. But then this conversation started… I’ll come back to the “next steps” question in a following post.] Julian, Eric Posner, and others look to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and its takeover of Crimea and see the limits of international...

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02 Mar

Saturday began with reports that Russia had seemingly used private security contractors to take control of the airport in Simferopol, Crimea. Then reports (like this one from CNN) of President Putin requesting from Russia’s Parliament an authorization to use military force in Ukraine because of “threats to the lives of Russian citizens and Russian military personnel based in the southern...

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24 Feb

Reprieve, the excellent British human-rights organisation, has submitted a communication to the ICC asking it to investigate NATO personnel involved in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Here is Reprieve's press release: Drone victims are today lodging a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing NATO member states of war crimes over their role in facilitating the US’s covert drone programme in Pakistan. It...

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20 Feb

The BBC is reporting that dozens of people have died today in new fighting between police and protestors in Ukraine.  For a background to what is underlying the protests, see these posts concerning the struggle over the norms that will define Ukraine,  how Ukraine's domestic disputes interact with Russian and European regional strategies, and the significance of the eastward spread...

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07 Feb

It's an excellent post, well worth reading in its entirety. I just want to flag two particularly important points. The first concerns whether, in light of Šainović, Perišić can really be considered fundamentally flawed. Schabas compellingly argues no: But the Prosecutor is not claiming that any ‘new fact’ has been discovered. Rather, the Prosecutor is arguing that the law has changed as...

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03 Feb

President Obama has issued the following memorandum concerning US participation in the UN's Mali stabilisation mission: By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and consistent with section 2005 of the American Servicemembers' Protection Act of 2002 (22 U.S.C. 7424), concerning the participation of members of the Armed Forces...

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23 Jan

All Things Considered ran an interview this past Monday with Alex Fowler, the chief privacy officer of Mozilla (developer of the Firefox web browser), stemming from a blog post Fowler had written critiquing President Obama’s speech last week concerning NSA activities. When asked about the “most glaring reform needs” that were not addressed in the President’s speech, Fowler said: right now,...

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22 Jan

Jess Bravin has an interesting report out in Thursday's WSJ (subscrip. req'd)  detailing U.S., UK, and EU support (and funding) for a team of investigators to gather evidence of war crimes by Syrian government and military officials. For nearly two years, dozens of investigators funded by the U.S. and its allies have been infiltrating Syria to collect evidence of suspected war crimes, sometimes...

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