Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

[Immi Tallgren is docent of international law at the University of Helsinki, researching ICL, the history of international law and feminism. Her latest publication is Portraits of Women in International Law: New Names and Forgotten Faces (OUP 2023). ] I was thrilled to be invited to this symposium on Gerry Simpson’s The Sentimental Life of International Law (2022). My thrill soon turned to Angst. How to engage with a book like this, to live up to its dazzlingly fluid and distinctive style, its ‘mixology-of-several-disciplines-on-ice’ methodology, and its charismatic author, an...

to prosecute both states and state officials, all of which were non-starters. In the 1930s, they retooled these failed proposals to help create a criminal court that would allow states to prosecute alleged terrorists. (For more on this, see Mark Lewis’ recently published book, The Birth of the New Justice: The Internationalization of Crime and Punishment 1919-1950.) That case illustrates that failed proposals can serve as unexpected bridges not only between the global and regional levels, but also between different legal agendas—for instance, ensuring state accountability and bolstering state security....

[Julie Bardèche is a French lawyer and a legal advisor at REDRESS , an NGO that pursues legal claims on behalf of survivors of torture in the UK and around the world to obtain justice and reparation for the violation of their human rights.] The author represented REDRESS at the Diplomatic Conference that led to the adoption of the Ljubljana-The Hague Convention. The right of victims of core international crimes to an effective remedy and to reparation is well-established both in international human rights and humanitarian law. In essence, a...

[ William Schabas is a Professor of international law at Middlesex University London and Professor of international criminal law and human rights at Leiden University. Have a look at Justice in Conflict for a symposium post from Douglas Guilfoyle.] Article 42(3) of the Rome Statute specifies that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court shall ‘be highly competent in and have extensive practical experience in the prosecution or trial of criminal cases’. Perusal of the travaux préparatoires suggests that this was a manifestation of some of the over-engineering of the...

[Jean Galbraith is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School] One mechanism through which international law regulates the behavior of states and other actors is deadlines. Although little studied, deadlines appear throughout international law, especially in treaty regimes. Drawing on a future book chapter, in this post I describe some of the roles played by deadlines in international law. I also consider what insights research on the use of deadlines in domestic contexts might have for good and bad ways to use deadlines in international law. Uses...

Over the coming five days, we are happy to host a book symposium on Boyd van Dijk’s new book, Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions, published by Oxford University Press. In addition to comments from van Dijk himself, we have the honor to hear from this list of renowned scholars and practitioners: Eyal Benvenisti, Andrew Clapham, Doreen Lustig, Katharine Fortin, Karin Loevy and Alonso Gurmendi. From the publisher: “The 1949 Geneva Conventions are the most important rules for armed conflict ever formulated. To this day they continue...

This week it is our pleasure to host a symposium on Professor Ruti Teitel’s article Transitional Justice and Judicial Activism: A Right to Accountability? (.pdf). After an initial post by Professor Tetitel, we will have comments by Dinah PoKempner of Human Rights Watch, Professor Cesare Romano of Loyola, and Professor Chandra Sriram of the University of East London. We are looking forward to the discussion!...

This week, we are hosting another book symposium on Opinio Juris. This time, we feature a discussion of William Boothby’s new book, New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace, published by Cambridge University Press. In addition to comments from William himself, we have the honor to hear from a list of renowned scholars and practitioners: Kobi Leins, Robert McLaughlin, Melissa de Zwart, Alejandro Chehtman, Rain Liivoja, Markus Wagner, Cassandra Steer, Rasha Abdul Rahim and Opinio Juris’ own Emeritus contributor, Chris Borgen. From the publisher: Policymakers, legislators, scientists, thinkers,...

book sets out an ambitious agenda – covering the role of new technologies not only in times of armed conflict, but also in civilian contexts. The underlying idea is explained in the book’s preface, namely to provide an inquiry into whether lessons can be learned in either realm for the other by examining modern technologies in these two quite different contexts. The editor realizes that a “blueprint that is capable of general application in all contexts” is too ambitious, but strives to nevertheless provide readers with “the relevant facts, rules and...

...for an internationally wrongful act. In response, some have proposed stretching the law of superior/command responsibility to criminalize negligence by commanders, procurers, and others involved in the design and deployment of AI-enabled weapon systems, but this is a misguided and insufficient response. (Misguided because it threatens to further delegitimize international criminal law, insufficient because it would still not address all unintended civilian harms.) When civilians suffer the horrific consequences of armed conflict, they deserve redress. But neither international criminal law nor state responsibility provides any form of remedy when civilian...

Albany Law Review sponsored a symposium today on the topic of “Outsourcing Authority: Citation to Foreign Court Precedent in Domestic Jurisprudence.” It included a number of speakers, including Ken Kersch, Susan Karamanian, John McGinnis, John Baker, Mark Tushnet and yours truly. Wonderful debate about Roper v. Simmons, Lawrence v. Texas, Charming Betsy and the general trend toward citation of foreign and international authority. The most revealing comment came from Mark Tushnet on the subject of constitutional comparativism. He said, “If contemporary U.S. liberals have gotten off the rails they should...

[William Boothby is an Adjunct Professor of Law at La Trobe University, Melbourne. This post is part of our New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace Symposium.] That the pace of technological advance has quickened markedly in recent years is well recognised.  That the law struggles to keep up is frequently pointed out.  Rather than wring one’s hands and blame whose responsibility it is to make the law, it is interesting in a more positive sense to look at the initiatives that are under way or that seem...