Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
24 Apr Kiobel Insta-Symposium: A More Positive Outlook for International Law
...authority to right what it perceives to be the world’s wrongs. If human rights involves contested ideals, it’s unclear that the human rights community should desire that sort of pluralistic experimentation. While we may be comfortable with a U.S. court developing human rights norms, there’s a significant question whether other courts will develop human rights tendentiously or not, or whether those conceptions of human rights will be more illiberal and non-western, or at least different than ours. Through this lens, Justice Breyer’s concurrence takes on greater meaning than Chief Justice...06 Sep Protection of Civilians Symposium: The Obligation to Protect Civilians
[Siobhán Wills is a Professor of Law at the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University, Northern Ireland. This post is a part of the Protection of Civilians Symposium.] In 2014 the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services published an ‘evaluation of the implementation and results of Protection of Civilians mandates in United Nations peacekeeping operations’ which: noted a persistent pattern of peacekeeping operations not intervening with force when civilians are under attack…Partly as a result…civilians continue to suffer violence and displacement in many countries where United Nations missions hold protection of...
26 Apr Symposium on Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War: The Geneva Conventions and the Future of International Humanitarian Law
So far, the 2020s have been a great decade for books on the history of international humanitarian law. 2020 saw the publication of Giovani Mantilla’s exceptional Lawmaking Under Pressure , on the history of Common Article 3; 2021 gave us Samuel Moyn’s Humane , a powerful critique on the idea that war can be humanised; and now 2022 starts off with Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War . I am extremely happy that we are showcasing his book in this symposium, as I am convinced it is an immediate must-read...15 Apr The Federalist Society’s 2012 National Security Symposium
Those of you who, like me, missed this year’s Federalist Society Symposium on National Security can now watch all of the events on-line here. The event was held April 5 in DC and included a morning panel on terrorist-related detentions, interrogations and trials, a lunchtime address by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and an afternoon panel on potential cybersecurity legislation. Participants included Vincent J. Vitkowsky, Nathan A. Sales, Charles D. Stimson, Stephen I. Vladeck, Benjamin Wittes, Glenn M. Sulmasy, Jamil N. Jaffer, Sharon Bradford Franklin, Matthew J. Eggers, and...
24 Sep Symposium on Protest and Legal Mobilization: Protest as Rule of Law Engagement – Reflections on Protest as Legal Mobilization
...frailty – and courage – in the face of oppression. One key difference, it seems, between the democratic and the human rights importance of bodily experience is the collective versus the individual focus: the human rights symbol is the individual’s experience of injustice and the emotional response it evokes is the indignation about the harm of a person. Rhetorically, this may make the emotional appeal of a human rights campaign stronger: it engages the human impulse to connect to a particular person. People might not have felt as strongly about...27 Oct Testing the Limits of International Law: Symposium at Univ. of Georgia, Oct. 28-29
Peter Spiro and Dan Bodansky at the University of Georgia Law School are hosting a symposium this weekend to discuss and critique Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner’s informative and provocative book, The Limits of International Law. I discussed the book’s central thesis — that international law is merely a reflection of states acting rationally to pursue their interests in relation with other states — in an earlier post. In addition to Goldsmith and Posner, papers are being presented by Philippe Sands (London), David Golove (NYU), Kal Raustiala (UCLA), Andrew Guzman...08 Dec Symposium on Ruti Teitel’s “Transitional Justice and Judicial Activism: A Right to Accountability?”
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!...01 Sep Syria Insta-Symposium: Marty Lederman Part I–The Constitution, the Charter, and Their Intersection
[Marty Lederman is a Professor at Georgetown Law School and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010, and an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994-2002] Most of the participants in this Insta-Symposium, and in earlier OJ posts, have understandably focused their attention on the question of whether a U.S. military strike on Syria would violate the U.N. Charter. I’ll address that question in a subsequent post, in the context of some remarks on the forthcoming congressional debate. But before...11 Apr VJIL Symposium: Robert Howse Comments on “Interpretation and Institutional Choice at the WTO”
[Robert Howse is the Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law at the New York University School of Law.] This post is part of the Virginia Journal of International Law Symposium, Volume 52, Issues 1 and 2. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. The Article by Shaffer and Trachtman is a tour de force: it identifies and explains many of the most important interpretative choices that panels and the Appellate Body have made in adjudicating disputes under WTO law, and speculates on the...02 Mar YJIL Online Symposium: “The Laws of War and the ‘Lesser Evil'”
...but maybe IHL has a little hesitancy to give sufficient credibility to those statements of one or the other side of the forces. What about alternative methods like a bullhorn. The suspected Palestinian militant once on notice has any of a number of responses available in either case including trying to hold everyone in the building hostage to raise the civilian cost of the military operation in the form of collateral damage. I am just not convinced that the technique suggested protects civilians in a better way than the rule...