Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

...Wahid thinks the best response is better jurisprudence Filali-Ansary thinks the best response is better politics. There is a middle ground. Wahid suggests that outside the four corners of the Qur’an Islamic law is highly indeterminate and largely reflects past or present political choices. Perhaps both authors would be satisfied with an interpretive approach that opened up space for political discourse by emphasizing ambiguity and narrowing the reach of Islamic law to its clearest applications. Such an approach would deny clear legal support to progressives and their opponents alike, leaving...

of the Modern Position, 110 Harv. L. Rev. 815 (1997). In response to this line of criticism, see, among other responses,Harold Hongju Koh, Is International Law Really State Law?, 111 Harv. L. Rev 1824 (1998). Martii Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia (1989). This book is the antecedent to The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, which I mentioned above. It is a more theoretical discussion of the need of international lawyers to not be overly-technical but rather to use social theory to assess the “deep structure” of international legal discourse. As with...

...judge, because the defining issue is power, not justice. However, there is a case to be made that we treat foreign white people better than the other colors. Also, I'm somewhat new here, but I've never read Ben's comments as he's a racial determinist. It's a factor for sure. If you ignore race, which is standard practice, you're missing something. Maybe "it" is important, maybe not, but "it" is always there. Jordan Response... Homefrontsix: The U.S. Const. applies abroad for, at least, U.S. nationals and in the case of an...

So, Alan Dershowitz has decided that international law needs to be “delegitimized,” because it is unfair to Israel. It is reasonable to consider, therefore, what Dershowitz believes a “fair” international law would allow Israel to do. Here is one of his suggestions, from a 2002 Jerusalem Post editorial entitled “New Response to Palestinian Terrorism” (emphasis mine): In light of the willingness of suicide bombers to die in the process of killing Israelis, the traditional methods of deterrence and retaliation seem insufficient. To succeed, Israel must turn the Palestinian leadership and...

...there a terror purpose or merely a targeting? Was there a terror outcome? If not, how can it (objectively) be terrorism? Same Qs re: taking out a nuclear reactor. Dan Joyner I'd like to note that over at EJIL:Talk!, Sahib Singh has posted an excellent piece on countermeasures by the West against Iran, and that I have posted some comments in response to his piece regarding the possibility that Iran may have a legitimate claim of its own to countermeasures in response to internationally wrongful acts committed against it by...

creatures who reveled in a monstrous, inhumane program, thoughtfully created by minds so demented it has to hide its unspeakable, sick conduct in a maze of legal incoherence - and the torture continues in the shameful environs of Guantanamo Bay. The ACLU, like so many corrupted American institutions, now takes a path that deviates from justice, so desperately needed. Joe Response...In response to a comment, going by the logic of that short article, can someone be pardoned by POTUS for something like murder of an ambassador? The op-ed does to...

...as "medical personnel," but that even combatants engaged in such activity were also considered hors de combat. JordanPaust Response... On another point, our Internatonal Criminal Law casebook notes that the ICC "knowledge" standard, which, yes, is different than intent (especially when courts use a knew or was aware approach -- see also the ICC stat. art. 30(2)-(3) re: "knowledge" and even "intent") is actually a higher threshold with respect to criminal responsibility than that under customary international law, which can involve a wanton / reckless disregard lower type of threshold....

...last fifty years show that American citizens overwhelmingly (between 80 and 90%) believe this false history which, of course, makes them feel better about killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians (mostly women and children) and saving American lives to accomplish the ending of the war. The best book, in my opinion, to explode this myth is The Decision to Use the Bomb by Gar Alperovitz, because it not only explains the real reasons the bombs were dropped, but also gives a detailed history of how and why the myth...

...undeserving) influence on (at least the rhetoric of) the Republican Party Michael Darlington By the way, Patrick, I agree that Paul Kennedy's book "The Parliament of Man", which I have read, is very good. It does however have two major failings, I find. I don't know the O'Connell book but will now make a point of reading it. The two weaknesses I see in Paul Kennedy's book both arise, I think, mainly from its being too New York-centric (that's New York as in the UN headquarters in New York), but...

Presidency like George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty. Happy it sells books and does rub the Administration in the way it wants to be rubbed - but that does not deter from the fact that the book has the above fatal flaws. A more interesting book would be why this unrelenting attack on traditional international law that has alienated so many conservative as well as liberal scholars? Maybe it should be called "The limits of limiting international law." Best, Ben Davis Associate Professor of Law University of Toledo College of Law...

...mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of motive.” Here is Scott Horton, who discusses the case in detail at Harpers today: The facts developed in the Rahmatullah case have clarified the circumstances surrounding one of the notorious Justice Department memoranda issued during the Iraq War. In March 2004, Jack Goldsmith, then head of Justice’s opinion-writing arm, the Office of Legal Counsel, was asked...

...Morocco. This aspect has been confirmed by 1975’s International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) advisory opinion, which, beside upholding the right of the country’s inhabitants to self-determination, pointed out that there were “legal ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the tribes living in the territory of Western Sahara”. Sahrawis have the full right to self-determinate their future and Morocco should be considered accountable for its violations of human rights. Nonetheless, it is still today a matter of harsh debates to which extent Polisario – the Sahrawi...