Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

...to assert the applicability of human rights law to address concerns over the existence of legal “black holes.” As a result, although the trend had begun well before 9/11, in the last decade the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Human Rights Committee (“HRC”) and the Committee Against Torture, the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly, and national courts and governments have been increasingly assertive in publicly recognizing that at least some human rights treaty obligations apply extraterritorially. The...

...international law scholars are discussing in these days and how all of this is evidence that a Tallinn Manual 3.0 is needed, but will not give any definitive answer to the issues that still involve international (cyber) law. The politicians The Hill published an interesting article that summarizes some first responses by US politicians to this act. It is striking as their positions do no align with past actions conducted by the US Government in cyberspace and do not reflect international law. Sen. Dick Durbin’s statement that “[t]his is virtually...

[Marc Limon is Counsellor of the Mission of the Government of the Maldives to the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland] As Professor Knox recognises in his paper, international human rights law is essentially concerned with the relationship between an individual and his or her own State. This makes it difficult to usefully leverage human rights law in the context of global climate change, beyond noting that, irrespective of their level of responsibility for global warming, all States retain an obligation to protect the human rights of their...

...“state” (because I had the privilege of looking through some of the books from his personal collection and some notes that he wrote in some of the books – which were housed in the Judge Advocate General’s School in Charlottesville). It is enough to know that Oppenheim was wrong. Perhaps “readers” here can disclose other examples of treaties involving non”state” actors Christiana quotes the Martens clause (see Martens above) from the 1899 Hague Convention, which was mirrored in the 1907 Hague Convention No. IV (all around the time of Oppenheim’s...

...Red Cross’s Nils Melzer, who so argued in an important book, Targeted Killing in International Law. And also Notre Dame law professor Mary Ellen O’Connell, who has argued this proposition (as well as an associated claim that all participation by CIA personnel in the use of force is an international crime). I cannot say that these claims — although heroically urged by the advocacy groups and their academic allies — have a basis in the law of war as the US (or really, leading war-fighting states) has traditionally understood it....

Jens Ohlin has continued the conversation about IHL and IHRL at LieberCode. Here is a snippet, self-servingly chosen because I want to comment on it: It strikes me as curious that human rights activists are so quick to cabin CIL application of the IHL rules of IAC to NIAC. To my ear, it is one of the great advancements of the last few decades: that the rules of warfare must be respected and that no nation can ignore them simply because the armed conflict is internal. (Incidentally, this...

I appreciate the comments from Professors Fontana and Ahdieh, and don’t have much to quarrel about with them. They offer useful correctives or supplements to my argument. On the question of the scope of the argument – that is, the nations where we can expect convergence in constitutional law – my essay notes one important exception, and Professor Fontana raises a question about another. My essay excepts resource-extracting nations from its scope, largely because such nations do not need to compete with respect to attracting significant numbers of...

Professor Telesetsky, in her generous comments on my article in volume 12(1) of the Melbourne Journal of International Law, raises two pertinent questions. First, why has there been a profusion of cooperative efforts across treaty bodies and second, what are the linkages that are most effective in compelling compliance with treaty regimes? In relation to the first question, Professor Telesetsky disagrees with my observation that MEAs are ‘increasingly regarded as international actors who are “capable of driving a normative agenda’”. She goes on to note that the ultimate...

[Robert Ahdieh is a Professor at Emory Law School] At the outset, my thanks to the editors of the Virginia Journal of International Law for inviting me to contribute to this symposium, to my friends at Opinio Juris for hosting it, and to Professor Tushnet for his valuable contribution to ongoing debates about constitutionalism, globalization, and their interrelationship. Needless to say, Professor Tushnet’s essay posits a bold claim: that we are moving inexorably toward a globalized constitutional law. I am deeply sympathetic to this claim – not merely as a...

This week on Opinio Juris, Chris Borgen drew our attention to a NY Times op-ed explaining the surprising reason why in the grand bargain dividing the top posts at the World Bank and the IMF between the US and Europe, the US ended up with the World Bank rather than the IMF. Kevin Heller posted the abstract of his response in a mini-symposium of the Texas International Law Journal on Karl Chang’s article arguing that the law of neutrality provides the legal framework for the US conflict with Al-Qaeda. He...

[This post was jointly authored by Duncan Hollis and Joshua Newcomer] Ed Swaine brings his typical thoughtful (and rigorous) method to our article, and we greatly appreciate his insights, not only for engaging with our ideas but also for suggesting how we might advance them in future scholarship. Since Ed has framed his comments as questions, we’ve endeavored to provide responses to each of his five questions below. 1. What is the international significance of political commitments? Our research produced lots of anecdotal evidence on the widespread use of political...

[Ronald Slye is the Director of International and Comparative Law Programs and Professor at Seattle University School of Law] Lisa Laplante provides those of us interested in international criminal law, and more specifically the legitimacy of utilizing amnesties during a period of societal transition, with a valuable service by pointing us to, and carefully parsing, the Barrios Altos decision of Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It is a decision that, as she rightly states has not received as much attention as it deserves. While I am sympathetic to...