Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

[Gideon Boas is an Associate Professor in the Monash Law School and a former Senior Legal Officer at the ICTY.] This article deals carefully with the Lubanga proceedings before the ICC, and in particular the difficulty caused by the Prosecution collecting information through the extensive use of confidentiality agreements under Article 54(3)(e) of the Rome Statute. One of the great difficulties confronting prosecutors in international war crimes trials is the collection of reliable evidence with which to build their cases and to secure conviction. Such investigations invariably occur...

[Karl-Heinz Ladeur is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Hamburg.] 1. Ming-Sung Kuo’s article proffers several hypotheses. One is that global administrative law can be regarded as an element of a “small c-constitutionalism” – as opposed to “large C-Constitutionalism” in a more fundamental approach to a transformation of international law into a new type of “global law beyond the state” (G. Teubner). The concept of “constitutionalism” has different meanings – this is a problem which might hinder a productive discussion. On the one hand it is focused...

raising the legal and political stakes in advocacy, litigation, and engagement with UN mechanisms. Indonesia’s Response as a form of Torture When evaluated against the CAT’s four-prong criterion, Indonesia’s response to the August 2025 protests undeniably meets the threshold for it to be considered torture.  First, the severity of suffering is unmistakable. The death of 21-year-old Affan Kurniawan, at least eight other confirmed fatalities, and hundreds of reported injuries, including beatings, tear-gassing of university campuses, and the hospitalization of students, demonstrate the grave physical and psychological harm inflicted.  Second, the...

...some substantive responses to his article. First, let me discuss my questions about methodology and calls for clarification. Before being asked to evaluate Tushnet’s claims, I would want to know more clearly precisely which countries he is referencing. He talks about “nations that compete internationally for investment and human capital, with classes of lawyers able to assert some autonomous pressure on a nation’s government.” Does that include China, which surely meets the first criteria, and maybe less so the second criteria? Does that include Colombia, which is better on the...

As regular readers may recall, I am skeptical that the use of chemical weapons, by itself, can justify the use of military force under current international law absent authorization from the U.N. Security Council. Of course, I wouldn’t oppose the use of military force by the U.S. to stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria, I just doubt its legality under international law. More importantly, so does President Obama. Although reports are out suggesting the U.S. is preparing to launch cruise missiles into Syria, President Obama also...

[Steven Groves is a Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow at The Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C.] Many thanks to Julian Ku for inviting me to participate in this UNCLOS debate on one of my favorite websites. There is much I agree with in the posts of Professors Kraska, Noyes, and Allen. Professor Kraska correctly emphasizes the victory achieved by U.S. negotiators at UNCLOS III in regard to codifying navigational regimes, particular the regime of transit passage through international straits. Transit passage, along with archipelagic sea-lanes passage and the...

[David Gartner is an Associate Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University.] Thanks for the opportunity to offers some thoughts on Ming-Sung Kuo’s provocative and interesting article entitled Taming Governance with Legality: Critical Reflections Upon Global Administrative Law as Small-c Global Constitutionalism, which highlights some of the key tensions within the project of Global Administrative Law (GAL). The core underlying concern that the article raises about whether Global Administrative Law adequately addresses the challenge of fostering legitimate and meaningful participation within...

...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...

the armed forces get into trouble inside the US, they are subject to military justice rather than State civilian justice. If an enemy solider commits a war crime like rape, he is also tried in a military court and not the local civilian system. SOFA is not the naked exercise of power. It is simply a formal recognition that wherever military forces are deployed, they are subject to military justice and not local civilian jurisdiction. Marko: Munaf does not assert that US citizens held overseas by US military forces have...

an important impact on the U.S. constitutional system. We argue, however, that a method of “accommodation” can best mediate these impacts. Accommodation includes, but is not limited to, the doctrines of non-self-execution, executive management of the interpretation of international law, and limited state autonomy in foreign affairs. I plan to host an online discussion of this book on Opinio Juris sometime later this spring, and you will no doubt notice me flacking this book on the blog periodically. But if you can’t wait until our symposium, please buy a copy!...

...National Security and the Law) outline possible reforms of civil justice procedures in national security litigation. Of that group, Jack Goldsmith for his memo on getting around the non-refoulement treaty obligation criticized by Jose Alvarez and Neila Sadat years ago in the Symposium on Torture of Case Western International Law Journal is a person of interest for criminal investigation and prosecution. Matthew Waxman who was at Rumsfeld's DOD working on detainee operations is also a person of interest for criminal investigation and prosecution. Benjamin Wittes has written a book that...

and the acknowledgement by the General Assembly of this Declaration in resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988." See A/66/371–S/2011/592 Hostage Response... Regarding the comment that “[t]he only case in favor of jurisdiction was always a set of political arguments in search of a valid legal vehicle that was never found.” Many scholars treat the Montevideo Convention as if it were a textbook, instead of an agreement between states that still has full legal effect and force. Even if recognition of statehood is a purely political act, it still has legal...