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Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

25 Sep

Bobby Chesney has graciously responded at Lawfare to my post about detention in non-international armed confilct (NIAC). Unfortunately, I think Chesney’s response not only misconstrues what Steve Vladeck and I have been arguing, but also demonstrates some important misconceptions about IHL. To begin with, we need to understand exactly what we are arguing about. As Steve pointed out in one of his early posts, Sen. Lindsey Graham’s proposed “Terrorist Detention Review Reform Act would permit the government to detain without trial anyone who “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against...
25.09.10 | |

30 Dec

...the US government had used the law for centuries to systematically persecute Black Americans and had committed unspeakable acts of violence against them. If that mistreatment differed from the Nazis’ mistreatment of Jews and other groups, it was a difference of intensity, not kind. To his lasting credit, Taylor eventually charged purely peacetime crimes against humanity in two of the 12 NMT cases. None of those charges were successful, but they led the Justice tribunal (albeit only in dicta) to affirm their legitimacy, paving the way for the modern nexus-less...
30.12.21 | |

09 Apr

[I. Glenn Cohen is an Assistant Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.] 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. I have relied on the work of each of these commentators and think of them as scholarly partners, so I am very grateful for their kind words and their comments on my...
09.04.12 | |

18 May

...Court of Justice pertaining to declaration of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/141/15738.pdf) as well as the contention that self-determination has grown into a principle that regulates secession. There is no doubt that self-determination has significantly impacted the creation of states in the second half of the 20th century. That legal principle bears upon factual developments which are the essence of the political project behind international law. It is however going one step too far to claim that the factual effect that self-determination can bear automatically...
18.05.11 | |

10 Jan

put in practice. The emerging new economic governance architecture appears to ascribe a much more central role to supranational institutions like the European Commission and the European Court of Justice in monitoring and enforcing fiscal discipline. The adoption of the ‘six pack’ of legislative measures plays with the metaphor of a more muscular response at EU level in ways that places emphasis not only on the role of the Commission as the initiator of legislative responses but also the alliance between the Commission and the European Parliament in toughening up...
10.01.12 | |

12 Jun

Professor Bodansky is absolutely right that the success of U.S. climate change policy depends on whether our leaders can align domestic and international efforts. Unless the United States does its fair share, other nations will not do theirs. And yet a purely international solution – untethered to domestic political realities – has little chance of securing U.S. participation. Bodansky’s own solution is a two-tier target – an initial level of effort that the United States pursues unilaterally, without pre-condition, and a second, more ambitious, mitigation target that the...
12.06.09 | |

14 May

...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...
14.05.09 | |

08 Mar

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!...
08.03.12 | |

29 Jul

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...
29.07.09 | |

06 Apr

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...
06.04.12 | |

23 Jun

...because international law entitles only the members of a state’s regular armed forces to participate in hostilities, the CIA had no authority under international law to use armed force against al-Awlaki. The CIA is not part of the US’s regular armed forces. There is, of course, an obvious response to that objection: namely, that the availability of the PAJ depends on domestic US law, not on international law, so it is irrelevant whether the CIA had the right under international law to used armed force against al-Awlaki. Because AQAP was...
23.06.14 | |

10 Sep

Charter did not permit an individual to be convicted solely of criminal membership; he could be convicted of criminal membership only if he had committed at least one substantive crime as part of the criminal organization. Indeed, both the Ministries and Einsatzgruppen tribunals held exactly that (see pp. 293 of my book.) Here, of course, the response will no doubt be that al-Bahlul was convicted “in connection with any act of which the individual may be convicted” — namely, material support for terrorism. In which case a conviction for one...
10.09.11 | |