Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

[Jennifer Trahan is Clinical Professor and Director of the Concentration in International Law and Human Rights at the NYU Center for Global Affairs and author of  Existing Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in the Face of Atrocity Crimes  (CUP 2020), winner of the “2020 ABILA Book of the Year Award” by the American Branch of the International Law Association.] This is my second and final post in response to the scholarly and thoughtful contributions received related to my book, Existing Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in...

its argument, showing how climate change fits within a complex global context. This book is explicit in its primary focus on describing the human problems rather than on solving them. However, in this review, I would like to continue where the book left off by suggesting two implications of Guzman’s exposition for potential solutions. First, this book’s description of the human costs of climate change reinforces the need for linked mitigation and adaptation strategies. With the climate change and its consequences that we have already committed to, even if we...

[Lori F. Damrosch is Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organization and Hamilton Fish Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at Columbia Law School] My article, ‘The Impact of the Nicaragua Case on the Court and Its Role: Harmful, Helpful, or In Between?’ originated as a contribution to a symposium convened on the 25th anniversary of the delivery of the merits judgment in the case. I took as my starting point one of the statements issued by the US government while the case was pending, which had predicted...

...promote coherence, adherence, and stability necessary for the common good.” That said, can a judicial decision achieve international justice if it is thoroughly ignored and makes no practical difference to victims and perpetrators of injustice? I also welcome Professor Brown’s tentative application of my theory to the Nuclear Tests Cases, which are not addressed in my book. In that dispute, Australia and New Zealand brought claims against France for its atmospheric nuclear tests in the South Pacific. He correctly recognizes that the ICJ’s refusal to render a decision after France...

...diffusion through democracy lead us to expect global convergence or regional silos? Both Rachel Brewster and Anu Bradford correctly note that my book focuses in large part on the expansion of social policies. What happens when instead of advocating for the expansion of social programs, international organizations such as the IMF and the EU, as well as foreign governments, advocate for austerity? As some of the book’s case studies are drawn from Southern Europe, this is a great question to ask at a moment when South European governments are making...

[Darryl Robinson is an Associate Professor at Queen’s University Faculty of Law (Canada), specializing in international criminal justice.] I am deeply grateful to each of the scholars who have contributed to this symposium. Together they have produced a wonderful collection of insightful reactions. I also thank Opinio Juris, and in particular Kevin Heller and Jessica Dorsey, for hosting this exchange. Justice in Extreme Cases is about the criminal law theory of international criminal law (ICL). The project grows out of my PhD studies at Leiden University, and was given helpful...

its negative implications when the same Boris Johnson government had a national competing for perhaps the most important and visible international criminal justice position in the world: Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). UK Barrister Karim Khan has now been elected. The result is that the states parties to the ICC have rewarded a country that is undermining international justice. And some of the other players in the international community let it happen, without raising their voices. There is no question the UK is pleased the next Prosecutor will...

[Elies van Sliedregt is professor of international and comparative criminal law at Leeds University and Director of its Centre for Criminal Justice Studies (CCJS) and she is senior editor of the Leiden Journal of International Law and a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.] This is an awesome book. The sort of book I wish I had written. When I researched individual criminal responsibility in ICL some 20 years ago, I used a comparative and domestic criminal law lens through which to understand international concepts and...

bearing beyond these hearings. Coupmakers who slaughter their own people have no claim to authority, moral or otherwise. Meanwhile, avenues for justice remain rare and hard won. These proceedings are still a landmark chance to make the military answer for its crimes and build accountability, for Rohingya and all of Myanmar’s people. Gambia’s legal team underscored how the International Court of Justice is right now the only stage for justice where the military has been willing to engage: “There is presently no national or international body or institution of any kind to which Myanmar’s...

...with the practical tools necessary to effectively document environmental and climate harm and help turn the promise of justice into tangible accountability and justice for victims. A Transformative Moment for Environmental Justice The Policy emerges at a transformative moment. Released just one day after the Council of Europe (CoE) opened its Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law for signature, and following recent advisory opinions from both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice on States’ climate obligations, it contributes to a...

stake. The confluence of economic growth, improved technology, outcome oriented international organisations and goal oriented international norms to solve shared global challenges was the perfect combination of forces leading to organisations such as the ICC (Davis et al, 2012). As this book reflects, it is only after its formation that expectations are challenged when met with the reality of its work. Ba’s book is worth more than a read. While it provides settled and new conclusions, it does invite disagreements, and this perhaps is the hallmark of a distinctive publication....

[Shana Tabak is a Visiting Associate Professor of Clinical Law at The George Washington University Law School, where she is also a Friedman Fellow with the International Human Rights Clinic.] Although the field of transitional justice has made great strides in addressing harms perpetrated against women in the aftermath of conflict, this paper argues that transitional justice mechanisms mistakenly rely on three false dichotomies with regard to the role of gender in conflict. In order for transitional justice mechanisms to achieve success in reordering society, promoting justice, and overcoming past...