Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
29 Jul Push a Square Peg into a Round Hole, or Build Another Hole?
First, sincere thanks to the OpinioJuris team for inviting me to share my thoughts on Ben Wittes exceptional book; and thanks to Ben for such a well researched, well written, and provocative work. My initial reaction to the book was that Ben has hit the proverbial nail on the head in terms of defining the policy challenge surrounding how the United States should or must frame the response to the threat of transnational terrorism. More specifically, Ben clearly exposes how efforts to squeeze the response to this threat into existing...
04 Jul The Global Hawk Incident: Self-Defense against Aerial Incursions – Reflections on the Applicable Law
...force. For the sake of analysis, let’s assume that the Global Hawk did indeed enter Iranian airspace. That would, undoubtedly, constitute a violation of Iranian sovereignty. It could also amount to an unlawful use of force. However, as Michael Schmitt explained on Just Security, states are not permitted to use force in response to any breach of sovereignty, nor are states allowed to use force in response to every unlawful use of force. In the absence of U.N. Security Council authorization and except in cases of intervention by invitation, states...
17 Mar Hamster in a Wheel: International Law, Crisis, Exceptionalism, Whataboutery, Speaking Truth to Power, and Sociopathic, Racist Gaslighting
...of double standards and the different treatment of seemingly like situations. Nor is it the case that all those others who do this are doing so to justify Russia’s actions. Some are asking ‘what about’, not to justify Russia’s actions, but actually, the reverse – to say, in the context of an assumption that what Russia is doing is wrong, to ask why, when violations of international law of the same or a similar nature happen elsewhere, there is not the same response- a response they would welcome – by...
22 Dec As Violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt Region Continues, Justice is Urgently Needed
action in Nigeria to achieve justice for the affected communities and address the complex root causes of violence Although violence in the Middle Belt region usually garners little attention internationally, there have been some recent developments on this issue. Just last month the President of the United States, Donald Trump, threatened to intervene in Nigeria militarily if the Nigerian government fails to prevent the killing of Christians. Moreover, the United States has designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern for its alleged violations of religious freedom. In response, Nigerian...
31 Jan As Rome Mutinies, Justice for Libya Fades
...of Justice and Interior are responsible for the crimes of aiding and abetting Elmasry to evade justice (Art. 378 Criminal Code, CC) and of embezzlement of public funds for the use of the Italian intelligence’s plane to repatriate him to Libya (Art. 314 CC). Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced in a video that she has been served with a notice of investigation. Under Italian law, a notice of investigation constitutes a procedural prerequisite not implying any finding of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the recipient but aiming to guarantee his or her...07 Oct Suing the International Court of Justice
of liberal construction does not mean that the court can ignore a clear failure in the pleading to allege facts which set forth a claim currently cognizable in a federal district court. The International Court of Justice “is a[j]udicial arm of the United Nations.” The International Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction over criminal cases and collateral attacks on convictions.. The jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice is limited to disputes between nations. It should also be noted that the above-captioned case is barred by the Foreign Sovereign...
09 May A Special Justice Mechanism for the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine – For Who, By Who, Against Who?
[Alexandre Skander Galand is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School, Berlin.] On 3 April 2022, President Zelenski announced that he ‘approved a decision to create a special justice mechanism in Ukraine for the investigation and judicial examination of every crime of the occupiers. The essence of it is the joint work of national and international experts: investigators, prosecutors and judges.’ It is still unclear whether this ‘special justice mechanism’ will be in the form of, as proposed by Heller and Owiso, a hybrid...10 Mar The Problem with “Justice and Democracy”
but they are not the only targets. Waal doesn’t point the finger at the international criminal justice advocates. He doesn’t point out that codifying the justice into legal obligations makes his preferred solutions, negotiated peace, much, much harder. But he doesn’t have to. This is not to say that demanding democracy and justice is always wrong. But both conservative and liberal interventionists (and “justice” advocates) need to remember that it is not always the right goal, either, if the pursuit of democracy and justice prevents the end of mass violence....
07 Aug Fifteen Years After Sri Lanka’s Civil War Ended, a Different Approach to Transitional Justice is Needed
with.] This year marks 15 years since Sri Lanka’s brutal decades-long civil war ended. There are credible allegations all sides to the conflict committed serious human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) violations, including incidents of sexual violence, torture, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. The victims/survivors of these violations still await justice. Sri Lanka attempted to grapple with the past through transitional justice (TJ) processes, but these have largely failed. In the absence of meaningful accountability efforts in Sri Lanka, the international community has stepped in to a limited extent...
10 Mar Do Not Over-simplify Our Story: Venezuelans on the Human Rights Crisis (Part II)
...monitoring, and denouncing abuses. They have exposed corruption, famine, environmental destruction, and systematic human rights violations, while standing in solidarity with victims seeking justice. Without their work, the long road toward accountability would be even more difficult. Against all odds (and often at great personal risk) they have gathered the evidence that may one day be used in courts to bring those responsible to justice. When I worked at Free Press Unlimited, managing the Legal Defense Fund under the Reporters Respond programme (funded at the time by the Dutch Ministry...