Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

[Rachel Brewster is Professor of Law at Duke Law] One of the many virtues of Eric Posner and Alan Sykes’ new book, “Economic Foundations of International Law,” is that it provides the reader with a theoretically coherent and consistent overview of important international treaty regimes, substantive international rules, and state enforcement practices. The book is a lucid introduction to international law for students and also contains sophisticated analysis of the dynamics of international legal systems for academics and international lawyers. A major theme of the book is that state compliance...

bring Nepali citizens who are willing to come to Nepal on the border of Nepal and India”. Second and Third Wave: Managing the deficiencies in the Executive’s COVID-19 responses Another issue in regard to Nepal’s COVID-19 response is the absence of pandemic-specific law, or other appropriate legal framework to respond to the pandemic.  The Nepal government used the decades old Infectious Disease Act, enacted in 1964, to coordinate its responses to COVID-19. The use of this outdated, broadly worded and inadequate law was challenged in a petition to the Supreme...

...statements made by States Parties during relevant UN debates; Inter-Ministerial Network (IMN) statements.” The non-exhaustive list of potential measures was created to find a formula for responding to political attacks or threats based on lessons learned from previous political attacks. Previous responses of the ASP consisted mainly of encouraging statements of States Parties confirming their support for the ICC and initiatives by the IMN. The initial responses to the recent political attacks followed the same pattern. Responses to the Israeli and US Threats The ASP Presidency, the Prosecutor, and several...

worsening of the plight of asylum seekers and refugees; and, (v) the proposed ‘quagmire’ of human trafficking is a fallacy. To suggest that efforts to stamp out trafficking are in opposition to core human rights goals is to misunderstand, completely, both the nature of the phenomenon and the central place of human rights in any effective and credible response. Both respondents nevertheless raise questions on several aspects of my critique. The following counter-response is provided with an accompanying observation that the issues raised do not call into question any of...

...Israel’s 1972 incursion of Lebanon and Russia’s 2008 action against Georgia, the reacting states have found the extent of the response and the level of casualties to be a relevant factor in measuring proportionality (see, for example, UN Doc S/PV.1108 (6 April 1964) pp 7–8, 10; “The Situation in the Dominican Republic”, Yearbook of the United Nations (1965) p 142; UN Doc S/PV.1644 (27/28 February 1972) p 19; UN Doc S/PV.1643 (26 February 1972) pp 3, 15; UN Doc S/PV.5953 (10 August 2008)), it appears that they have, to a...

[ Fiona Nelson is Acting Executive Director at the Australian Centre for International Justice. Kobra Moradi is a lawyer at the Australian Centre for International Justice.] November 2020 saw the publication of a redacted version of the Afghanistan Inquiry Report by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force. The Inquiry was set up in 2016 to investigate potential war crimes and other serious misconduct by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. It ultimately found credible evidence of war crimes including cruel treatment as well as 39 unlawful...

...launched dozens of attacks across the province, resulting in over two thousand deaths and the displacement of some 250,000 people. As the intensity of insurgent activities continue, so too does pressure on a regional response from SADC. In particular, suggestions forwarded on a SADC response include not only fact-finding missions and humanitarian assistance, but the possibility of a regional military intervention. While the SADC legal framework provides for a military intervention in cases of intrastate conflict such as the one ongoing in Cabo Delgado; whether Mozambique will be open to...

...grounds for international intervention in the hostage situation. In examining which steps can be used, it may be helpful to turn to the response of states to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a framework of reference. We are aware of the eyebrows that may be raised in response to this comparison, in light of the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank. However, no other acts are relevant to the fact that the crimes committed by Hamas constitute grave violations of international law that warrant international response. In arguing...

...his excellent book The International Court of Justice and Self-Defence in International Law (p. 49): It is worth noting here that an interpretation of the Court’s jurisprudence on this issue has been advanced that makes a distinction between, on the one hand, a response taken by the victim state against a host state when only the non-state actors operating within that state are targeted and, on the other hand, actions in self-defence when the government or forces of the host state itself are additionally targeted. It has been argued that...

it did, in the form of Article 51′s preservation of the inherent right of self-defense. (We can then debate what constitutes an armed attack by a non-state actor, etc., but that is an entirely separate matter from the subject of this post). Jordan Response... Alston is clearly wrong! And all U.N. members have "consented" in advance to the use of armed force in response to ongoing armed attacks -- in Art. 51 of the Charter. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1520717 Ben: if host state not attacked, no art. 51 right of self-defense pertains. What...

...who secured the conviction by smuggling evidence out of Syria, acting as joint plaintiffs and reliving unimaginable horrors in front of their former tormentor, all at considerable risk to their own welfare and that of their families. However, their victory is bittersweet. As victims’ associations stressed: our satisfaction at this verdict is overshadowed by our long and continuing suffering as we seek our missing loved ones and demand justice for the crimes against us. This important conviction is just a first step on the long and arduous path toward justice....

[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 contributors for their excellent additions to the conversation.  One of the themes of Justice in Extreme Cases is the important of deliberation in figuring out a framework for moral principles.  I agree with and welcome the counterpoints and questions advanced by the contributors.  Rather than a typical “response” piece, I will here summarize and celebrate the caveats or concerns that they have raised. Elies van...