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Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

21 Nov

politically appropriate international legal response to secessionist demands, can still be challenged on two accounts: conceptual and prescriptive. On the one hand, I wish to take issue with the claim that it is impossible to discern—even if it may undesirable to prescribe—any normative ideals concealed in the idea of self-determination. In his response, Roth claims for instance that “any external effort to resolve the issue through ‘the democratic ideal of the consent of the governed’ would, ironically, have had to impose solutions to the issue’s central elements – including, …...
21.11.13 | |

07 May

...intervention – devoid of Security Council authorization – is legally invalid. However, as a recent post in Just Security demonstrates, though many states share this view, an increasing group now employ justificatory rhetoric in defense of the recent attacks. This rhetoric signals a potential shift. Following the NATO-led intervention in Kosovo, states and scholars vindicated the military response through universal appeals to human rights and justice. This language often remained non-specific. More recently, however, the language assumes precision. It abandons general assessments of an atrocity’s gravity and favors identification of...
07.05.18 | |

20 Sep

I had hoped not to write any more posts about the international vs. internationalized tribunal debate. I have written extensively on the topic already, and the prospects for an international tribunal grow dimmer with each passing day. Alas, Patryk Labuda’s most recent entry on the topic at Just Security requires a response: although the arguments are the same unpersuasive ones we have been hearing for the past 18 months, Labuda makes them with his usual erudition and eloquence. (I mean that sincerely.) So it is important for his version of...
20.09.23 | |

07 Jul

...worked when he was Ambassador to Pakistan — as “the rugged [!]career diplomat” (p. 77).) As with any history that tries to cover as many people and events as this ambitious book does, there is much that is lost – both in terms of events and nuance – to space constraints. I don’t mean this as a criticism of the authors’ considerable achievement in covering as much as they do in the space of one book. A thorough diplomatic history of the period, even one focused only on U.S. diplomacy,...
07.07.08 | |

07 Mar

“Karin Calvo-Goller has undoubtedly invested much time and effort into this book, which – but for regrettably sloppy editing – might well serve as a first systematic introduction to the procedural issues confronting the ICC. What is still missing is a book that might help to resolve these issues.” It’s not the best book review one could hope for, but neither is it the worst. Undoubtedly it would have gone unnoticed by almost everyone if she had used better judgment. (Before this story, how many of you have ever read...
07.03.11 | |

24 Nov

I am grateful to Professor Van Schaack for her thoughtful and considered response. It strikes me as an entirely fair criticism that – albeit in a short commentary focusing on the standards governing the use of force by governments – I neglected to explore fully issues of combatant status in non-international armed conflicts and, more interestingly, belligerent nexus issues. The methodology adopted was to avoid speculation by focusing on the facts at hand at time of writing and this limited the scope of the piece. Professor Van Schaack is correct...
24.11.10 | |

21 Apr

...Force Law, the re-named Response to Situations of Important Influence Law, and the Response to Situations of Armed Attack and Existential Threats Law. It is also reflected in some lesser remarked Cabinet Orders (such as the Government Response to Unlawful Landing of Armed Groups on Remote Islands, Cabinet Order of May 14, 2015). Without getting too deeply into the details the key point is that the overall change would appear to lower the threshold for the use of force, as that term is understood in Article 2(4) of the U.N....
21.04.16 | |

17 Jun

I wanted to thank all of our participants for a wonderful “insta-symposium” on Boumediene. I certainly learned a tremendous amount from our guests and greatly appreciate their willingness to participate and thoughtfully engage. I wanted to end by addressing some of the comments expressed concerning the format of these insta-symposia, especially on the issue of diversity. In organizing this event, I took pains to find experts in the field who provided diversity in terms of viewpoint (left and right), seniority (young scholars and seasoned veterans), professional expertise (historians, advocates, military...
17.06.08 | |

18 Oct

Patrick S. O'Donnell I'm especially interested in the Criddle and Fox-Decent paper and thus look forward to Monday's symposium, although I was surprised to see no reference (perhaps I missed it) to Larry May's excellent discussion of jus cogens norms in his recent book, Crimes Against Humanity: A Normative Account (2005). There's much in his book relevant to the article's argument. Interestingly, in another book, War Crimes and Just War (2007), May uses a fiduciary model as part of a larger discussion of the principle of humane treatment to ground...
18.10.09 | |

23 Sep

...by phone. It is Yom Kippur that day, so I realize with apologies that some of the folks most vital to this topic will be missing, but there will be video posted at Heritage at some point soon after the event. Good news is that the Hoover Institution, which published the book, is co-hosting, and is making complimentary copies of the book available at the event, which I’ll be happy to sign. And finally my thanks to Heritage Foundation senior fellow Brett Schaefer, who will host and moderate the event....
23.09.12 | |

31 Dec

Oxford has sent me the initial version of the book cover. Here it is: The painting, “The Red Stairway,” is by Ben Shahn, a Lithuanian-born American artist who painted between the 1920s and the 1950s. In 1942 and 1943, Shahn created propaganda posters for the Office of War Information (OWI); his poster about the destruction of Lidice is an absolute masterpiece. The OWI considered a number of his other posters to be insufficiently patriotic — i.e., too overtly left-wing — and refused to issue them. “The Red Stairway” itself was...
31.12.10 | |

26 Jun

Flying around on various airplanes, I’ve been reading a couple of books on topics in legal history that I’ve found enjoyable and intellectually profitable. One is Stephen Neff’s Justice in Blue and Gray: A Legal History of the Civil War. I have benefitted greatly from Professor Neff’s earlier books in international law history, War and the Law of Nations and The Rights and Duties of Neutrals, and the Civil War book is no exception. Professor Neff (whom I had the pleasure of meeting earlier this summer as he is visiting...
26.06.10 | |