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Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

11 Dec

in the face of genocide, crimes against humanity, and/or war crimes, as this author does (and will explore more fully in her upcoming book). Heieck does question the legality of veto use in the face of genocide, and that part of his book, to this author, has the most appeal, as well as his exploration of what is required of states serving on the Security Council to fulfill their duty to “prevent” genocide (p. 209). A minor additional quibble pertains to Heieck’s extensive reliance on US law; again, to craft...
11.12.18 | |

31 Jul

I want to give my sincere thanks to all the participants in the symposium on Does the Constitution Follow the Flag? Many terrific points, questions, and critiques were raised (made?) this week, and I certainly found it a fascinating discussion. My book is an attempt to synthesize and reframe a wide range of issues related to territoriality, and in so doing I necessarily skimmed over, or ignored outright, numerous subsidiary topics of importance. Luckily many of these arose in our discussion this week. Sovereignty, as I note in the book,...
31.07.09 | |

22 Apr

...lawyers will—or should—appreciate the reality check on the limitations of individual state action via universal jurisdiction cases, an increasingly popular alternative avenue to justice. I cannot speak for Nahlawi, but I interpreted this as a way of expressing support for international justice mechanisms, which do not exist for Syria other than the evidence-gathering/case-file-preparing International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM). As an RtoP tool, the IIIM is perhaps all the more valuable for indicating practice and opinio juris that non-UNSC UN bodies (here, the UNGA) are empowered to discuss and make...
22.04.20 | |

07 Jul

The day, a few weeks ago, when America Between the Wars arrived on my doorstop also saw the arrival of another book via Amazon … Sebastian Faulks-as-Ian Fleming, The Devil May Care. The serious policy-history tome or the new James Bond novel? What to do, what to do? I idly picked up America Between the Wars, assuming that within nanoseconds I would get bored and flip over to Bond – but no, I found myself quite entranced with this book of 1990s history. I finished it before ever returning to...
07.07.08 | |

07 Jul

the 21st century. As the book recounts, in 1994, the Clinton team asked 90-year old George Kennan to come down from Princeton so they could get his advice on replacing the doctrine that he had articulated so successfully in 1947. The former diplomat’s sage counsel: “forget about the bumper sticker; try to come up with a thoughtful paragraph or two.” Well, there’s some food for thought. We look forward to your responses to this or any other aspect of the book. And again, thanks so much for having us here....
07.07.08 | |

29 May

been avoided. The initial error is a doozy: Turow has the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) authorise the investigation into the Roma massacre, despite the fact that Bosnia self-referred the situation to the ICC. The book even contains a mock decision pursuant to Art. 15, the proprio motu provision! That is, of course, completely wrong: because Bosnia self-referred, the PTC did not have to authorise the investigation. The OTP was free to investigate the massacre on its own. And that error, in turn, undermines the entire setup of the book, which opens...
29.05.17 | |

23 Apr

[Tonya L. Putnam is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at Columbia University] I’m very pleased to have been asked to contribute my thoughts on Karen Alter’s The New Terrain of International Law. Alter’s cogently argued new book exemplifies what well-executed interdisciplinary scholarship can achieve. It puts into productive dialogue several core preoccupations of political scientists, international lawyers, and practitioners as they relate to the growing universe of international courts (ICs). Not only does the resulting analysis map the outputs of, and relationships between intensively studied ICs...
23.04.14 | |

01 Feb

...his Article why the evolution of CNA infrastructure and architecture increasingly calls into question the underlying logic that animates the existing law of war framework for determining who may lawfully participate in hostilities associated with an armed conflict. In response to this evolution, Prof. Watts proposes a reassessment of this framework that would abandon the existing rules that limit participation in hostilities to members of the armed forces. Instead, he asserts that for purposes of CNA operations, the relationship between the operator and state authority should be the focal point...
01.02.10 | |

06 Feb

In God and Gold I write about three elements of England’s success. Roger asks how I combine the three into one story – and wonders whether the whole story hangs together. In response, let me describe the three pieces of my story, and show how I think they fit. First, England was a lucky country – the Goldilocks of early modern Europe. It wasn’t too big – like the Holy Roman Empire or France; it wasn’t too small like Holland. It was just right. The English Reformation wasn’t too hot...
06.02.08 | |

26 Nov

...of the opportunity.” As I have acknowledged in the paper and elsewhere, others, especially Ken Hurwitz and my other former partners-in-crime at the Open Society Justice Initiative, have also played a particularly crucial role. To my mind, the collective nature of this undertaking does not affect whether or not the somewhat awkward term “discovery” is a meaningful descriptor of the process. At a later point, Stephens imputes to me the view that ATS commentators failed to see the importance of retribution, punishment and moral guilt. In fact, I argue that...
26.11.14 | |

25 Nov

objections. In the interests of space, I respond to several briefly here in bullet form, without I hope seeming dismissive of important questions that require far greater discussion than I can deliver presently: Ratner suggests that my article is a “response to the demise of the ATS vehicle.” Actually, this research spans eight years and would still hold true if the US Supreme Court had reached the diametrically opposite conclusion in Kiobel. Mostly, it is a reply to the experience of investigating atrocities in Africa, not a response to the...
25.11.14 | |

15 Nov

...law obligations by failing to enforce those obligations (usually treaties) domestically.” However, according to Ku, the decision of the High Court of Justice of England in Wales in Miller v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union of November 3 tells us otherwise, namely that dualism “makes it harder [for a State] to withdraw from [its] international obligations.” Ku places an emphasis on the High Court’s statement that while the conduct of foreign affairs (and more specifically “the making and unmaking of treaties”) is a prerogative of the Crown,...
15.11.16 | |