In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

15 Jan

...have had to correct some of them). I would like to comment that this approach to interacting with a member of one's government is very troubling to me. Essentially, I am receiving carefully developed position papers that seek to sound eminently reasonable from Mr. Bellinger to which a response is sought. Points that are immediately relevant are deferred to later in the week, yet I fully expect that they will not be addressed. I suspect that certain points have been included in this first post so that if a response...
15.01.07 | |

07 Apr

...a gradual linear way. These developmental shifts occur in response to crises perceived as being of concern to humanity as a whole. This post argues that the current global health crisis is a unique opportunity to ‘recondition’ the system to better reflect the increased global interconnectedness of people, organisations and states across the world. This momentum should not be lost. Moment of consensus Arguably, the entire architecture of the international global order is premised on consensus formed as a response to crises perceived as a threat to humanity as a...
07.04.20 | |

26 Sep

...collapses upon scrutiny, because no Iranian armed attack on Israel had occurred or was imminent at the time Israel launched its bombardment. The well-settled rule under Article 51 (confirmed by the International Court of Justice in Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (DRC v. Uganda)) is that the right of self-defense arises only in response to an actual armed attack or, at most, an attack that is truly imminent. Israel’s situation does not meet this criterion. There was “no armed attack by Iran against Israel occurring on June...
26.09.25 | |

21 Feb

[Charlotte Renglet is a PhD candidate working on climate litigation and indigenous peoples’ rights at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Prof. Dr. Stefaan Smis is the Head of the Department of Public Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a part-time Reader in International Law at the University of Westminster.] [This work was supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO – Research project G079120N).] In the absence of an adequate political response to climate change, a...
21.02.22 | |

21 Aug

the merits of the genocide claims in the future. However, this response chooses critically to focus on the way Finkelstein and Votel have framed their arguments of human shielding within this conflict, and in disputing it hope to elicit to readers alternative ways of viewing the discourse from a historically correct position. As Martha Minow helpfully reminds the international community, tackling injustice requires us to do so without “demonizing our enemies”, and a useful step within that process is to humanize our conflicts and adversaries within their correct historical narratives....
21.08.25 | |

20 Aug

...1947. I already quoted what the Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in 1949 in my response to their first article. They have ignored what he said. Then there was the statement made by the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government of Israel in April 1948, which addressed the very point they now contest: “With regard to the status of Assembly resolutions in international law, it was admitted that any which touched the national sovereignty of the Members of the United Nations were mere recommendations and not binding. However,...
20.08.19 | |

29 Jul

...a significant event that “disrupts the functioning of a community or society” is somewhat misleading. This current definition is rooted in a particular epistemology that UUPB has uncritically accepted, thereby allowing systemic injustices to persist. The prevailing notion suggests that disasters should be managed in a way that prevents disruption to this injustice, thereby enabling business as usual. In a sense, disaster management, as it’s understood today, focuses on maintaining injustices during disasters rather than addressing them. Disruption of the Functioning of a Community or a Society A community or...
29.07.25 | |

04 Apr

...was a ‘radical change from previous versions’ of the IHR, moving from a passive approach relying on a list of diseases and strict national measures to a fluid, more interconnected approach. Under the IHR 2005, the ‘WHO plays a central role in surveillance, risk assessment and response and aims at ensuring an effective but proportional public health response to avoid unnecessary interference with traffic and trade’. WHO Member States are obligated to cooperate in good faith with each other and the WHO in detection, notification, and taking measures in response...
04.04.20 | |

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 | |

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 | |