Search: unwilling or unable
23 Sep The Unwilling or Unable Doctrine Comes to Life
unable standard for force against non-state actors in third-party territory. Although the status of the doctrine has in the past been in doubt, international law is very much an evolving creature, and years from now the present conflict will no doubt be an important exhibit in that debate. In other words, even if “unwilling or unable” is not the current state of the law, it may well be very soon on account of the present conflict, the U.S. legal justification for it, and the world’ community’s reaction to same. ...20 Mar Jack Goldsmith’s Accurate Description of the “Unwilling or Unable” Test
the extent that Yemen was “unwilling or unable” to suppress the threat he posed. This standard is not settled in international law, but it is sufficiently grounded in law and practice that no American president charged with keeping the country safe could refuse to exercise international self-defense rights when presented with a concrete security threat in this situation. The “unwilling or unable” standard was almost certainly the one the United States relied on in the Osama bin Laden raid inside Pakistan. This is a refreshing statement. As I have noted...07 Nov Leticia & Pancho: The alleged historic precedents for unwilling or unable in Latin America, explored (Part I, Leticia)
Ever since its very first articulations, the “unwilling or unable test” has relied heavily in the time-tested legitimacy of the 1837 Caroline Affair, where British forces sunk a vessel manned by Canadian rebels in American territory. Dressing such a visible and well-known case in the cloth of “unwilling or unable” allows its proponents to argue that its underlying principles have always been an accepted rule of international law, and we all just missed it. However, one specific incident is not enough to prove that a particular legal rule has been...
21 Jun Unwilling or Unable? The International Community’s Failure to Hold Israel Accountable for the Ongoing Apartheid in Occupied Palestine
...in the title of this piece. Indeed, it concerns the ICC complementarity principle which entails that states have priority in proceeding with cases within their jurisdiction, and a case is only admissible if a state is unwilling or unable to investigate crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court. By analogy, if the international community as a whole is unable (due to the US veto) or unwilling (considering the blatant double-standard positions of Western States) to hold Israel to account for its ongoing CAH, where can the Palestinians recourse to seek...28 Sep That “Broad Consensus” for Unwilling/Unable Just Got Less Broad
shocked international community.” If I was being picky, I would acknowledge that Zakharova did not specifically reject “unwilling or unable.” Her emphasis on the requirement of Syria’s consent nevertheless implicitly rejects “unwilling or unable” far more clearly than the statements by various governments that supposedly — according to Ashley Deeks — support the test. So it is more than fair to count Russia in the anti-“unwilling or unable” camp. If you’re keeping score at home, that makes it: at most four states that support “unwilling or unable”; at least one...10 Jun Guest Post: Pakistan’s official withdrawal of consent for drone strikes
of IL. Outside of the scope of self-defence, and without consent of the territorial state, how is targeting ever lawful if that territorial state is unable or unwilling? Since when is inability or unwillingness the next exception to article 2(4) Charter? If there is no threat of an imminent attack, and without UNSC approval, allowing use of force against a sovereign state on the simple basis that this territorial state is unable or unwilling to prevent a (not-imminent) attack or quash a threat thereof, carries an immense danger of widening...10 Mar Mea Culpa Regarding Israel’s Attacks on Hezbollah in 2006
— there is no way to determine whether the it denounced Israel’s attack because it rejected the “unwilling or unable” test or — and this actually seems more likely — because it simply rejected Israel’s claim that it was acting in self-defence. (I disagree with Ori that the statement can be read as an indictment of Israel solely for using disproportionate force in self-defence.) And if we cannot determine the precise reason why LAS rejected Israel’s self-defence claim, that rejection obviously cannot provide opinio juris against the “unwilling or unable”...25 Sep A “Broad Consensus” — of Between Two and Four States
“broad consensus”? A link to a blog post at Lawfare by Ashley Deeks, in which Deeks (1) correctly points out that the US and UK both support “unwilling or unable,” (2) claims that “France appears to be prepared to invoke the ‘unwilling or unable’ concept in the Syria context,” and (3) states that Australia is “apparently relying on a collective self-defense of Iraq/unwilling and unable theory.” So at most there is a “broad consensus” of four states in support of “unwilling or unable.” And perhaps there are only two. That’s...