Search Results for: 2013-10-31

The current conflict engulfing Israel and Palestine raises significant issues of international law and policy. This is part one in an anticipated two-part series that will discuss some of the relevant legal questions before the International Criminal Court (ICC; Part I) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ; Part II).  With both courts located in [...]

It is Thanksgiving Day. The aroma of turkey; of dressing; candied sweet potatoes; green bean casserole; cranberry sauce; freshly baked yeast rolls; giblet gravy, and of pies emanating from the kitchen fills our nostrils. Home is the place to be today. But have you ever given thought to the law of the gobbler? This Day in [...]

“For by Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy War.” Proverbs 24,6 Israel’s nuclear posture remains closely held. On its face, this “ambiguous” stance appears perfectly reasonable. But a critically core question should now be raised: Is unmodified deliberate nuclear ambiguity (the “bomb in the basement”) still in the long-term survival interests of the beleaguered state. [...]

For years, Sri Lanka has occupied the international spotlight for one of its contentious laws—the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The PTA was introduced in 1979 during the Sri Lankan Civil War using the emergency law provisions in Part II of the Public Security Ordinance. While similar laws exist in other nations, showing widespread acceptance [...]

Within the past 12 months, Jacinda Ardern has resigned as New Zealand’s prime minister, former Australian PM Julia Gillard’s famous “misogyny speech” celebrated its tenth anniversary, and the high-profile retrial against Australian Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of colleague Brittany Higgins was dropped for posing a “significant and unacceptable risk” to [...]

An Egyptian emergency court Sunday sentenced former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh to 15 years in prison for “spreading false news” and undermining state security. Aboul Fotouh along with several prominent figures from the banned Muslim Brotherhood organization were also accused of plotting to overthrow the state, according to Reuters. Aboul Fotouh ran for [...]

In the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning a half-century of abortion jurisprudence, Justice Samuel Alito repeatedly argued that this difficult issue should be decided by the people through their elected representatives. Such calls for democracy to work, however, should be looked at with great skepticism by the American people, given how often and how [...]

As conservation organizations and governments around the globe grapple with the devastating effects of climate change and overexploitation, the legal battle fought over the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, may provide insights into how litigation can help—or hinder—efforts to save species from extinction. [...]

Picture a swarm of drones entering a village programmed to fly without a human operator with instructions to shoot or immobilize anyone it deems to be holding a weapon. While this might sound like a scene from Lana Wachowski’s latest Matrix film, the technology to build these killer robots is already here. Unless states act [...]

Abstract: For Israel, core issues surrounding Iran’s still-accelerating nuclear weapons program have been strategic and political, rather than legal. Nonetheless, if Israel should ever decide that it no longer has any reasonable alternative to launching a preemptive attack against certain Iranian military/industrial targets, this defensive first-strike would need to be justified under international law. In [...]