Comparative Law

Episode 22 – Srinivas Burra on India’s Apparent Shift on Self-Defense

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In this episode, I speak with Srinivas Burra, professor of law at South Asian University, Faculty of Legal Studies, in New Delhi, India. Srinivas has written extensively on both jus ad bellum and international humanitarian law, often with a focus on India’s practice and position in relation to these legal regimes. We discuss first how India’s position regarding the doctrine of self-defense, as indicated in statements in the recent Arria-formula meeting of the U.N. Security Council, appears to have shifted quite significantly as compared to the posture it adopted in the context of strikes against non-state actors within Pakistan in 2016 and 2019. Srinivas interprets the recent statements to suggest that India accepts both anticipatory self-defense and self-defense against non-state actors, but surprisingly, views its rejection of the “unwilling or unable” doctrine as taking a more expansive and aggressive posture than that doctrine allows when it comes to defending against non-state actors in non-consenting states. Turning to international humanitarian law, we discuss why India has continued to hold out against ratifying the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. Another fascinating discussion!

Materials:

– “India’s Decisive Turn on the Right to Self-Defence,” Opinio Juris, Mar. 22, 2021.

– “Use of Force as Self Defence against Non-State Actors and TWAIL Considerations: A Critical Analysis of India’s State Practice,” 24 Asian Yearbook of International Law (2018).

– “India’s Strange Position on the Additional Protocols of 1977,” EJILTalk!, Feb. 15, 2019.

Recommended Reading:

– B. S. Chimni, “The Articles on State Responsibility and the Guiding Principles of Shared Responsibility: A TWAIL Perspective,” 31 European Journal of International Law, volume 1211 (2020).

– Ntina Tzouvala, “TWAIL and the “Unwilling or Unable” Doctrine: Continuities and Ruptures,” 109 American Journal of International Law: Unbound  266 (2015).

– Frédéric Mégret, “From ‘Savages’ to ‘Unlawful Combatants’: A Postcolonial Look at International Humanitarian Law’s ‘Other’, in Anne Orford, ed., International Law and its Others, (2006).

Episode 21 – Yasuyuki Yoshida on Japanese Perspectives on the Jus ad Bellum Regime

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In this episode I speak with Yasuyuki Yoshida, Professor of International Law at Takaoka University in Toyama Japan, and former Captain(N) in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force. We discuss Japan’s posture on various aspects of the jus ad bellum regime, and whether or how its position may have changed as a result of the “reinterpretation” of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan. Article 9 famously renounces the threat or use of force, and has long been understood to prohibit any collective self-defense or use of force authorized by the UN Security Council, but in 2014 the government purported to “reinterpret” the provision to relax its constraints. We discuss how the new policy relates to the jus ad bellum, and what Japan’s position is on a number of the more controversial elements of the doctrine of self-defense. The discussion includes surprising insights on how Japan would view a Chinese incursion on the Senkaku Islands, whether Japan would help defend Taiwan, and whether the US could invoke collective self-defense of Japan for preemptive strikes on North Korea. Another fascinating conversation!

Materials:

– Cabinet Decision on Development of Seamless Security Legislation to Ensure Japan’s Survival and Protect its People, July 1, 2014.

Reading Recommendation:

– Sheila Smith, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power (2019).

Episode 9 – Oona Hathaway on War Powers and the Scope of National Security

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In this episode, I speak with Oona Hathaway, Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Professor of International Law and Area Studies at the Yale University MacMillan Center. We discuss the constitutional and legislative constraints on the executive war-making power, both in terms of the theoretical rationale for such constraints, and in terms of the constitutional and legislative form such constraints take in U.S. legal system. After discussing how and why such constraints in the U.S. have eroded over time, reaching a nadir in the Libyan intervention, Oona explains how the War Powers Resolution could be revised, in ways more consistent with international law, and how Congress could employ the courts, in order to re-establish Congressional authority over decisions to engage in armed conflict. We also discuss how such crises as the Coronavirus pandemic and climate change should cause us to re-think the scope and character of national security priorities and policy. We wrap up with a short discussion of the collaborative process involved in the writing of her co-authored work The Internationalists, and the ethical obligations in being a government lawyer. A fantastic foray into war powers and evolving perspectives on national security!

Materials:

– “How to Revive Congress’s War Powers,” Texas National Security Review (2019).

– “How to Recover a Role for Congress and the Courts in Decisions to Wage War,” Just Security, Jan. 10, 2020)(with Geoffrey Block).

– “COVID-19 Shows How the U.S. Got National Security Wrong,” Just Security, Apr. 7, 2020.

Reading Recommendations:

– Kate Manne, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (2020).

– Samuel Moyn, Humane: How Americans Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, [working title – forthcoming, see this YouTube session for Sam’s discussion of the book!]

– Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall Trilogy (2009)

Episode 7 – Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg on Latin American Approaches to the Laws of War

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In this episode, I speak with Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg, Professor of Law at the Universidad del Pacifico in Lima, Peru. We discuss his recent writing on the Latin American approaches to, and perspectives on, the jus ad bellum regime and principles of non-intervention. Drawing on a rich history of the Latin American response to the Monroe Doctrine and European approaches to intervention in the 19th Century, Alonso explains how the distinct Latin American perspectives developed, found expression in the Montevideo Convention of 1933, and contributed to the Latin American embrace of the U.N. system in 1946. He explains how a misunderstanding of the Latin American perspective leads to common misinterpretations of Latin American positions and responses to recent interventions, such as those in Syria, and debates over doctrinal issues, such as the validity of humanitarian intervention or the unwilling or unable doctrine. We round off our discussion by putting it all into the context of Third World approaches to international law. An eye-opening romp through history and theory!

 

Materials:

– “A Legal History of Consent and Intervention in Civil Wars in Latin America,”  7  J. Use of Force and Int’l L. 1 (2020).

– “The Latin American View of Jus ad Bellum,” Just Security, May 16, 2018.

– “The Other Carolines,” Opinio Juris, Feb. 17, 2020.

Reading Recommendations:

– Juan Pablo Scarfi, The Hidden History of International Law in the Americas: Empire and Legal Networks (2017).

– Liliana Obregón, “Between Civilisation and Barbarism: Creole Interventions in International Law,” 27 Third World Quarterly 815 (2006).

– Andrew Fitzmaurice, “Discovery, Conquest, and Occupation of Territory,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law, Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, eds. (2012).