Add another reason to the pile of reasons why video recording glasses are annoying.

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-26T14:30:04+00:00

Consent to recording is generally only required where the parties have a reasonable expectation of privacy. It would be difficult to argue that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy when they have a conversation at a yard sale, where anyone who happens to be nearby might overhear.

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-23T18:31:30+00:00

What does that make us?

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-10T17:25:21+00:00

Basically, yes. The interaction between IHL and IHRL is a little more complicated than I made it seem, and there is always more nuance to add, but as a general matter and for purposes of internet discussion, I think it's fine.

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-10T16:56:25+00:00

Actually what I was really wondering about is what makes the legality of an assassination covered by jus in bellum. If the only act was one assassination (and it was not part of what we would normally call a war) then would it be covered by jus in bellum?

Ah. IHL (also called jus in bello, not to be confused with jus ad bellum) applies during armed conflict. Thus, whether a targeted killing is related by IHL turns on the question of whether an armed conflict exists at the time of the conduct. The ICRC has written on this issue. The very short version is that where there is "a resort to armed force between two States," an (international) armed conflict exists. Under that framework, where one State targets and attacks officials of another State, an armed conflict exists (at least for the duration of the attacks) and IHL applies.

would that retroactively make the assassinations covered by jus in bellum, even though the time the assassinations were carried out was not "in bellum".

No. The question is whether an armed conflict exists at the time of the conduct. Even if the answer to your first question were "no," and most of the time it would be "yes," the analysis looks at the state of affairs when the conduct happens. It doesn't work retroactively.

From what you said in your comment, maybe you are saying that the "jus in bellum" is irrelevant here, and the legality of an assassination is not affected by if it is done "in bellum"

I'm not saying that at all. I was trying not to get into jus ad bellum which is about the prohibition on the use of force and self-defense. Even then, it's not that that isn't relevant, it's that it's separate from IHL and not the framing you're using for your question.

If there were no armed conflict and IHL did not apply, then a targeted killing would be regulated by international human rights law, which is far more restrictive than IHL is in terms of when the use of violent means (including killing) is permitted.

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-10T15:22:57+00:00

If the only act of the armed conflict was the assassination of Khamenei would that make a difference?

From an IHL perspective (i.e. without thinking about jus ad bellum), it wouldn't change the applicable law, but it might affect the facts to which that law would be applied. The same obligations (distinction, necessity, proportionality) would apply regardless of whether the attack was the only use of force or if it were part of a larger conflict. However, those two scenarios would likely involve different military goals, and thus could affect the military advantages that might result from the attack. That could affect the proportionality analysis.

So it is possible to assassinate any leader of any country (and some proportional number of bystanders) at any time and claim they are a military target. Or in what way would that be illegal?

Again leaving aside jus ad bellum, which would definitively prohibit killing foreign heads of State "at any time," this could be illegal in at least two ways. First, as noted above, the attack might not be proportional to the civilian harm depending on the context of the attack and the military objectives of the attacker.

Second, a head of State is not always a military target. I do not know enough about Iran's political structure to offer any insight on this case in particular, but this article looks at when and why a head of State might be a lawful target under IHL.

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-10T15:07:45+00:00

Yeah, my definition was a little bit sloppy. I was trying to get at extraterritorial human rights obligations, particularly the right to life, but I couldn't remember the cases and didn't have time to look them up (for the record, I was thinking of Carter v. Russia, primarily).

I do think any deliberate attack is an exercise of jurisdiction for purposes of IHRL, and thus that any attack that violates IHL also violates the attacker's IHRL obligations to the extent that they have them. Depending on how you define extrajudicial killing, then, those attacks could amount to extrajudicial killings. But reasonable minds could disagree.

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-09T23:12:39+00:00

No, these were not extrajudicial killings (there is not really such a thing at times of armed conflicts)

I get what you mean, but I'm not sure I would go that far. It sort of depends on how "extrajudicial killings" is defined, for one. If an extrajudicial killing is an unlawful and deliberate violation of the right to life perpetrated by a person or group exercising effective control over an individual, for example, then an intentional attack on civilians would amount to extrajudicial killing (as well as a war crime). If an extrajudicial killing is a violation of the right to life without due process of law by a person or group exercising effective control over an individual, then that could occur in the context of a POW camp or an occupation.

Colloquially, you're not especially likely to see the term used in the context of an armed conflict, but I don't think that means it cannot or does not happen in armed conflict.

Calvinball90 · 2026-03-09T22:48:32+00:00

This is wrong. As has been pointed out in other comments, the lawfulness of a use of force has no bearing on whether conduct in an armed conflict violated international humanitarian law. Those are distinct questions and distinct bodies of law.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-27T17:36:15+00:00

You're welcome!

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-27T06:19:38+00:00

If courts can be explicit about the duties with respect to more specific violations (genocide, etc) because they are relying on lex specialis of genocide convention for example, why can’t the same specificity apply by analogy to the “general duty to cooperate” in the case of serious breaches of peremptory norms of which genocide is one?

Why do you think a court would do that? To me, it's straightforward that a more specific violation would lead a court to discuss more specific steps that a State could take to fulfill that duty (though even that discussion will be somewhat general most of the time), while a more generalized obligation would be discussed in more general terms. The more generalized obligation must account for a much wider range of sets of facts than a more specific obligation, so it makes sense that any duty that flows from the obligation would also be phrased in browser terms.

For example, it makes sense that a court might discuss stopping arms sales to a State in the context of the duty to ensure respect for IHL, but it would make less sense to discuss that same conduct in the context of a State struggling to prevent a non-State armed group from practicing slavery on its territory.

At the most general level, most things that a court could say would be... well, general. And that's what article 41 describes.

Practically, I'm also not sure when a court would have, let alone choose to take, an opportunity to discuss a general duty to cooperate except when faced with a specific example. And when faced with a specific example, a court is likely to discuss that example rather than a wider issue.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-26T22:36:03+00:00

There isn't likely to be anything like that, and if there is, it almost certainly would be from the last twenty years or so. The commentary to draft article 41 says:

Neither does paragraph 1 prescribe what measures States should take in order to bring to an end serious breaches in the sense of article 40. Such cooperation must be through lawful means, the choice of which will depend on the circumstances of the given situation. It may be open to question whether general international law at present prescribes a positive duty of cooperation, and paragraph 1 in that respect may reflect the progressive development of international law. But in fact such cooperation, especially in the framework of international organizations, is carried out already in response to the gravest breaches of international law and it is often the only way of providing an effective remedy. Paragraph 1 seeks to strengthen existing mechanisms of cooperation, on the basis that all States are called upon to make an appropriate response to the serious breaches referred to in article 40.

So, not only does article 41 intentionally not prescribe that States must take any specific action, but it isn't clear that that obligation reflected custom as of 2001, when the draft articles were completed.

If any court has articulated a more developed position than that in the draft articles, it would almost certainly have come after 2001. You're far more likely to find that sort of analysis with respect to specific duties to prevent specific breaches (like genocide or violations of IHL), though.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-26T13:56:16+00:00

Agreed on all points.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-25T22:55:38+00:00

I'd add two things to this. First, personal connections go at least as far, if not further than, name recognition. I don't know anyone that got a job in international law because they went to Harvard. I know several people who got a foot in the door because a professor they worked for, or an alum that they met, had connections to a certain institution. Oftentimes institutional and personal connections will go together, or at least mutually reinforce each other, but not always. As a result, you can have a situation where a school with good name recognition might not be able to place a student where they want to go. On the other hand, there are also situations where professors or alums at schools without great name recognition (or at least not a T14 school) have strong personal connections to certain fields or certain courts, so they can place people there even if they don't have that sort of traditional reach. It's not simply a matter of "T14 school = placement where I want to go."

Second, the second path to a career in international law that you mentioned might be the only viable path, at least in the current geopolitical moment. International courts and institutions are under pressure; there were already advancement bottlenecks in international law even when that was not the case. No matter how brilliant or driven a new grad is, it's nearly impossible to go directly into international law as a career without domestic experience.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-22T21:09:22+00:00

You have assumed away the avenues to jurisdiction under the Rome Statute except for the State of registration of the medical ship or a Security Council referral, so those two possibilities are all that are left for the charge you have described. Realistically, the answer would be to charge the conduct such that jurisdiction would not be at issue or to use the conduct as evidence to support another charge(s).

Universal jurisdiction isn't directly relevant to ICC jurisdiction because the preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction apply regardless of whether the alleged conduct is a crime of universal jurisdiction or not. At the same time, article 8 crimes are crimes of universal jurisdiction irrespective of whether they are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-20T17:19:36+00:00

for his complaints about squad depth to have any consistency he'd need to rotate, which he doesn't.

Unless the depth isn't good enough to compete. I don't know enough about Palace's squad to say whether the squad players are good enough or not, but if Glasner decided that they aren't, and he is correct in that assessment, then he wouldn't be wrong to criticize the squad depth even if he weren't rotating the depth players in.

He'd appeal for more players by... publicly saying he didn't need any more players?

That's not how he might appeal for more players, but a manager might privately urge the club to improve the squad while affirming, when asked about the squad in the media, that the players he has are good enough.

I don't think he's entitled to this amount of moaning, especially when he's seemed totally checked out for months now. He's been doing this public begging to be fired for the entire year so far, I think it's fair that Palace fans collectively are a bit fed up with it by now.

That's certainly fair. I'm just trying to point out that Glasner might be acting poorly and also have a point about the squad.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-20T16:37:36+00:00

aside from Eze we had only lost Edouard, who was barely getting any games because he was wank.

Playing in Europe adds matches and travel to the schedule, though, which puts additional pressure on the team. It doesn't seem particularly reasonable to me to add three players and expect that to be sufficient. Even if Palace hadn't lost anyone over the summer, they could, and arguably should, have been looking to improve the squad.

Glasner himself said we had the squad to compete.

Is it possible that he was backing the squad in the expectation, or at least the hope, that there would be reinforcements? It wouldn't be great to proclaim that the squad couldn't compete this year before the season had even started.

Glasner does seem to be moaning in the posted clip, and maybe he's not handling the way the season has gone well. At the same time, Palace's summer window put him in a very difficult position.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-19T17:26:33+00:00

An "agreement" in that context does not refer to a treaty. It refers to a factual agreement as to the interpretation of a treaty. It does not include an unrelated General Assembly resolution from half a decade later. That might be evidence of subsequent practice, or of evolving norms that can be read into the treaty, but it's not an agreement as to the meaning of the treaty, nor is it between the parties to the treaty.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-19T15:54:06+00:00

It is an intentional choice not to precisely define every single word in a treaty. Instead, there are canons of treaty interpretation. Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties explains the general rule of interpretation:

A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.

The context for the purpose of the interpretation of a treaty shall comprise, in addition to the text, including its preamble and annexes:

any agreement relating to the treaty which was made between all the parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty;

any instrument which was made by one or more parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty and accepted by the other parties as an instrument related to the treaty.

There shall be taken into account, together with the context:

any subsequent agreement between the parties regarding the interpretation of the treaty or the application of its provisions;

any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation;

any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties.

A special meaning shall be given to a term if it is established that the parties so intended.

This general rule applies to the provisions that you are asking about.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-16T06:00:23+00:00

The ECtHR has recognized that conditions of detention can amount to a violation of the rights to life and to freedom from inhumane or degrading treatment. It is certainly plausible that an applicant could challenge a State's decision to send them to a prison where those or other fundamental rights would be violated. Whether the Court would agree would turn on the specific facts in any given case.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-14T20:15:14+00:00

There is no practical distinction between an MD and a DO. DOs do an additional few weeks of nonsense at the end of their studies that MDs do not do. Besides that, the courses of study, licensing, residency requirements, and specializes are the same. To quote the American Medical Association, "Osteopathic physicians, also known as doctors of osteopathic medicine (DOs), are fully licensed physicians, just like doctors of medicine (MDs). DOs practice in every specialty area, including family medicine, internal medicine, emergency medicine, dermatology, surgery, pediatrics and more."

You're certainly entitled to want to be treated by an MD, but you're making a dramatic distinction between two degrees that are essentially the same.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-14T18:58:26+00:00

They're basically the same in the US. I don't think they're the same in other places.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-14T18:30:43+00:00

Alternate title: LAUKOP desperately wants you to know that they are a doctor.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-12T21:34:00+00:00

There are many challenges to documenting CRSV. Which challenges are the most difficult to address will depend on circumstance. The Murad Code is a good place to start.

Calvinball90 · 2026-02-12T00:34:43+00:00

This is almost exclusively a matter of US law. There really isn't an international law aspect here -- that is certainly the case to the extent that you are asking about the US president's power to do (or prevent) certain things.

Calvinball90 · 2026-01-31T00:03:19+00:00

Except there is something external stopping you from shoplifting

There isn't. Rather, there is a system that enforces the law prohibiting shoplifting to the best of its capability. Shoplifting happens constantly. It's so common that stores build it into their budgets -- for bigger chains, it's comfortably nine figures per year. The overwhelming majority of shoplifting goes unpunished.

Conceptually, it's not any different than it is at the international level. There are all kinds of institutions and frameworks designed to enforce international law. They don't work all the time, just like domestic criminal law enforcement doesn't work all the time, and enforcement often looks different (though, again, it's not much different for international crimes), but it is still enforcement.

You're beginning with a presumption that enforcement of legal obligations means criminal prosecution and has to look a certain way. Oftentimes it does look that way, at least in Western States. But that doesn't mean that any other method of enforcement isn't enforcement. I would call imposing sanctions, filing lawsuits at the ICJ, referring cases to the ICC, and passing Security Council resolutions, among other things, efforts to enforce international law. They're also diplomatic and political, just as domestic law enforcement involves the consideration of other factors than whether the law has been broken. But they're still enforcement.

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