Latest in Biological and Chemical Weapons
On Thursday, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued the following memorandum opinion on the April 2018 U.S. airstrikes against three Syrian chemical-weapons facilities.
Published by Cornell UP (Paperback 2011)
Reviewed by Matthew Sprinkel
The Wall Street Journal over the weekend ran this essay adapted from our new book, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones---Confronting A New Age of Threat. It opens,
You walk into your shower and see a spider.
This morning, Gabriella Blum and I had the pleasure of appearing on the Diane Rehm Show to discuss The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones---Confronting A New Age of Threat.
We're thrilled to announce the publication today of our new book, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones---Confronting A New Age of Threat.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465089747/ref=as_li
Curt Bradley’s thoughts are at AJIL Unbound, the Volokh Conspiracy has commentary by Nick Rosenkranz and Ilya Somin, and Jean Galbraith and http://opiniojuri
In an excellent Lawfare post last month, Does the U.N.’s Syria Resolution Violate the Chemical Weapons Convention? Faiza Patel asserts that if Syria sent chemical weapons to another country, Syria would violate the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The conclusion stems from her reasonable, though (to my eye) exceedingly literal reading of the CWC—which bans the “transfer” of chemical weapons to “anyone.”
The UN Security Council (UNSC)
The NYT has the text of the draft UN Security Council Resolution on Syria. The most important paragraph is the penultimate one, which states that the Security Council “[d]ecides, in the event of non-compliance with this resolution, including unauthorized transfer of chemical weapons, or any use of chemical weapons by anyone in the Syrian Arab Republic, to impose measures under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.” I think this means that non-compliance will re
Over at Foreign Policy, Shane Harris has a story about Nathan Myhrvold's Lawfare Research Paper Series paper: "Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action." Along the way, it also contains some nice words about Lawfare.
Julian Ku is right to poke fun at the administration for conveying its vague and conclusory legal rationale for intervening in Syria through the reporting of the NYT’s Charlie Savage. But vague and conclusory guidance via the NYT is better than no guidance at all.
On the international law rationale for interventio