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1. Interrogations of Consent: A Reply to Erika de Wet

Author:
Dino Kritsiotis
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article presents a critical engagement with the issue of force and intervention undertaken with the consent of the state in whose territory it ultimately occurs and offers a critical assessment of Erika de Wet’s article ‘The Modern Practice of Intervention by Invitation in Africa and Its Implication for the Prohibition of the Use of Force’. It considers the different interpretative approaches suggested for consent and the Charter of the United Nations’ prohibition of force as well as the principle or principles that have come to govern the issuing of valid consent in international law. The contribution turns to some of the methodological positions taken in exploring the continuing validity of the so-called ‘effective control principle’ in modern African practice, and, as it does so, it probes the utility of questions for the jus ad bellum of ‘other’ international law (such as developments within the jus in bello and the law on self-determination).
Topic:
International Law, Sovereignty, United Nations, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

2. A Symposium on Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism: The Framework of a Liberal Grand Strategy

Author:
Richard Falk, Tom Farer, Dino Kritsiotis, and Paul Taylor
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Human Rights and Human Welfare - Review Essays
Institution:
Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
Abstract:
Reading Tom Farer's challenging and eloquent Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism evoked two persistent reactions. The first, and foremost, was the reminder of my long unfulfilled wish that the U.S. was a country where the “liberal” presidential candidate of the Democratic Party would have the courage and clarity of mind and heart to rely on someone with Farer's deep understanding of how to (re)shape American foreign policy in the early twenty-first century rather than turn the job over to those tired “old hands” that might improve things by five percent, but not by much more. (even the word liberal is now disfavored by liberals in public discourse almost as much as the taboo word “socialist,” the former having been effectively discredited by George H.W. Bush two decades ago; the rhetorical preference in general discussion has shifted to “progressive,” but I will stick with liberal here taking advantage of the greater latitude of academic discourse). It is not actually an indictment of any particular individual, and certainly not Barack Obama, but rather the constraints of a climate of public opinion, reinforced by media gurus and special interests, that restrict the roster of credible candidates for high elective office in the United States to those who quibble at the margins, while affirming the consensus verities however discredited and bereft of any basis for the necessary drastic modifications of future policy. To his credit, Farer does not shy away from such disqualifying affirmations so as to keep alive the chance he might be called upon to play a prominent role in the future making of American foreign policy. On the contrary, he practices his form of controversial truth-telling with vivid prose, disarming wit, lucid and persuasive reasoning, an unflagging respect for evidence, as well as an engaging willingness to push provocatively the hottest red button issues.
Topic:
Public Opinion
Political Geography:
United States

3. The War on Terror and the Problematique of the War Paradigm

Author:
Dino Kritsiotis
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Human Rights and Human Welfare - Review Essays
Institution:
Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
Abstract:
This volume is not for the faint-of-heart. In Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo- Conservatism: The Framework of A Liberal Grand Strategy (2008), Tom Farer reaches deep into psyche and soul of “a nation's humanistic culture” (79),1 and examines the “fateful decision” of the Bush Administration after September 11, 2001, “to pursue its ends unconstrained by conventional interpretations of the applicable law” (82). He argues that “it would strain credulity if someone suggested that [the torture memoranda] were spontaneously generated by mid-level officials” and locates the heart of decision-making in the White House of the Bush Administration who, Farer writes, “requested legal advice both to determine the limits imposed by acts of Congress and the risk of criminal liability particularly for persons not in a position to deny responsibility if they went outside statutory law and their actions became public” (85). There is no mincing of words here, no recoiling from the charges or criticisms made, and it is a process that comes with its unflattering and hard-hitting historical parallels (64). Yet, it is also the case that a strong sense takes hold in Confronting Global Terrorism that the path trodden by the United States in these years need not have been so—that this particular democracy need not have compromised its moral standing and its authority, or its commitment to the rule of law.
Topic:
Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

4. Close Encounters of a Sovereign Kind

Author:
Dino Kritsiotis
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article considers the prominence that threats of force have had in international political life since the end of the Cold War, and how we tend to overlook these threats in favour of the actual uses of force. Security Council Resolution 678 of November 1990 is one such example. Emblematic of the rule of law and its New World Order, it is often invoked for the 'authorisation' it gave to Member States of the United Nations 'co-operating with the Government of Kuwait ... to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area' - but this provision was made contingent upon whether 'Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements [previous] resolutions'. We examine the range of circumstances in which threats of force have arisen and find that these go beyond the archetypal 'close encounter' between states - such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the 'threats of force' directed against Iraq prior to Operation Desert Fox (1998) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003). Making use of the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice from its Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion (1996), we advance the idea of a prohibition of the application of force, and consider the logistics of its operation in state practice; first, in the recent relations between the United States and Iran and, then, through a modern reprise of the facts of the Corfu Channel Case of April 1949. We allude to the importance of the legislative background and purpose behind this prohibition, constantly reflecting upon the intricacies of state relations in which this provision of the United Nations Charter seeks to make its mark.
Topic:
Security, Cold War, Government, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Kuwait