Download The Law of Military Force in a Time of Revolutions

CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW
CIL
Seminar
15 July 2011, Friday, 2.30PM – 4.00PM
NUS Bukit Timah Campus, Block B, Executive Seminar Room, Level 3.
The Law of Military Force in a Time of Revolutions
SPEAKER
Tai-Heng Cheng
Co-Director, Institute for Global
Law, Justice, & Policy
New York Law School
Tai-Heng Cheng is Professor of Law at New York Law
School, where he has been since 2006. He is Co-Director
of the Institute for Global Law, Justice, & Policy, and of the
NYU-NYLS International Economic Law Working Group.
Professor Cheng has authored almost forty books, articles
and essays on international law, international dispute
resolution and international investment law. His next book
monograph, When International Law Works: Realistic
Idealism After 9/11 and the Global Recession, is
forthcoming with Oxford University Press. His scholarship
has been cited as authoritative by judges and counsel in
the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appeals and district
courts.
Professor Cheng is an elected member of the American
Law Institute. He is also an elected member of the
Executive Council of American Society of International
Law. He chairs its Awards Committee, and co-chaired its
2011 Annual Meeting. He is a also member of the
Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational
Arbitration, and co-chair of its 2012 Annual Arbitration
Workshop in Dallas, Texas. He is Honorary Fellow of the
Foreign Policy Association, Fellow of the American Bar
Foundation, and a founding member of the Arbitration
Club of New York.
He is also Senior Legal Advisor at the law firm of Hoguet
Newman Regal & Kenney, LLP, and has served as
arbitrator, chair, expert, amicus curiae, and counsel in
ICSCID, UNCITRAL, ICDR, ICC, SCC, and JAMS arbitrations,
and in U.S. and Canada court proceedings. He is a
member of the panels of neutrals of the ICDR, CPR, and
HKIAC. He has advised the UN Transitional Administration
in East Timor and the Republic of Kosovo on comparative
and international law issues, including investment treaties.
Professor Cheng holds Doctor of the Science of Law and
Master of Laws degrees from Yale Law School, where he
was Howard M. Holtzmann Fellow for International Law. He
also holds a Bachelor of Arts in law degree with First Class
Honors from Oxford University, where he was an Oxford
University Scholar.
INTRODUCTION
This lecture addresses the legal and policy options available
to government officials and their legal advisors considering
military operations overseas. A pragmatic but principled
approach to international law is necessary when planning and
executing
military
operations
because
applicable
international laws are anachronistic but unlikely to be revised.
UN Charter provisions and customary laws governing when
governments may use armed force abroad are unsuited to
preserving global order and human rights in a time of
revolutions, internecine wars, and terrorism. However, the UN
Charter will not realistically be amended, nor will customary
laws change quickly.
Thus, legal advisors and government officials may have to
consider unlawful military operations when national security or
basic human rights are threatened. If officials launch an
armed attack that does not comply with the laws of war, they
should generally provide reasons for their decision. This is
necessary
to
discourage
other
governments
from
subsequently relying on that departure from international law
as a basis for launching armed attacks that are unjustified on
legal or policy grounds. This approach may help preserve
minimum global order while protecting vital state interests.
This lecture will survey the provisions of UN Charter and
customary international laws regulating the use of force, and
appraise them in light of military operations in Iraq in 1990 and
2003, as well as in Kosovo in 1999. Building on these prior
case-studies, the lecture will conclude with a discussion of
military interventions in the revolutions that are unfolding in the
Middle East and North Africa.
FREE ADMISSION
Please register by
[email protected]
emailing
Ms
Geraldine
Ng
at
ABOUT THE CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW (CIL)
The Centre for International Law (CIL) is based at the Bukit Timah campus of the National University of Singapore. CIL’s mission is to enable Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region to play a more significant
role in the promotion and development of international law and policy. The Centre’s aim is to become the region’s intellectual hub and thought leader for research on and teaching of international law
and policy. The Director of CIL is Associate Professor Robert C Beckman and the Deputy Director is Dr Navin Raj. For more information, please visit the CIL website at http://www.cil.nus.edu.sg or email:
[email protected]
Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore, Bukit Timah Campus, Block B, # 02-01, 469 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259756 Map