22.15
Just came home from uni. On the way back I walked passed this forest. It's one of those still, silent nights, cold but not too cold, misty but not too misty, one of those nights that everything just seems about right. Even my mood.
Yeah, it's been a long day at work and uni. Started off with a meeting of my colleagues at the moot court organising committee, then headed into the library just after lunch to quickly get through the reading for today's lecture. At one point, our dramatic lecturer burst into song as he explained, more as an 'aside', how at the signing of the NATO Treaty the accompanying banddeliberately played songs by George Gershin's "It ain't necessarily so". Just reading the lyrics, and putting it in the Cold War context, I realised why:
Li'l David was small, but oh my !
Li'l David was small, but oh my !
He fought Big Goliath
Who lay down an' dieth !
Li'l David was small, but oh my !
Well, after the lecture and a quick bite to eat it was library time. Spent a lot of time discussing the paper with my friends, like good lawyers we are, construing the meaning behind the words. At first glance, the assignment seems easy enough: who, out of the three suspected states of Lebanon, Syria and Iran, is attributable for the acts of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel.
Given the facts, and what we know from the international case law, it seemed like it was easy to just apply the rules. But which rules, how, to what extent, in what context...? All sorts of questions starting coming up. On the face of it, it seemed like an easy assignment. A state is attributable for acts of private groups if it can be proven that the state has "control" over that group. But what is the extent of the control? Nicaragua says "effective control", meaning that mere financing and sponsoring with armaments is not enough. You need to be issuing direct orders and instructions to that militant group to be in "effective control". But another case, Tadic, holds the control need only be "overall control"...meaning a state need not be directing or issuing orders to be held attributable for acts of a militant group like Hezbollah. And we've not even discussed whether under the new international legal regime in the 'War on Terror' whether states 'sponsoring' or 'harbouring' terrorism will be attributable for carried acts by militant groups which cause international wrongs.
Spent the past weekend with my head stuck between the cases, legal texts and academic articles...and the more you read, the more questions you have, the more you can interpret and re-interpret the words of the assignment in another way, which gives rise to a whole new rule and application of that rule. Are we making this more complicated than it really is, and giving ourselves more work than is actually required? Will the lecturer even notice how much thought, work and effort is being put into this assignment? One cynic calculated that each paper we write actually only counts 3% of the total mark of the whole masters programme. Which makes you wonder if it's worth the many moments of conceptualising, footnoting, editing, comparing, contrasting and wrangling word games.
After almost one and a half hours of discussion, arguing, we were no further than we were when we started....but we agreed on one thing: we need to read more, brush up on our supporting arguements and will reconvene tomorrow. Court is now in recess, and will open then. Again.
Given the facts, and what we know from the international case law, it seemed like it was easy to just apply the rules. But which rules, how, to what extent, in what context...? All sorts of questions starting coming up. On the face of it, it seemed like an easy assignment. A state is attributable for acts of private groups if it can be proven that the state has "control" over that group. But what is the extent of the control? Nicaragua says "effective control", meaning that mere financing and sponsoring with armaments is not enough. You need to be issuing direct orders and instructions to that militant group to be in "effective control". But another case, Tadic, holds the control need only be "overall control"...meaning a state need not be directing or issuing orders to be held attributable for acts of a militant group like Hezbollah. And we've not even discussed whether under the new international legal regime in the 'War on Terror' whether states 'sponsoring' or 'harbouring' terrorism will be attributable for carried acts by militant groups which cause international wrongs.
Spent the past weekend with my head stuck between the cases, legal texts and academic articles...and the more you read, the more questions you have, the more you can interpret and re-interpret the words of the assignment in another way, which gives rise to a whole new rule and application of that rule. Are we making this more complicated than it really is, and giving ourselves more work than is actually required? Will the lecturer even notice how much thought, work and effort is being put into this assignment? One cynic calculated that each paper we write actually only counts 3% of the total mark of the whole masters programme. Which makes you wonder if it's worth the many moments of conceptualising, footnoting, editing, comparing, contrasting and wrangling word games.
After almost one and a half hours of discussion, arguing, we were no further than we were when we started....but we agreed on one thing: we need to read more, brush up on our supporting arguements and will reconvene tomorrow. Court is now in recess, and will open then. Again.
1 comment:
Each paper is 3% of the total grade doesn't seem much, but your ultimate goal is not just the grade. You want to know and understand international law, so what you were doing, the discussions and analysis, is the right thing.
Good luck,
Michael.
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