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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 5h

Today!

Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 14d

If you're in Copenhagen October 10, come see Andrew Cayley KC, who ran the Palestine investigation at the #ICC, give a
Centre for Military Studies talk entitled "The Future of International Criminal Justice: An Insider’s View." 15:00 at the Law Faculty. Register: cms.polsci.ku.dk/events/the-f...

The Future of International Criminal Justice: An Insider’s View

International Criminal Justice is facing a tipping point. Questions about its efficacy, its efficiency and a hostile political climate are raising doubts about its relevance and, even further, its ver...

cms.polsci.ku.dk

Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 3d

This Friday! Come.

Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 14d

If you're in Copenhagen October 10, come see Andrew Cayley KC, who ran the Palestine investigation at the #ICC, give a
Centre for Military Studies talk entitled "The Future of International Criminal Justice: An Insider’s View." 15:00 at the Law Faculty. Register: cms.polsci.ku.dk/events/the-f...

The Future of International Criminal Justice: An Insider’s View

International Criminal Justice is facing a tipping point. Questions about its efficacy, its efficiency and a hostile political climate are raising doubts about its relevance and, even further, its ver...

cms.polsci.ku.dk

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 3d

Still probably the highlight of my career!

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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 7d

Spoke with @charliesavage.bsky.social about how the administration is trying to backfill a legal rationale for US strikes in the Caribbean.

Seems by "determining" there is an armed conflict—without any basis in fact or law—POTUS is giving himself a license to kill.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told

www.nytimes.com

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 14d

The talk is kindly co-sponsored by the Faculty of Law. It will be recorded but not live-streamed.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 14d

If you're in Copenhagen October 10, come see Andrew Cayley KC, who ran the Palestine investigation at the #ICC, give a
Centre for Military Studies talk entitled "The Future of International Criminal Justice: An Insider’s View." 15:00 at the Law Faculty. Register: cms.polsci.ku.dk/events/the-f...

The Future of International Criminal Justice: An Insider’s View

International Criminal Justice is facing a tipping point. Questions about its efficacy, its efficiency and a hostile political climate are raising doubts about its relevance and, even further, its ver...

cms.polsci.ku.dk

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · 17d

I have finished the first draft of my new article, "A Stillborn Green Revolution: How Elite Activism During the Vietnam War Undermined Wartime Environmental Protection and Doomed the Crime of Ecocide." 33K words, 535 footnotes. Can't wait to share it!

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

*Now* it cares about federal statutes?

Dan Lamothe @danlamothe.bsky.social · Sep 4

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order tomorrow giving the Defense Department a "secondary title" as the Department of War. White House officials now confirming.

Looks like a way to use the title while juggling the law -- the 1947 National Security Act -- that gave DoD its name.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(9) If the US really believes its self-defence and armed conflict claims, it should make the case, not offer cursory and confused statements like Kelly's. I won't be holding my breath.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(8) Killing the individuals on the boat was murder. A state with jurisdiction over the killings -- such as one that applies passive personality jurisdiction to the crime of murder and had a national on board -- is entitled to prosecute any of the perpetrators in its domestic courts.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(7) The killings were unlawful under IHRL because they were neither proportionate (the traffickers did not pose an imminent threat to life) nor necessary (the US admits it attacked the boat to send a message to traffickers, not because it could not be interdicted and boarded).

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(6) Because the attack on the boat did not take place as part of an armed conflict, the US cannot invoke IHL rules permitting lethal force against combatants or civilians directly participating in hostilities to justify the killings. The killings were governed by IHRL.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(5) As I tweeted yesterday, there is no coherent argument that the attack on the boat was governed by IHL. Although it is conceivable that a state could be engaged in a NIAC with a drug-trafficking organization, nothing indicates that this boat was connected to such a NIAC.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(4) Even if a state did have a right of individual self-defence agains the boat, the US could not attack the boat in collective self-defence unless the state with the individual right requested US assistance. The ICJ made that requirement clear in the Nicaragua case.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(3) Because no state, not even one affected by drug trafficking, had an individual right of self-defence against the boat, the US had no legal right to attack the boat in "collective self-defence." The latter depends on the former.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(2) Similarly, the US is not entitled to use of force in self-defence to protect its "national interests," no matter how vital they might be. Again: self-defence is permissible only in response to an armed attack.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

(1) Drug trafficking is not an "armed attack" that gives rise to the right of self-defence, no matter how much harm it might cause to a state's population. Indeed, drug trafficking is neither an "attack" nor "armed." This is not controversial.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

Here is Kelly's statement: the attack was in “in the collective self-defense of other nations who have long suffered due to the narcotics trafficking and violent cartel activities of such organizations... [and] was fully consistent with the law of armed conflict.”

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 5

Typically excellent article from Charlie Savage. But I wish he had spent a bit more time on the international-law issues. The statement by Anna Kelly, the White House spokesperson, is remarkable for how much it manages to get wrong in a mere 42 words.

Charlie Savage @charliesavage.bsky.social · Sep 4

Trump Claims the Power to Summarily Kill Suspected Drug Smugglers

The move to treat criminals as if they were wartime combatants escalated an administration pattern of using military force for law enforcement tasks at home and abroad.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/u...

Trump Claims the Power to Summarily Kill Suspected Drug Smugglers

www.nytimes.com

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Dan Lamothe @danlamothe.bsky.social · Sep 4

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order tomorrow giving the Defense Department a "secondary title" as the Department of War. White House officials now confirming.

Looks like a way to use the title while juggling the law -- the 1947 National Security Act -- that gave DoD its name.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Sep 4

Wherein I further endear myself to the Trump administration by making clear that the attack on the Venezuelan drug-trafficking boat was a clear violation of international human rights law. (My thanks to @elizlanders.bsky.social for the interview.) video.snapstream.net/Play/1LL3E8j...

Scripps News - 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM - U.S. Strikes Venezuelan Narco-Boat, Raising Legal Concerns

And here is the clip featuring your intv! Thank you! - Powered by SnapStream Cloud Sharing

video.snapstream.net

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Charlie Savage @charliesavage.bsky.social · Sep 4

Trump Claims the Power to Summarily Kill Suspected Drug Smugglers

The move to treat criminals as if they were wartime combatants escalated an administration pattern of using military force for law enforcement tasks at home and abroad.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/u...

Trump Claims the Power to Summarily Kill Suspected Drug Smugglers

www.nytimes.com

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Aug 22

If you're interested, you can find the ad at 4'11" in the video below. Apparently the room full of Madison Avenue ad men erupted with approval when the ad won the Clio, indicating the depth of mainstream opposition to the Vietnam War. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNjr...

Vietnam War: Help Unsell the War. 7 TV-Spots, 1971

YouTube video by Clips From the Past

www.youtube.com

Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Aug 22

Fun fact: in 1972, "Apple Pie," a TV ad created by religious antiwar activists and Mad Men that decried US tax dollars being spent on “bombs instead of schools, defoliation instead of clean air and water, tanks instead of trains," won the Clio Award -- Madison Avenue's Oscar.

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Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · Aug 21

Art of the deal.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Aug 20

Apparently the US has now sanctioned both #ICC Deputy Prosecutors, Khan and Niang, as well as Judge Guillou of France and Judge Prost of Canada. sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov

Sanctions List Search

sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Aug 18

Disturbing fact of the day: between 1965 and 1973, the US used nearly 31 billion pounds of munitions in Indochina, more than 7X the total amount used in WW II -- and equivalent to dropping one Hiroshima-sized atomic bomb on Indochina every five days for eight years, 600 in all.

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Kevin Jon Heller @kevinjonheller.bsky.social · Aug 15

I miss the good old days when rugged, square-jawed, non-woke white warriors led the US Armed Forces to glorious victory. Warriors like Gen. William Westmoreland in Vietnam.