Operation Trip to Atlantic City in Light of the Right of Self-Defense

On May 2, 2011, a covert operation – codenamed Operation Trip to Atlantic City – led to the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Certain observers justified the raid as follows: as bin Laden continued to pose an imminent threat to the United States, and as Pakistan was unable or unwilling to prevent Al-Qaida from using its territory as a base for launching attacks, the United States was authorized to use military force in self-defense against bin Laden in the sovereign territory of Pakistan. This article’s purpose is to assess the validity in law of such a justification through the analysis of scholarly schools of thought, State practice and decisions of the International Court of Justice. Given that self-defense can be invoked only in the case of ongoing armed attack by a State – an opinion confirmed by the Court – this article demonstrates that the conditions of invocation and implementation of the right of self-defense were not fulfilled in casu for at least two reasons. Firstly, after analyzing the ‘unwilling and unable’ test as well as the theory of complicity in light of the rules of attribution for responsibility of States for internationally wrongful act, it is concluded that the threatening activities of Al-Qaida could not be attributed to Pakistan. Secondly, after identifying the legal purpose of the right of self-defense and analyzing the requirement of immediacy, it is concluded that no military operation in the name of self-defense can be lawfully carried out in anticipation of an attack and, in particular, to address an imminent threat

MILITARY COOPERATION IN THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

From the Sahel-Sahara region to Afghanistan, from Syria to the Philippines, the internationalcommunity has been witnessing, for a number of years now, the establishment of military trainingand support partnerships, the launch of joint military operations and the formation of internationalcoalitions which have had a recent upsurge, all of these regional having been specifically designed to fightagainst and eliminate the terrorist scourge. These different forms of military cooperation have beenjustified either by a consent or request from the territorial State, by the right of self-defense,or even by an authorization from the UN Security Council. This article’s purpose is to analyzethe legal framework within which the operations must fall in order for them to be lawful andtheir justifications to be valid. Through the analysis of doctrinal debates, actual State practice andthe decisions of the International Court of Justice, this paper examines notably the criteria that makean intervention by invitation valid, the limitative conditions of invocation and implementation of theright of self-defense, and finally the original as well as the current mechanism of collective securitythat has led to the establishment of peace or multilateral operations

TERRORIST THREAT ON THE HIGH SEAS ANALYSIS OF SOME ASPECTS OF THE RIGHT OF VISIT AND SELF-DEFENCE

Vessels of all sizes can be used in a number of ways by terrorists, they can utilize a vessel as a means, a weapon, a bomb, or as a disruption tool. When a terrorist attack happens, it is already too late, hence the critical importance for the international community to take timely, accurate and efficientex ante factosteps.Counter-terrorism measures implemented on the high seas to prevent maritime terrorist attacks from occurring are possible but limited by the international law and notably the law of the sea. To some extent, the law of the sea limits counter-terrorism efforts. On the high seas, enforcement measures against terrorists or terrorist-related activities on board foreign vessels are restricted by the principle of exclusivity of flag State jurisdiction (a). Nevertheless, the application of the principle can be derogated from by the right of visit which provides for, under certain conditions, some leeway to States in their fight against maritime terrorism (b). it is difficult to justify interdiction operations carried out in order to counter terrorist threats on the high seas by the right of self-defence. The first reason relates to the differences in rationale and legal regime between the force deployed during interdiction operations and the one used in self-defence (a); the second reason concerns the existence or not of a right of anticipatory self-defence (b)

Synchronisation von Steuerungen via Ethernet: Diplom 2015

Ziel dieser Diplomarbeit ist es für die Firma Imperix eine Synchronisation zwischen mehreren Systemen über ein Ethernet Netzwerk zu ermöglichen, wobei das Precision Time Protokoll sowie der Sync-E Standard verwendet werden sollen

Bildverarbeitungskarte CubeSat: Diplom 2015

L'objectif du travail de bachelor est de développer une carte électronique qui peut prendre des photos d'une caméra, les traiter et transmettre les données résultantes à la carte processeur principale du satellite.Das Ziel der Bachelorarbeit ist es, eine elektronische Karte zu entwickeln, welche Bilder einer Kamera aufnehmen kann, diese verarbeitet und die resultierenden Daten an die Hauptprozessorkarte des Satelliten weiterleitet

Underwater rover and water quality monitoring

The objectives of this project were to build a system able to monitor the water quality in Lake Erie, which has severe problems of algae blooms, using an open source underwater rover

Monitoring environnemental

L’organisation CREALP s’intéresse aux dangers naturels, comme les laves torrentielles ou le charriage. Un prototype qui traite les mesures prises par un géophone va être créé. Il doit être autonome et doit fonctionner pendant plusieurs jours. Nous avons créé une carte électronique Low Power, permettant l’acquisition de données émises par un géophone qui peut mesurer dans trois directions possibles. Pour y arriver, nous nous sommes basés sur des fichiers fournis par le CREALP. A partir de ces documents, des courbes ont été dessinées et analysées. Des d’algorithmes ont ensuite été testés sur ces courbes. Ces algorithmes ont pour but de réduire la quantité de données et ils seront implémentés dans unité centrale de traitement. Quant à la carte, elle est divisée en plusieurs parties : une première, dont le rôle est l’acquisition et le traitement des données, une seconde possédant un convertisseur analogique-digital qui convertit les signaux du géophone en nombres exploitables, d’une mémoire locale et enfin, de port permettant l’envoi de données à un serveur via un module de télécommunication. L’unité centrale, le filtre analogique, les algorithmes ainsi que la communication série et I2C fonctionnent, mais le convertisseur AD ne converti pas encore les tensions

2D hardware acceleration

The objective of the project is to develop an IP-core that provides hardware acceleration for common 2D rendering operations in an embedded system. The requirements for graphical user interfaces (GUI) on modern display and touchscreen based systems are increasing steadily. Rendering complex and attractive GUIs requires a lot of processing power. At the same time, energy consumption for most of these embedded systems should decrease. Being able to off-load processor intensive tasks such as rendering of 2D shapes to dedicated hardware vastly decreases rendering time and frees a lot of processor resources which leads to a faster GUI and a less power consuming system