LQX 7001 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

CRITICAL REVIEW

“REDUCING THE SECURITY GAP THROUGH

NATIONAL COURTS: TARGETED KILINGS
AS A CASE STUDY BY SHARON WEILL”

BY: LIM YEE THENG (LQB 190004)

 1. Introduction

A critical review of Sharon Weill, “Reducing the Security Gap through National

Courts Targeted Killings as a Case Study”, and was published by Journal of Conflict

& Security Law © Oxford University Press 2016. Overall, the author has chosen cases

from two States, i.e. Israel and the United States (“US”) to examine the national courts

attitude in situations of armed conflict.

The aim of the article is to demonstrates that national courts have been

increasingly willing to review armed conflict cases as well as actions committed

beyond States’ territorial borders.

2. Summary

The author’s main finding was that access to courts is a constitutional right in

democratic states and an important pillar of the rule of law. However, when dealt with

armed conflict situation, the courts would avoid/refrain from exercising competence.

Thus, the courts developed deference techniques to deal with political complexity of

international law. The original quote from the article at page 57 reads as below:

“Exercising judicial review through the use of deference techniques allows

the judiciary to redefine its role as law enforces in armed conflict issues; not

to be absent from this field of application, while not exceeding its institutional

capacities, and dialoging with the other branches of government instead of

confronting them.”
 The author further explained the deference technique is the doctrine to move

away from their traditional avoidance position in cases related to international law and

to reject the non-justiciability claims.

3. Critique

(a) Credibility of the Author and Objectives Set and Achieved

The credibility of the author is unquestionable. She is a lecturer and researcher

in international law, at the Sciences Po, Paris (PISA)1.

The author set her objectives to examine the potential role of national courts in

reducing the ‘security gap’ in the context of armed conflicts which she had achieved in

showing the courts’ growing practices is slowly replace the diplomatic enforcement of

international law and the national courts are applying the proper way to apply

international law to ensure the protection of human security.

(b) Adequacy of Legal Material and its Reliability and Strengths and Validity of the

Legal Materials Used

The author had referred to various resources, including primary resources such

as case law reports and legislation. The author also had referred to secondary

resources such as articles in law journal. For most of her article, the author had relied

mostly on the primary resources. Hence, the legal materials used in the reviews article

are reliable and valid.

1 https://www.sciencespo.fr/psia/content/sharon-weill.html
(c) Strength and Weakness of the Reviewed Article

Overall the article is comprehensive study but it is not extensive on the subject.

Though the article follows the development of the national courts attitude in situations

of armed conflict, but it should have covered a larger area of the subject such as when

and how the courts apply international humanitarian law2. In addition, the study is only

in regards to US and Israel. As such, comparison is limited to those two countries and

we are not able to read the author’s review on other states’ courts attitude in armed

conflict situation.

(d) No recommendation included

The author did not include recommendation after her analysis of the judicial

approaches by courts in US and Israel pertaining to armed conflict. Recommendation

will be beneficial to her readers to know her view/idea on how problems/issues raised

in her article can be corrected or improved.

4. Conclusion

In a nutshell, the author had presented a well research and analyzed writing on

national courts attitude in situations of armed conflict based on US and Israel’s

experience. However, it will be better and more beneficial if the author had widened

her study to include more countries apart from US and Israel.

2Laurie R. Blank, Understanding When and How Domestic Courts Apply IHL, 44Case W. Res. J. Int'l
L.205 (2011) Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol44/iss1/12
 REFERENCES

1. https://www.sciencespo.fr/psia/content/sharon-weill.html

2. Laurie R. Blank,Understanding When and How Domestic Courts Apply IHL,

44Case W. Res. J. Int'l L.205 (2011) Available at:

https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol44/iss1/12