So, to my mind at least, the whole theory that that there is such a thing as tort responsibility of individuals or non-state actors in international law is completely unsupported. If I commit a crime against humanity and incur individual criminal responsibility at the international level, that does not mean that I have simultaneously incurred civil or tort responsibility at the international level towards the victims of my crimes.
The quotation does not come from a right-wing Koh-critic, but a respected non-American international lawyer, Marko Milanovic, who says (scroll down to the comments section) that he believes that his position reflects (non-American) international legal thinking in general. So do I. His comment was a response to a post by Ken Anderson at Opinio Juris who made just this point. Like Anderson, I have repeatedly heard similar statements from non-American international lawyers and wondered why they have never published their views. Milanovic answers this query (which was posed by Anderson) in this way:
As for your question why non-US scholars are not actively engaged in debunking (what we see) as an improper interpretation of international law in US courts and the mainstream US legal academia, perhaps a part of that answer is the one that you suggest, namely that we don