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International Law

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1987

Legitimacy

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Porfiry's Proposition: Legitimacy And Terrorism, Thomas M. Franck, Scott C. Senecal Jan 1987

Porfiry's Proposition: Legitimacy And Terrorism, Thomas M. Franck, Scott C. Senecal

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Suppose that, in 1938, the Prague government of President Edvard Benes, foreseeing the inevitable dismemberment of Czechoslovakia after the Munich Pact, had infiltrated a trained death squad of German Jewish exiles across the German border, in civilian clothing, to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Suppose they had succeeded and had then fled to Holland.

How should international law govern this hypothetical event? Should it require Holland either to try the assassins for murder or to return them to Germany for trial? Or should it exculpate, even commend, the assassins for a job well done? Or should the law remain silent? Would the …