Over the last few months, as the eurozone crisis has gathered steam, I have wondered what the crisis means for the governance structures of the EU. One answer is, not much — the political leadership will somehow muddle through as it always does, on the basis of discretionary deals among the national leaders of European states. Then the institutional arrangements...
I've made more than my share of mistakes in my six years of blogging. It's painful and embarrassing, but it happens. All you can do is admit your mistakes and move on. Unfortunately, that is not the approach taken by the author of the terrible Mother Jones article I discussed yesterday. Suebsaeng doesn't believe that he made any mistakes. On the...
We have certain images in our minds about that first Thanksgiving. It usually involves bountiful harvests, amicable relations with the Indians, and prayerful thanksgiving to Providence for his manifold blessings. Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. Although there are various versions of the “first Thanksgiving,” one event that has a strong claim to it occurred at Plymouth, Massachusetts in the fall...
Many of you have probably already seen the fascinating story of how a North American Bird got the name of a European/Asian country. According to at least one explanation, the bird of the genus Meleagris that many of us will eat today first found its way to England, not via New World explorers and colonists but via Turkish traders...
Lord knows I can't stand Mitt Romney. And I have never bought the idea that Ahmadinejad has committed direct and public incitement of genocide through his inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric. But this Mother Jones article is still staggeringly awful: When asked about Iran and Israel at Tuesday's CNN national security debate, on-and-off Republican front-runner Mitt Romney replied in his typically tough, ...
My friend Jens Ohlin -- Associate Professor of Law at Cornell and one of the very best substantive international criminal law scholars writing today -- has started a solo blog, LieberCode. Like his scholarship, the posts are top notch; recent entries address Libya and positive complementarity; the Florence Hartmann saga; targeted killing and citizenship; and the presumption of regularity regarding...
In my prior post, I suggested that the standards for aiding and abetting liability and corporate liability that emerge (or don’t emerge) out of the jurisprudence of international criminal courts are best understood not as customary international law, but instead, as a form of international criminal common law. One initial reaction to this argument might be if these rules aren’t...
Most commentators have assumed -- Julian included -- that Libya has an obligation under the Rome Statute to surrender Saif Gaddafi to the ICC before it can challenge the admissibility of the case against him. At The Multilateralist today, David Bosco quotes a UN diplomat who believes that Libya can challenge admissibility without first surrendering Saif: [Y]esterday, an extremely well informed...
Much of my work focuses on international sources theory, not exactly the material for a scintillating, timely blogpost, and I initially thought I should probably spare you my thoughts on it. (As a footnote, an early draft of my entry-level job talk paper was titled, “Taking Opinio Juris Seriously.” I understand this had some of the OJ members on hiring...
Let me start by thanking Peggy and the whole OJ crew for inviting me to be a guest here. I very vividly remember the first time I found this blog, back when it had just gotten started (and was still at its previous address). It was among the very first law blogs I had seen, right around the...
Professor Harlan Cohen of the Univ. of Georgia Law School will be guest blogging with us for the next few weeks. Among his other achievements prior to joining the UGA faculty in 2007, Harlan was a Furman Fellow at NYU Law School and on the staff at Foreign Affairs. He teaches and writes in international law in the U.S, international legal...
I haven't been following Australia's new law requiring plain packaging for tobacco products, but I am a bit surprised that Philip Morris has filed a notice of arbitration claiming the law violates Australia's bilateral investment treaty with Hong Kong. Here is PM's argument: Australia is in breach of the BIT because plain packaging: Amounts to unlawful expropriation of PMA’s investments and valuable...
