Weekend Roundup: April 28 – May 4, 2012

This week on Opinio Juris, Chen Guangcheng’s escape to the US Embassy in Beijing did not go unnoticed. In a first post, Julian Ku discussed how Chen would not get political asylum at the Embassy. Peter Spiro followed up with his thoughts on diplomatic asylum. After Chen’s departure from the US Embassy, Julian asked whether the US or China violated international law.

Julian also had a closer look at the content and legal status of the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement that Obama went to sign in Afghanistan.

Duncan Hollis posted three first impressions from a recent conference at the US Naval Academy on the Ethics of Military Cyber Operations. Further on novel military operations, Ken Anderson posted a summary of his recent article, co-authored with Matthew Waxman, on the Law and Ethics for Robot Soldiers.

Kevin Heller welcomed Communis Hostis Omnium, a blog on maritime piracy, to the blogosphere. He posted on Benjamin Netanyahu’s terrible week and analysed Libya’s challenge of the admissibility of the ICC cases against Gaddafi and Al-Senussi. He then addressed the question, raised in the comments by recent Opinio Juris guest contributor Mark Kersten, whether Libya is “able” to prosecute Gaddafi and Al-Senussi given that neither of them is currently in Libya’s custody. Kevin also discussed how the Nuremberg defense is popping up in the NFL’s bountygate.

In a guest post, Marty Lederman linked to a speech on “The Ethics and Efficacy of the President’s Counterterrorism Strategy” by John Brennan, Obama’s Assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Michael W. Lewis discussed in a guest post how this speech fits with earlier speeches by Koh and Holden and concluded that this speech is probably the last one on this topic by senior administration officials. Gabor Rona’s guest post pointed to some troubling aspects of the Brennan speech, e.g. its broad definition of targetability. In a follow up post, Gabor responded to criticism by Bobby Chesney on his first guest post.

Peggy McGuinness posted on the Bronx’ Supreme Court’s decision not to grant DSK diplomatic immunity in the civil lawsuit brought by a former maid at the Sofitel hotel alleging sexual assault. Julian Ku addressed how the Court avoided addressing the impact of customary international law on the state’s case.

Peter Spiro offered two thoughts on an article by Ian Hurd on the Law and Practice of Diplomacy. He also discussed the Third Circuit’s merits opinion in United States v. Bond, confirming a conviction under the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998, and rejecting a Tenth Amendment challenge of the Act’s constitutionality.

Finally, our listing of upcoming events and call for papers is here and latest weekday new wrap is here.

Have a great weekend!