As a thought experiment, prompted by this week's experience with Hurricane Sandy: should management of disaster relief migrate to the supranational level? There seem to be two major justifications for a national disaster relief apparatus (a surprisingly recent innovation -- think Carter era, not New Deal). First are the economies of scale: money and expertise. A small state may not have...
Syrian airstrikes have resumed and 18 people have been found dead in the capital. Additionally, there are reports that a senior Syrian Air Force Commander was assassinated in Damascus. A former Chinese diplomat turned academic has argued that the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is a time bomb planted by the US that may go off unless the US does more to encourage negotiations...
The article, which is available in draft form on SSRN, is entitled "'One Hell of a Killing Machine': Signature Strikes and International Law." It is forthcoming in the Journal of International Criminal Justice as part of a mini-symposium on targeted killing edited by Cornell's Jens Ohlin. Here is the abstract: The vast majority of drone attacks conducted by the U.S. have...
International observers have criticized last weekend's elections in Ukraine citing systematic problems in the political and electoral system. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is in Algeria, discussing how to tackle the growing presence of Islamist rebels in Northern Mali. Japan is seeking an exemption on US oil sanctions against Iran. Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble tells the UK: “EU needs you.” Presseurope covers the...
For those of us in the direct line of Hurricane Sandy, it seems appropriate to highlight recent developments in international disaster law. Many of the legal challenges arising from natural disasters involve practical issues such as obtaining visas, removing bureaucratic barriers to financial aid and ensuring that foreign actors offering assistance comply with local laws. However, natural disasters also raise a number...
With zero desire to enter into debates about bayonets and all that politically, purely as an aside I thought OJ readers would be the sorts of people who would take an interest in ...
The Israeli Air Force has struck back at rocket installations in Gaza. Ethnic violence in Myanmar has displaced over 22,000 people according to UN estimates. Nigeria also experienced violence between different religious groups after a car bomb on a church, followed by reprisal attacks, killed at least seven people. Authorities in Indonesia have arrested 11 suspects, allegedly planning terrorist attacks on the US embassy and consulate, as well as...
Upcoming Events The University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law will host a symposium entitled: Mass Torts in a Shrinking World, November 2, 2012. You can find the program here. On November 2-3, 2012 at Duke University School of Law, the Private International Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law will host a conference on What Is Private International Law? ALMA and the Radzyner School of Law of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) would...
This week on Opinio Juris, we welcomed Kristen Boon as our newest permanent blogger. In her opening post, she examined why the Security Council's work on Children and Armed Conflict has turned out to be controversial. She also asked readers' opinion on a recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture claiming that there is an emerging customary norm that...
The NY Times reports on a transcript from the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference that was recently discovered in a library at the US Treasury and has been released as an e-book by the Center for Financial Stability. The NY Times also published about the wealth accumulated by the family of outgoing Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiaobao in the past decade. Web access from mainland China...
Two years ago this month, an unprecedented cholera outbreak in Haiti left more than 7,500 Haitians dead. As the New York Times reported in a front page article in May 2012, Lightning fast and virulent, it spread from here through every Haitian state, erupting into the world’s largest cholera epidemic despite a huge international mobilization still dealing with the effects of...
