Weekend Roundup: November 17 – 24, 2012

Posting was light this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. We hope all our US readers had a very happy Thanksgiving holiday!

Peter Spiro commented on the territorialist approach in Obama’s speech on citizenship during this week’s visit to Burma.

Deborah Pearlstein posted about the ABA’s recent journalists’ guide on national security law, to which she contributed a chapter on international law in US courts.

Kristen Boon reported on the UN Security Council’s debate on maritime piracy, and the resulting presidential statement, and wondered about the role of the Security Council in this area. Continuing on this “watery” theme, Ken Anderson wrote about a new set of amendments agreed by Mexico and the US to the 1944 Colorado River Pact and Julian Ku blogged again about Argentina’s claim under the UNCLOS against the seizure of its naval training ship in Ghana. In his post, he agreed with Matthew Happold’s argument that the ITLOS does not jurisdiction because this is not an UNCLOS question.

Julian also pointed out that Colombia is already looking for alternative legal mechanisms to resist this week’s ICJ judgment in its dispute with Nicaragua, and was critical of the suggestion by Geoffrey Robertson QC that international law might be able to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis.

Kevin Jon Heller posted about an interview with Judge Sow about the Charles Taylor trial. Further on Africa, Ken Anderson discussed how the UN is considering deploying surveillance drones in Eastern Congo.

As always, we listed upcoming events and provided daily news wraps. Our readers may also be interested in the job of Assistant Dean for International Affairs at the University of Michigan Law School, mentioned by Peter.