Weekend Roundup: January 26 – February 1, 2013

This week on Opinio Juris, Julian kicked off on a lighter note with a Chinese cartoon on the maritime dispute between China and the Philippines.

IHL and ICL lawyers were well catered for throughout the week, starting with a guest post by Michael W. Lewis, who discussed two more issues raised at the Boundaries of the Battlefield symposium: “elongated imminence” in response to an armed attack and the lack of operational experience of those writing on international humanitarian law. Kevin later took issue with the suggestion that Israel’s Six Day War supports an “elongated” concept of imminence.

Alexander Wills added two more arguments in favour of allowing states to make article 12(3) declarations under the ICC Statute and for these to have retroactive effect. Also on the ICC and Palestine, Julian shared his two reactions to a NY Times op-ed by Professor George Bisharat calling for an ICC investigation, which triggered a lively discussion in the comments.

A potential ICC’s claim was far from Israel’s only worry this week, with the UN Human Rights Council strongly condemning Israel’s settlements policy. Kevin commented on the report’s main conclusions here. And then there is of course Iran’s threat; Kevin updated his timeline of estimates of when Iran will have the bomb.

And if these posts were not enough, Ken recommended Benvenisti and Cohen’s new article on SSRN addressing the laws of war from an principal-agent perspective.

Two more guest posts graced our blog this week. Başak Çalı provided her final guest post in a series on international judicial review, in which she assessed the legal policy implications of the variable standard used by the European Court of Human Rights, and Jonathan Hafetz analysed the changes and the continuities in renditions under the Obama administration. He expressed particular concerns about the use of proxy detention and the substantive reach of US counter-terrorism legislation.

Finally, Roger posted a chart depicting the legal system of the world, and updated it with a more accurate one.

As always, we kept you informed with our weekday news wraps and a list of events and announcements. Deborah also advertised a panel discussion of Zero Dark Thirty hosted by Cardozo Law School on February 11.

Thank you to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!