Weekend Roundup: March 23-29, 2013

This week on Opinio Juris, Peter wrote about the unlikely advocates of international law in amicus briefs submitted in the gay marriage cases before the Supreme Court this week.

Julian was disappointed that despite all the reporting on the Amanda Knox retrial, nobody in the media had bothered to read the US-Italy extradition treaty. Kevin also took aim at the media’s lack of knowledge of international law. He argued that recent reporting on the Tallinn Manual on International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare grossly overestimates the likelihood that a hacker can legally be killed.

Further on cybersecurity, Roger argued that new restrictions on US federal agencies’ purchase of IT equipment produced in China by companies affiliated to the Chinese government are compatible with the US’ WTO obligations, because of the self-judging nature of the national security exceptions in the GATT and the GPA.

We also hosted a book symposium on Economic Foundations of International Law by Eric Posner and Alan Sykes. In his comment, Andrew Guzman focused on why states should accept more delegation to international institutions. Emilie Hafner-Burton and David Victor discussed how the book helps to identify new areas of international law open to empirical research. Rachel Brewster asked whether a liability rule is always the best option to operate remedies under international law, and Steve Charnovitz disagreed with some of the book’s analysis of the WTO. The authors response to the comments can be found here.

In other posts, Julian updated us on the appointment of a second arbitrator in the Philippines-China arbitration under UNCLOS, and James Hathaway’s  guest post announced the Summary Conclusions of the Roundtable on the Future of Refugee Convention Supervision, proposing the establishment of a Special Committee of Experts to oversee compliance with states’ obligations under the Refugee Convention.

If you’re keen to read more over what for many of you will be the long Easter weekend, check out Deborah’s post about her Foreign Policy article, co-authored with Phil Carter, Obama’s first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy, on the use of criminal courts in counter-terrorism efforts. Ken also recommended the series on contemporary issues of IHL over at the ICRC’s blog Intercross. And, as usual, we had our weekday news wraps, which celebrated its first birthday this week.

Finally, we also listed upcoming events and announcements, and Anupam Chander provided a guest post on the newly established ASIL Interest Group on International Law and Technology that will meet after next week’s ASIL Annual Meeting.

Many thanks to our guest contributors and enjoy your (long) weekend!