In association with the International Commission of Jurists

March 2013

04 Mar

[Christopher N.J. Roberts is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.] This post is part of the Harvard International Law Journal Volume 54(1) symposium. Other posts from this series can be found in the related posts below. Convergence The most important studies stimulate a host of unlikely conversations. In this regard, “Getting to Rights,” a path-breaking article that examines...

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04 Mar

This post is part of the Harvard International Law Journal Volume 54(1) symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. This symposium features a series of four responses to articles published in the Harvard International Law Journal's volume 54(1). Over the next few days we will be presenting the responses, as well as commentary from...

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04 Mar

Sudan's government has violated UN sanctions on the Darfur region by carrying out airstrikes in the country's west. Israel has plans to launch "Palestinian-only" buses to transport people from the West Bank to Israel, in a move officials claim is designed to reduce traffic congestion but many concerned with civil rights see this as a move toward further segregation. Al-Qaeda has issued an English-language magazine (downloadable) offering advice...

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03 Mar

Events Fordham Law School presents the Eighth Annual Conference on International Arbitration and Mediation on April 11-12, 2013. The conference will bring together leading international arbitrators, mediators, practitioners, and scholars to discuss contemporary issues in international arbitration and mediation. Calls for Papers PolSci, the Romanian journal of political science, is accepting submissions for publication in its summer 2013 issue on the topic Democracy and the Rule of Law. The...

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03 Mar

[Sigall Horovitz is a PhD candidate, teaching fellow and Transitional Justice Project Manager at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of ALMA – the Association for the Promotion of IHL. A longer version of this op-ed appears on the website of the Israeli Democracy Institute (in Hebrew).] The Palestinians have threatened to complain to the International Criminal Court (ICC) about Israel’s settlement activities...

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03 Mar

The win in question concerns the privileged documents the Libyan government seized from Melinda Taylor and her OPCD colleagues while they were meeting with Saif Gaddafi in Libya. In late January, the OPCD asked the Pre-Trial Chamber to order Libya to return the documents and destroy any copies it had made of them. Here is what it argued, as summarized...

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02 Mar

This week on Opinio Juris, it was too early for Talk Like a Pirate Day, but we certainly talked a lot about pirates. The reason of course was the Ninth Circuit's decision to agree with Japanese whalers that the Sea Shepherd's activities amount to piracy. Julian wasn't fully confident that "private ends" are broader than financial enrichment, and Kevin strongly...

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01 Mar

My previous posts (see here for the most recent) have explained why Judge Kozinski's opinion in the Sea Shepherd case wrongly considers a political end to be a private end. In this post I want to highlight what is ironic -- though not technically incorrect -- about Judge Kozinski's conclusion that Sea Shepherd committed an act of piracy on "the...

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01 Mar

As part of my new research interest in China and its relationship with the international legal system, I opened a Sina Weibo account a couple of weeks ago. And it has been quite an adventure. Weibo is China's version of Twitter and Facebook.  Since both Twitter and Facebook are blocked within China, Weibo is the main social media platform for users...

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01 Mar

If you're interested, the Duke Law, Ethics, and National Security Center is holding its annual conference - it's being livestreamed over the web, if you go to the webpage and click the link.  The Chief Prosecutor, the Military Commissions, is giving the lunch talk at this moment. I'll be on a panel later today on autonomous weapons, Bill Banks moderating,...

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01 Mar

“It is widely thought that the rapid growth of the international human rights regime has profoundly influenced the practice of written constitutionalism at the national level,” writes David Law and Mila Versteeg in their brilliant article recently published in the NYU Law Review. But is there empirical support for such an assumption? Much to my surprise, their answer is a...

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01 Mar

Back in December, Peggy noted with sadness the shuttering of IntLawGrrls and the wonderful insights and coverage it had brought to the field of international law during its five-plus year run. Happily, it seems reports of IntLawGrrls' death were a bit exaggerated.  Beginning this Sunday, IntLawGrrls will return to full activity, albeit with a new editorial structure (including my friend and colleague Jaya...

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