Weekend Roundup: October 18-31, 2014

This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Jens predicted that the Ebola crisis will become a Chapter VII issue at the UN. The theme of the UN and diseases continued in Kristen’s update on a hearing on the UN’s Privileges and Immunities in the Haiti Cholera case. In other UN news, she summarized some of the issues discussed at a meeting on the Security Council’s methods.

Kevin wrote on the Constitutional Court of South Africa’s decision in the Zimbabwe Torture Docket case, finding that international law did not prohibit universal-jurisdiction investigations in absentia.  Kevin also assessed the likelihood of the ICC’s OTP opening an investigation into Chevron’s activities in Ecuador. For those in need of a refresher on these activities, Peter recommended Paul Barrett’s Law of the Jungle.

Peter looked ahead at the Supreme Court argument in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, and pointed out three factors that in his view point to the Court sustaining the Jerusalem Passport Statute, while Julian wondered what China really means when it celebrates the “International Rule of Law”.

Kevin congratulated Dapo Akande on his promotion to Professor of International Law at Oxford, and recommended a post by Mark Kersten on the terror attacks in Canada.

We ran two guest posts: one by Chimène Keitner on the evolving law of foreign official immunity, and one by William Dodge who raised a question on the Convention on the International Sale of Goods.

Finally, Jessica wrapped up the international law headlines (1, 2), and we listed events and announcements (1, 2). Our readers may also be interested in a Lawfare podcast on al-Bahlul, featuring Kevin, Wells Bennet and Steve Vladeck.

Have a nice weekend!