Happy Birthday OJ!

Although I’ve only been a regular OJ blogger for two years now, I feel like I’ve known OJ since it was born.

Chris Borgen, Julian Ku and I have been friends since we all worked together at Debevoise and Plimpton in New York years ago.  Over the years I’ve gotten to know Peggy, Roger, Ken, Deborah, Duncan, and at least by email, all the others! I was extremely honored when Chris invited me to join the crew in 2012. Chris, I owe you a big thanks for this incredible opportunity.  One of my most professionally rewarding occupations is to be part of this conversation, as Deborah puts it, about international law today.

I have used blogging in a variety of ways over the last 2 years. I’ve used it as a vehicle to test ideas see here and here on topics related to the Security Council. I’ve used it to report on recent developments, for example, my many posts on the Haiti Cholera case against the UN. I’ve also used it as a venue for opinion pieces on subjects of current concern, whether on academic topics close to my heart like Jus Post Bellum or newsworthy international law developments, including a post here on the relationship between sanctions and the 2013 deal with Iran, a post here on Bashir’s interest in coming to the 2013 General Assembly, and the East China Sea dispute available here.   Each type of blogging brings its own rewards, and puts one in contact with different networks of academics, practitioners, journalists, and observers, from around the world.

Blogging has also prompted me to follow subjects I’m interested in – like the UN – in greater detail, and to watch and report on the ebbs and flows of debates and developments with a better trained eye.  Over the past two years in particular, I’ve participated in a number of UN projects, including the recently concluded High Level Review on Sanctions.   During this period, there has been a well-known hardening of relations between the Western Powers and Russia, which has affected the Council’s ability to act decisively on many recent issues.  In addition, China’s rising influence on matters of international law remains an important development institutionally, and with regards to state practice generally.  In parallel to this period of power shifts, stresses from the outside seem to have multiplied: chronic underfunding, the advent of mass torts cases against the UN, the communications revolution, the creation of more flexible, new bodies.  Many of these themes are recalled in Frederic Megret’s terrific essay on the Cholera Case available here.

And yet, as Francesco Mancini perceptively writes, rumors of the UN’s death have been greatly exaggerated.    The UN recently turned 69, and it currently has 16 current peacekeeping operations, including robust peacekeeping missions in which peacekeepers are given an offensive mandate.  Although it shows it age in some ways – take for example the almost defunct Trusteeship Council – if is catching up on many other fronts – I think here of efforts to improve due process in sanctions listings –  and ahead of the curve on many others, including measures to combat terrorism.   Major reviews on peacekeeping and political missions, as well as the UN’s peacebuilding architecture, are planned for 2015.  These reviews will present an opportunity for stocktaking and goal setting in two of the UN’s most important fields, for the next decade.

As I look ahead to the next period of blogging, I hope these developments will be something we can discuss and debate together on OJ.  Thanks to all for the opportunity to be part of this enterprise.