Brad Roth has sent along a link to this New York Times editorial, which begins:

If a country sinks beneath the sea, is it still a country? That is a question about which the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a Micronesian nation of 29 low-lying coral atolls — is now seeking expert legal advice. It is also a question the United States Senate might ask itself the next time it refuses to deal with climate change.

The editorial notes that while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has a “conservative” estimate of at least a 20 inch rise in sea-levels by the end of the century (excluding any effects of the possible melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets), some studies predict a 4 to 7 foot increase. The editorial continues:

Officials in the Marshall Islands — where a 20-inch rise would drown at least one atoll — are not only thinking about the possibility of having to move entire populations but are entertaining even more existential questions: If its people have to abandon the islands, what citizenship can they claim? Will the country still have a seat at the United Nations? Who owns its fishing rights and offshore mineral resources?

The government of the Marshall Islands has asked Columbia Law professor Michael Gerrard for advice. Gerrard “notes that an island can become uninhabitable before the sea level rises above it, because even moderate storms can swamp any agricultural land and render freshwater supplies undrinkable.”

On a related note, see Duncan’s post from a couple of years ago on the Maldives.

It’s not often that you run into a story that combines international arbitration, Kremlin politics, post-Soviet autocrats, utopian urban projects, transnational networks, electoral politics, and chess.  So, read on…

According to the New York Times’ chess blog,

A lawsuit against the World Chess Federation will be heard by arbiters at the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Sept. 15 and 16, two weeks before an election for the presidency of the federation.

The lawsuit by five national federations and the presidential campaign of Anatoly Karpov is seeking to have the ticket of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the incumbent, disqualified.

A quick pause here to say a few words about the curious case of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who not only has been the president of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, since 1995 but is also the President of the Republc of Kalmykia, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.  The New York Times has described Ilyumzhinov as a “whimsical strongman.” (!?)  The BBC, however, notes that

Mr Iyumzhinov denies persistent accusations of diverting the republic’s resources for his own use as well as of human rights abuses and of suppressing media freedom. When Larisa Yudina, editor of the republic’s only opposition newspaper was murdered in 1998, he strenuously rejected allegations of involvement.

What is “whimsical” about a strongman who allegedly steals from his own people (and may even order them killed)? Why, that he would devote millions of dollars to construct on the windswept Russian steppes Chess City– a model city devoted to the glory of chess! (For a travel narrative of two American chess players going to Kalmykia to meet Ilyumzhinov– and many other Kalmyks–and visit Chess City, read The Chess Artist).

Suffice it to say that Ilyumzhinov has intertwined his personal reputation and his republic’s reputation (and finances) with international chess competition. And he is a polarizing figure both in Kalmyk politics and in chess politics. And now his fifteen year reign over the world Chess Federation is being challenged in an international sports arbitral forum… [more via the "Continue Reading" link]

Now that I’ve had a chance to read through the ICJ’s advisory opinion, following are a few initial reactions. (I will consider the separate opinions in another post.) Marko Milanovic has has done a great job parsing the main issues that were at bar, namely

1. Whether the ICJ should exercise advisory jurisdiction in this case;

2. How broadly or narrowly the question posed by the General Assembly should be interpreted;

3. The legality of the declaration of independence in light of the international law of self determination; and,

4. The legality of the declaration of independence in light of Security Council Resolution 1244.

Around the time of Kosovo’s declaration, I had discussed issues (3) and (4), as well as the substantive issue of recognition in an ASIL Insight and in a series of posts on this blog. I will now return to these issues in light of the advisory opinion.(Issue 1, which is a rich topic but primarily dealing with ICJ practice, I will leave for another post.)

Interpreting the Question

The General Assembly asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion on this question (as drafted by Serbia):

“Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?”

I have heard many lawyers who were befuddled by the wording of the question. Why ask this question, when there seems to be general agreement among jurists that secession is neither legal nor illegal under international law? Why not ask the question that not only seemed closer to the real issue but was also one about which there are real differing views of the state of international law: whether there is an obligation on third party states notto recognize Kosovo, given the circumstances of its independence?  In any case, that was not how the question was worded by the General Assembly. Perhaps there would have been fewer votes for a reference to the ICJ if the ICJ’s ruling could have implicated the legality of the actions not of Kosovo, but of the UN member states who recognized it. Serbia’s wording the question this way might have thus been smart tactics in order to get an ICJ reference, but a strategic blunder in regards to final results.

Perhaps, as well, Serbia was hoping that the ICJ would interpret the question more broadly and opine on the issue of recognition as well as. That was not to be. The Court wrote:

50. The Court recalls that in some previous cases it had departed from the language of the question put to it where the question was not adequately formulated…

51. In the present case, the question posed by the General Assembly is clearly formulated. The question is narrow and specific; it asks for the Court’s opinion on whether or not the declaration of independence is in accordance with international law. It does not ask about the legal consequences of the declaration. In particular, it does not ask whether or not Kosovo has achieved statehood. Nor does it ask about the validity of legal effects of the recognition of Kosovo by those States which have recognized it as an independent State. The Court notes that, in past requests for advisory opinions, the General Assembly and the Security Council, when they have wanted the Court’s opinion on the legal consequences of an action, have framed the question in such a way that this aspect is expressly stated.

Opinion, paras 50 - 51.

If anything, the Court seemed set on reading the question as narrowly as possible. Just the fact that it took time to contrast this case to the Canadian Supreme Court’s task in the Reference relating to the Secession of Quebec from Canada is quite telling. The ICJ wrote (my emphasis added):

56. The question put to the Supreme Court of Canada inquired whether there was a right to “effect secession”, and whether there was a rule of international law which conferred a positive entitlement on any organs named. By contrast, the General Assembly has asked whether the declaration of independence was “in accordance with” international law. The answer to that question turns on whether or not the applicable international law prohibited the declaration of independence.

Opinion, para. 56 (emphasis added).

And so, we turn specifically to the narrow question of whether international law prohibits such declarations… [More through the "Continue Reading" link]

According to the Associated Press:

The United Nations’ highest court says Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia did not break international law.

The nonbinding opinion sets the stage for a renewed push by Kosovo for further international recognition of its independence.

Reading the opinion Thursday, International Court of Justice President Hisashi Owada said international law contains no “prohibition on declarations of independence.”

…[snip]…

Kosovo’s statehood has been recognized by 69 countries, including the United States and most European Union nations. Serbia and Russia lead a handful of others in staunchly condemning it.

The opinion is being read at the moment. Once I have had a chance to sift through it, I will post further thoughts. Based on the AP’s pull-out quote, though, it seem that the court has gone for a narrow interpretation of the question that was put before it (“Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?”) and has chosen to rule only on the issue of the declaration itself, rather than on the broader (and more politically contentious and legally difficult) question of recognition by third-party states. If that is the case, then this result in favor of Kosovo makes sense as international law is generally silent as to secession and leaves the issue to domestic law. International law can be relevant in issues where a secession would perpetuate an international wrong (such as an illegal international use of force) but that would be primarily on the issue of recognition, as opposed to the declaration itself. In either case, though, it seems that the ICJ may have cabined-off Serbia’s arguments concerning the (il)legality of NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign.

Once I have a chance to read through the opinion, I will write again on these issues.

For now, here’s Marko Milanovic’s advisory opinion preview, the ASIL Insight I wrote on Kosovo’s declaration of independence, and a later piece comparing the situations in Kosovo and South Ossetia.

Padania’s victory was not in the football (American translation: “soccer”) World Cup being played in South Africa but in the one that was just played in Gozo. You know, the Viva World Cup, the tournament among the unrecognized states of the world.

The World Cup being played in South Africa is sponsored by FIFA, the Federation Internationale de Football Association, the governing body of international soccer that is an association of the national football leagues from around the world. But, as author Steve Menary put it, there are “the lands that FIFA forgot,” such as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Gozo, Occitania, Somaliland, and, of course, three-time world (?) champions Padania. (No Transnistria, but Sealand is an Associate Member.) The Viva World Cup is organized by the NF-Board (see also wiki), which may have originally stood for “Non-FIFA Board” but is now referred to as the “New Federation Board.”

According to the EUObserver, the NF-Board

is also in contact with football associations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, the Basque Country in France and Spain, Chechnya in Russia, Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan and Transnistria in Moldova about future participation. Kosovo, which is recognised by 22 EU member states, is trying to get into the official football body, Fifa, instead.

Clearly, if Kosovo has the opportunity move up FIFA play, they’ll try to do so. FIFA accreditation is like statehood recognition: it is the gold standard for international relations. As for those who remain in the coalition of the unrecognized, while one of the NF-Board co-founders says the league eschews politics, I’m not sure the teams got the memo:

NFB co-founder and football historian Jean-Luc Kit told EUobserver that the games do not have a political agenda, other than to promote mutual understanding.

“We are allergic to politics. If anybody tries to make a political or religious statement during a match, then we stop the match,” he said. “We have never changed a border with a game of football.”

The teams do get to wear their ‘national’ colours, fly their flags and sing their anthems before each game, however… [snip]

Viva World Cup participants are not shy about its political connotations.

“It’s important politically for us to take part. We are trying to take part in all international events and organisations. But we are being systematically blocked by the Greek Cypriot administration,” Havva Ulgen, a Brussels-based envoy for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, said. Her team is not playing this year due to a “technicality.”

I’m curious as to what kind of technicality can prevent an entity that already has Security Council resolutions (541 and 550) calling on all UN members not to recognize it as a state from playing in a league of national regions and unrecognized states. That must be some technicality.

Anyway, the next Viva World Cup is in 2012.  Unlike the FIFA World Cup, which is held every four years, the Viva World Cup is every two years, perhaps because alot can happen to an unrecognized region in four years… I’m looking at you Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia! The next Viva World Cup will be in Iraqi Kurdistan. I think smart money will be on Padania, the Brazil of the unrecognized. (OK, I know this year Brazil may not be the Brazil of the recognized, but you get my point.)

John Robb notes the following on his excellent Global Guerillas blog:

Coast Guard and BP’s private military contractors team up to enforce media and scientific blackout (part of BP’s information operations campaign) on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Here, they are caught on camera turning away a CBS film crew.

Coast Guard officials say they are looking into the incident. I look forward to hearing their explanation.

There’s a post that’s been making the rounds in the science fiction blogosphere that warrants note by those interested in international law, especially in regards to issues of international trade, development, and regulation. The piece is by Ghanaian writer Jonathan Dotse and it concerns the rise of African cyberpunk.

Before getting to Dotse’s post, though, a couple of words on cyberpunk itself. Cyberpunk is a sci-fi style that arose primarily among U.S. and Canadian writersin the 1980’s. Setting aside the optimistic science fiction of earlier generations (think Star Trek) and the grand themes of “space operas” like Dune, cyberpunk instead focused on the street-level effects of technological change and imagined a gritty, dystopian, future. Good-bye Star Wars, hello Blade Runner!

This original iteration of cyberpunk reflected the concerns of the U.S. of the 1980’s: the development of computer networks (and especially of hacker culture), the rise of corporate power (and especially Japanese corporate power), the relative decline of the United States, the rise of crime and gang culture, and so on.  Science fiction is not really a crystal ball for peering into the future; it’s more like a funhouse mirror reflecting the present. Nonetheless, science fiction writers, in extrapolating from the present, can sometimes spot important trends earlier than many other writers.

Fast forward from the 1980’s to today. Cyberpunk is no longer the hip new style; it is well-known and pretty well-worn. Some of its images of the future now seem as fanciful as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.  But, more importantly, many of its then-revolutionary themes (hacking, cyberwar, illicit genetic engineering, private military contractors run amok) are no longer revolutionary but rather common. And note– I don’t mean these topics are commonplace in sci-fi literature (though they are) but rather that they are (or are becoming) commonplace in serious policy discourse. We’ve got a drone war in Pakistan, debates over “cybersecurity,” and marketbots gone wild. Yesterday’s avant-garde is today’s daily brief. (But see this cautionary note.)

So now we get to Dotse’s post. Dotse is focused on how the literature of cyberpunk, which pre-figured some aspects of life today (but mis-analyzed others), may be especially relevant in Africa (and, I would add, in the developing world more broadly). Dotse writes:

 The Internet counterculture of the West went mainstream faster than anyone could have predicted and the grim forecast of the cyberpunk movement became a self-defeating prophecy…. [snip] …

However, this power didn’t come without regulation. The surveillance capabilities of the West have been well orchestrated to secure a significant degree of control over its citizens’ virtual lives. Its law enforcement continually strives to gain jurisdiction over the ever-expanding boundaries of Net, making it a far stretch from the lawless frontier cyberpunk predicted.

But here in Africa, development has been dangerously asymmetrical. By the time any product hits our soil it’s already fully-developed and ready to be abused by the imagination. Technology designed for vastly different societies invariably trickles down to our streets, re-sprayed, re-labeled, and hacked to fit whatever market will take it. Regulation? You can forget about regulation.

Whatever rules the creators imagined fly out of the window as freighters are crammed to bursting with the second-hand remains of their creations, damn wherever they’re heading as long as they can be cleared from port.

What Dotse describes is familiar to anyone who’s read some William Gibson (the Neuromancer William Gibson, not the Miracle Worker one): tech innovation hits the street and then it is hacked and re-hacked. Or just re-purposed. Turntables become musical instruments. Text messaging gives rise to flash mobs. Street tech.

Consider a recent Wall Street Journal article on the rise of do-it-yourself genetic engineering…

My colleague Marc DeGirolami has a guest post over at PrawfsBlawg reacting to an op-ed in today’s New York Times by Jean-François Copé, the the majority leader of the French National Assembly, in which Copé defends banning the burqa and the niqab. While Marc sees that the argument that the burqa runs counter to Western culture “is not without considerable force” (as he put it in a response to a comment), he nonetheless finds that ”there is the distinct odor of self-deluding dishonesty about this op-ed” and that Copé’s argument is “doubly false.” Check it out…

McGill University law students have started a new blog about international law, Legal Frontiers. Their official launch post states:

The goal of Legal Frontiers is to create a scholarly, social network where students interested in International law can identify key issues and challenges; test new theories; and draw attention to important causes, cases or alternative points of view. Having been inspired by a wide variety of legal blogs, we aspire to promote an emerging genre of writing, which we like to call “academic blogging”. We started this project because we believe that it is of the utmost importance to encourage students to actively engage with issues beyond the classroom, develop their own opinions, and learn how to clearly and effectively argue them.

Recent posts include a consideration of Canada’s diplomacy related to indigenous peoples, South Africa and climate change policy, and what the ICJ’s Kosovo decision could mean for the Palestine. It’s great to see law students as active participants in the blogosphere and also their being supported and encouraged by their faculty. Check this blog out.

Welcome to the international legal blogosphere!

Over at Discover.com, Brian Lamb reports on a lecture by Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, an American Jesuit who is a research astronomer for the Vatican Observatory (and has archived blog posts here). On the issue of asteroid mining (which we tangentially touched upon in this discussion on legal issues related to mining the Moon), Lamb describes the opening of  Brother Consolmagno’s argument:

Can you put a price tag on an asteroid? Sure you can. We know of roughly 750 S-class asteroids with a diameter of at least 1 kilometer. Many of these pass as near to the Earth as our own moon — close enough to reach via spacecraft. As a typical asteroid is 10 percent metal, Brother Consolmango estimates that such an asteroid would contain 1 billion metric tons of iron. That’s as much as we mine out of the globe every year, a supply worth trillions and trillions of dollars. Subtract the tens of billions it would cost to exploit such a rock, and you still have a serious profit on your hands.

Let me interject here on the economic incentives of asteroid mining. A 1997 review of a the book Mining the Sky by John S. Lewis (then-co-director of the NASA/University of Arizona Space Engineering Research Center ) noted that Lewis estimated that the main asteroid belt contains about:

825 quintillion (a billion times a billion) tons of iron - enough to build shells around planets, gigantic cities in space, and starships carrying entire civilizations. How much is this iron worth? Lewis performs a fanciful calculation: At present prices of around $50 a ton [that was in 1997], the asteroids yield $7 billion of the metal per person for everyone alive today, or an affluent standard of living for a population far larger. Moreover, iron is merely one element found in the Main Belt, which also contains gold, silver, copper, manganese, titanium, uranium, and much else.

So there may be substantial economic incentives to investing in asteroid mining. But, picking up now with Lamb’s precis of Brother Consolmagno’s lecture: Is it ethical? [More after the jump...]

See it here. As usual, it’s full of great panels. Also, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Canadian Supreme Court and U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser Harold Koh will each give a keynote address.  A list of program highlights is here.  And, by the way, today is the last day for early-bird registration…

The current issue of Foreign Affairs has an article called A Few Dollars at a Time: How to Tap Consumers for Development, which describes the “innovative financing” movement in which private companies find ways for their customers to contribute to international development. This morning, I came across an example that I guess you could call “innovative aid” as it isn’t so much development financing but rather disaster relief to Haiti.

Zynga is a software company that makes (wildly successful, as I understand) games playable via Facebook and MySpace. They have started a Haiti Relief Fund in which the Zynga gaming community can contribute to disaster relief by purchasing “virtual goods” within their games. They explain on their foundation’s website:

Three of our top games are participating in a special relief campaign to help earthquake survivors in Haiti. Zynga is donating 100 percent of the proceeds from non-withering white corn within FarmVille [one of their games], a Haitian drum on Mafia Wars, and a special chip package in Zynga Poker to support emergency aid in Haiti through the Zynga Haiti Relief Fund. Users can also support the fund by donating directly through Zynga.org…

All contributions will benefit the World Food Programme (WFP), which has set up an emergency response team to distribute food and other relief to thousands in Haiti affected by the devastating earthquake.

Elsewhere, they write:

“The devastation in Haiti is unimaginable, and anything we or our users can do is tiny compared to the utter loss for this nation,” said Mark Pincus, Zynga’s founder and CEO. “In our small way, I hope we can enable our users to help and touch Haiti in a meaningful way where every dollar raised can make a difference.”

Zynga and socially-conscious companies like it should be applauded for dreaming up new ways to respond to perennial problems. I should note that Zynga’s aid to Haiti began before the earthquake; they had already linked the sale of virtual seeds in their FarmVille game to development aid for school construction in Haiti. Sales of that one virtual item, in one game, before Haiti was making headlines, raised over a million dollars. A few dollars at a time can add up to a lot of money.

But, given the magnitude of the disaster that has befallen Haiti, the unfortunate truth is that even a million dollars is a drop in the bucket. So, I hope other companies follow Zynga’s lead and nudge more people (who might not have done so otherwise) into contributing to the relief effort.

With all the talk about the environment and climate change and the with success of eco-themed TV show Life After People, I was struck by this blog post/ photo essay at BLDGBLOG on the degradation of Biosphere 2, the experiment in building a self-contained ecological biosphere in a set of buildings in the Arizona desert. (You can see it in better condition here, with the cheery tag “Biophere 2: Where Science Lives”).

It’s a haunting set of images, punctuated by the possibility that the whole site will be converted into a suburban development called “Biosphere Estates.” No punchline needed after that.

I know this sounds like the title of a movie franchise, but Brad Roth of Wayne State has alerted me to an op-ed in today’s New York Times that deals with both Somali piracy and unrecognized separatist regions. Jay Bahadur writes:

There might be another way to make greater strides against pirates. However, it would involve allying ourselves with a place that doesn’t exist: the autonomous region of Puntland, Somalia…

Contrary to the oft-recycled one-liners found in most news reports, Somalia is not a country ruled by anarchy. Indeed, it is a mischaracterization to even speak of Somalia as a uniform entity. It is an amalgamation of quasi-independent regions like Puntland, which was founded in 1998 as a tribal sanctuary for the hundreds of thousands of Darod-clan people fleeing massacres in the south. Puntland comprises one-quarter to one-third of Somalia’s total land mass (depending on whom you talk to) and almost half of its coastline…

In any serious attempt to combat piracy, Puntland must play an integral role. Yet it is not recognized as a legitimate actor in the region and has been financially abandoned by the international community, which continues to ignore the reality on the ground in favor of the flimsy transitional federal government, a 550-member parliamentary hodgepodge ruling over a few checkpoints in Mogadishu, hundreds of miles from any real pirate activity…

By contrast, argues Bahadur, the separatist region of Puntland is making efforts at providing coastal security.

Despite Puntland’s limited capacity, Mr. Farole [Puntland's leader] is committed to taking the fight to the pirates. Indeed, the government of Puntland has been advocating a strict policy of nonnegotiation with pirates since the beginning of the crisis. On those occasions that Puntland’s tiny (and now defunct) coast guard has been given the authority by shipowners to liberate hijacked vessels, the pirates have tended to melt away, content to keep their lives rather than their prize.

Successful land operations in Puntland’s coastal towns have accompanied these marine assaults…

Bahadur argues that financial aid the to Somali federal government is money wasted; a smaller amount of aid to cash-strapped Puntland could significantly increase its ability to undertake such anti-piracy operations.

The U.S. has been exploring increasing ties with Somaliland, another separatist region with aspirations of statehood with which Puntland has had occasional military clashes. These cases show an interesting nexus in regional security initiatives and the politics of recognition. The Somaliland case has had more attention, as Peter Pham wrote, after a January 2008 visit, then-Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer

was careful to emphasize that the recent flurry of activity did not imply diplomatic recognition was imminent, noting that while “we have said on many occasions that the U.S. will continue to work with Somaliland, in particular, in the strong democratic values which Somaliland has succeeded in implementing,” the issue of recognition should be left to the African Union (AU), while America would “work with the AU and will respect whatever decision it makes on Somaliland’s status.”

Pham also noted that the AU’s report regarding Somailand stressed the uniqueness of the case. The AU report stated:

The fact that the union between Somaliland and Somalia was never ratified and also malfunctioned when it went into action from 1960 to 1990, makes Somaliland’s search for recognition historically unique and self-justified in African political history. Objectively viewed, the case should not be linked to the notion of ‘opening a Pandora’s Box’. As such, the AU should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case…

So now Kosovo, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Somaliland are all “unique” cases…

Anyway, it will be interesting to observe how security policy and recognition issues affect each other.

The New York Times has a very interesting article on the mining of rare earths, a group of elements that are particularly important for green technologies.  The Times piece begins like this:

Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. The world’s dependence on these substances is rising fast.

Just one problem: These elements come almost entirely from China, from some of the most environmentally damaging mines in the country, in an industry dominated by criminal gangs.

Western capitals have suddenly grown worried over China’s near monopoly, which gives it a potential stranglehold on technologies of the future.

In Washington, Congress is fretting about the United States military’s dependence on Chinese rare earths, and has just ordered a study of potential alternatives.

Here in Guyun Village, a small community in southeastern China fringed by lush bamboo groves and banana trees, the environmental damage can be seen in the red-brown scars of barren clay that run down narrow valleys and the dead lands below, where emerald rice fields once grew.

Criminal gangs, geopolitics, and environmental collapse, make for a dangerous cocktail. This article highlights an important issue that (as far as I can tell) has been under-reported .

Britain’s New Scientist has a short piece on the arrival of non-Latin script Internet addresses in 2010. They explain:

Net regulator ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications for the first non-Latin top level domains (TLDs) - the part of an address after the final “dot”. The first national domains, counterparts of .uk or .au, should go live in early 2010. So far, 12 nations, using six different scripts, have applied and some have proudly revealed their desired TLD and given a preview of what the future web will look like.

The first Arabic domain is likely to be Egypt’s and in Russia orders are already being taken for the country’s hoped-for new TLD. The address HOBЫЙyЧеНЫЙ.pф - a rough translation of “newscientist” with the Cyrillic domain that stands for Russian Federation - can be registered today.

Though they will be invisible to many of today’s users, these changes are a bellwether for the web’s future. Today Latin-script languages predominate. But before long Chinese will overtake English as the most used language, and web use in other places with scripts of their own, such as India and Russia, is growing fast. The Middle East is spawning new users faster than any other region.

On the one hand, the use of non-Lain script will likely make the web accessible to many more people who will not have to learn a new script in order to navigate the web.  The New Scientist piece argues that this is a step towards making the web truly worldwide. Others have reached a different conclusion, based on concerns that injecting non-Latin  scripts into the URLs  will cause  the World Wide Web to be less worldwide rather more regional, national, or linguistic. These subwebs may have deeper interconnectivity within themselves but there will only be lighter connections from one linguistic web to another.

Time will tell whether 2010 will mark a sea change of the Internet, or whether this is much ado about nothing.

Hat tip: io9

Since 1955 NORAD (and its predecessor CONAD) has tracked Santa’s each Christmas Eve and has answered questions for boys and girls about his progress. NORAD’s Santa tracking service uses interactive maps updated every few minutes at http://www.noradsanta.org. As Santa stops in each location, you can click an icon to learn more about that part of the world. There is also a 3D option using Google Earth. Moreover, there are links to update clips being posted on YouTube.

And you can also call NORAD and speak to someone there at 1-877-Hi-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) or e-mail the staff at noradtrackssanta [at] gmail [dot] com and get a return e-mail listing Santa’s most recent location. There are now Facebook and Twitter options as well, along with updates that can be sent directly to your mobile phone.

According to the current update (as of this writing):

NORAD has confirmed that Santa and his fully-loaded, reindeer-powered sleigh took off from the North Pole and soared into the arctic sky at 6:00 a.m. EST (5:00 a.m. CST, 4:00 a.m. MST, 3:00 a.m. PST). NORAD radar is tracking Rudolph’s bright red nose, and satellite imagery is providing minute-by-minute coverage of Santa’s location.

Here’s how NORAD does it:

NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa – radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets.

Tracking Santa starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. On Christmas Eve, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.

The moment that radar indicates Santa has lifted off, we use our second detection system. Satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth’s surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Amazingly, Rudolph’s bright red nose gives off an infrared signature, which allow our satellites to detect Rudolph and Santa.

The third tracking system is the Santa Cam network. We began using it in 1998, which is the year we put our Santa Tracking program on the internet. Santa Cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras that are pre-positioned at many locations around the world. NORAD only uses these cameras once a year on Christmas Eve. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world.

The fourth system is made up of fighter jets. Canadian NORAD fighter pilots flying the CF-18 intercept and welcome Santa to North America. In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15 or the F-16 get the thrill of flying alongside Santa and his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph.

There is also a list of FAQs including technical data on Santa’s sleigh, intel regarding his girth, and the following handy fact:

How can Santa travel the world within 24 hours?
NORAD intelligence reports indicate that Santa does not experience time the way we do. His Christmas Eve trip seems to take 24 hours to us, but to Santa it might last days, weeks or even months. Santa would not want to rush the important job of delivering presents to children and spreading Christmas to everyone, so the only logical conclusion is that Santa somehow functions within his own time-space continuum.

And, perhaps most importantly for any of us with excited little ones:

When will Santa arrive at my house?
NORAD tracks Santa, but only Santa knows his route. So we cannot predict where and when he will arrive at your house. But we do know from history that it appears he arrives only when children are asleep! In most countries, it seems Santa arrives between 9:00 p.m. and midnight on Christmas Eve. If children are still awake when Santa arrives, he moves on to other houses. He returns later…but only when the children are asleep!

As the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen enters its crucial week, we will be joined by a few guests who will be blogging about the climate talks, sometimes from Copenhagen itself.

Dan Bodansky of the University of Georgia (and soon to be of Arizona State University) and the author of the book The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law has already sent us a post from Copenhagen (as well as this post and this post from the Barcelona run-up to Copenhagen). We look forward to his further observations.

We are also looking forward to contributions this week from Andrew Guzman of Berkeley Law, co-author (with Jody Freeman) of the recent article Sea Walls are Not Enough: Climate Change and U.S. Interests and author of the forthcoming book Climate Change and the Apocalypse (my kudos on the choice of title). readers may remember that we have previously hosted a book discussion of Andrew’s book How International Law Works.  We welcome him back. 

Finally, we are pleased to have five contributors from the new book Climate Finance: Regulatory Funding and Strategies for Climate Change and Global Development (NYU Press 2009).  The book can be downloaded from the International Climate Finance page of NYU’s Institute for International Law and Justice. The co-editors of the volume Benedict Kingsbury, Richard Stewart, and Bryce Rudyk will all be joining us, as will contributors Arunabha Ghosh and Nathaniel Keohane. I know that at least Benedict and Bryce are at Copenhagen, and I would not be surprised if some of their other colleagues are there as well. 

Benedict Kingsbury is Director of the Institute for International Law and Justice at NYU School of Law. He has written extensively on trade-environment disputes, the United Nations, and interstate arbitration and the proliferation of international tribunals.

Richard Stewart directs NYU’s Center on Environmental and Land Use Law and Global Law School Program. He has formerly served as Assistant Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources, U.S. Department of Justice, and as Chairman of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Bryce Rudyk is Coordinator of the International Climate Finance Project and Research Fellow at the Center for Environmental and Land Use Law at NYU School of Law. His research focuses on financing climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Arunabha Ghosh is Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, Princeton; Associate at the Global Economic Governance Programme, Oxford (see this resource guide to climate change governance issues); and Faculty Associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford. He previously worked as Policy Specialist at UNDP’s Human Development Report Office in New York, where he authored the 2006 HDR and co-authored the 2005 and 2004 editions.

Nathaniel Keohane is Director of Economic Policy and Analysis at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law. He has published articles on environmental economics in numerous academic journals, and is the co-author of Markets and the Environment.

Their Climate Finance project provides some much-welcome “brass tacks” considerations on the financing and regulatory issues of climate change governance. Here’s the short description:

Preventing risks of severe damage from climate change not only requires deep cuts in developed country greenhouse gas emissions, but enormous amounts of public and private investment to limit emissions while promoting green growth in developing countries. While attention has focused on emissions limitations commitments and architectures, the crucial issue of what must be done to mobilize and govern the necessary financial resources has received too little consideration. In Climate Finance, a leading group of policy experts and scholars show how effective mitigation of climate change will depend on a complex mix of public funds, private investment though carbon markets, and structured incentives that leave room for developing country innovations. This requires sophisticated national and global regulation of cap-and-trade and offset markets, forest and energy policy, international development funding, international trade law, and coordinated tax policy.

Thirty-six targeted policy essays present a succinct overview of the emerging field of climate finance, defining the issues, setting the stakes, and making new and comprehensive proposals for financial, regulatory, and governance mechanisms that will enrich political and policy debate for many years to come. The complex challenges of climate ­finance will continue to demand fresh insights and creative approaches. The ideas in this volume mark out starting points for essential institutional and policy innovations.

Remember, you can download the book free of charge from here.

We at Opinio Juris are excited that such a distinguished and varied group of experts will be with us over the next week. We encourage our readers to weigh-in with questions and comments.

I will write on this at greater length in a couple of days after a few of the key parties have made their arguments. For now, I just want to note that the oral proceeding transcripts will be available here. In the Tuesday morning session (which is all that has been posted at the time of this writing), Serbia set out its argument.

Without having gone in depth into Serbia’s argument, I do note that they seem to be staking out a claim that the declaration of independence made by Kosovo’s Parliament is itself illegal under international law, violating both the territorial integrity of Serbia and falling afoul of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (which I have analyzed here). Given that most international lawyers tend to argue that secession itself is neither legal nor illegal under international law (or, put another way, that international law is silent as to the legality of secession), I am interested in both reading the oral statements at greater length, as well as the written submissions to see how Serbia constructed this argument.

More to come…

Following-up on my recent post on commercial space ventures, I note that Richard Bilder has a new article posted to SSRN: A Legal Regime for the Mining of Helium-3 on the Moon: U.S. Policy Options. I know that “helium-3″ might sound like the name of some sci-fi show like “Deep Space 9,”  but it is really a great hope for future energy needs. Bilder’s abstract explains:

This article addresses questions of U.S. international legal and space policy arising from current proposals of the U.S., Russia, China and India to establish national bases on the Moon, in part with the purpose of mining and bringing to Earth Helium-3 (He-3). He-3 is an isotope of helium that is available in quantity only on the Moon and could, as an ideal fuel for nuclear fusion reactors, furnish humanity a virtually unlimited source of safe, non-polluting energy for centuries to come. For example, it is estimated that 40 tons of liquefied He-3 brought from the Moon to the Earth – about the amount that could comfortably fit in the cargo bays of two of the existing U.S. space shuttles – would provide sufficient fuel for He-3-based fusion reactors to meet the full electrical needs of the U.S. – or a quarter of the entire world’s electrical needs – for an entire year. However, there is as yet no international consensus on whether, or how, any nation or private enterprise can exploit or acquire title to He-3 or other lunar resources. The article calls attention to what may become a “race to the Moon” to obtain He-3 and discusses: (1) the technical and economic prospects for the development of He-3-based energy; (2) the present legal situation concerning the exploitation of lunar resources such as He-3; and (3) policy options for the U.S. regarding the establishment of an international legal regime capable of avoiding conflict in the exploitation of He-3 and other lunar resources and facilitating the broad scale development of He-3-based energy.

In addition to the idea of using helium-3  for power on earth it is also one of the most commonly posited potential fuel sources for crewed spacecraft to the asteroid belt and outer planets. This would open the belt up to the possibility of asteroid mining (if that turns out to be economically feasible) as well as crewed scientific exploration of the outer solar system. Bilder sets out various options including ratifying the present Moon Agreement, establishing an international lunar resource regime outside of the framework of the Moon Agreement, and setting up either an international organization or some other enterprise for mining lunar helium-3.

Underlying this is his argument that significant public or private investment in helium-3 mining would be predicated on a stable legal regime concerning the property and ownership issues of mined lunar resources. Thus, he argues, it is in the U.S.’s interest to take part in the construction of a lunar resource regime (be it treaty, international organization, or other policy option) sooner, rather than later.

For anyone interested in cutting edge issues in space law, this article is a great place to start.