Now, my recent effort doesn’t qualify as a bestseller, but it certainly has a fair bit to say about international law. But what do actual bestsellers say about international law? Well, this week in lieu of seeing the movie I finally read The Da Vinci Code. Like others before me, although I enjoyed it as a thriller, I was troubled...
Yesterday, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) for the International Criminal Court issued its Third Report to the United Nations Security Council on the situation in Darfur. The Report, which was completed pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1593, summarizes the status of the ICC’s investigative efforts over the six months since its Second Report was issued in December 2005....
Professor Louis B. Sohn died on Wednesday, June 7. He was 92. Professor Sohn was one of the most well-known American (by way of Poland) international lawyers of his generation – over the years, he taught, wrote about, and practiced international law in a wide variety of areas, including human rights, arms control, the environment, and the law of the...
I’m wondering whether customary international law really exists anymore. No, I’m not talking about Posner and Goldsmith’s use of rational choice methodology to attack the normative value of customary international law; I’m not looking to quarrel with this blog’s namesake, opinio juris, or its effects on relations between states and other subjects of international law. Rather, my inquiry...
I am procrastinating. Instead of grading exams or providing some substantive post on international law, I’ve been looking at Opinio Juris’ site statistics. Now, it’s no secret that law bloggers, like politicians, are constantly looking for affirmation of their popularity, usually in terms of how many “daily hits” a site receives. My co-blogger Roger Alford has already done some heavy...
This morning the Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Lee Jong-wook, passed away following a sudden illness. Dr. Lee collapsed on Saturday at one of the functions opening the WHO’s Annual Assembly meeting in Geneva and died early this morning after surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. Dr. Lee leaves behind an impressive legacy. ...
The tragic impacts of Yugoslavia’s dissolution linger on, as do efforts at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes in furtherance of so-called ethnic interests, whether Serb, Muslim or Croat. But, the underlying tragedies aside, you’ve got to wonder about the BBC’s story today that Croatia’s football champions, Dinamo Zagreb,...
That’s going to be the question facing the new U.N. Human Rights Council when it convenes for the first time June 19 in Geneva, Switzerland. Yesterday, the U.N. General Assembly elected the first 47 members of the newly-created Council. It will replace the much-maligned Human Rights Commission, which achieved notoriety for letting the wolves guard the proverbial hen house (i.e.,...
One of my earliest encounters with international law was in graduate school when I studied the use of international legal discourse in the 1895 U.S. crisis with Great Britain over the Venezuela/British Guyana boundary line. In researching the U.S. diplomatic statements of the time, I discovered John Bassett Moore’s 8 volume, Digest of International Law. From it, I quickly learned...
It’s a busy time of year for international lawyers. For those of us who work as academics, we’re busy writing and grading exams. For those working for governments, international organizations and NGOs, the spring season of treaty negotiations and meetings is in full swing. This week, for example, negotiators and other interested stakeholders are in Geneva for the Second Conference...
Today, the State Department released its second, annual Country Report on Terrorism. The 292 page report contains an extensive overview of terrorists and their activities from the U.S. government’s point of view. The report’s raw numbers are striking -- 11,000 incidents of terrorism in 2005, resulting in the deaths of 14,500 people, leaving 25,000 others wounded and 35,000...
The push to finalize the Doha Round of Negotiations for the World Trade Organization has hit another roadblock. Following on earlier reports that negotiators would miss an end-of-April deadline to produce texts setting forth an agreed framework for agricultural and industrial tariff reductions, this week witnessed the cancellation of Ministerial-level meetings. In its place, U.S. and E.U. negotiators have opted...
