I've been following the standoff between the Philippines Navy and Chinese "surveillance" ships in the South China Sea (or West Philippines Sea) with some concern. As I noted here, China has some rather expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea that countries like the Philippines are resisting. But given the relative sizes of their navies, it is obvious that...
I know these polls might not reflect a whole lot of deliberation or thoughtfulness, but still, it is amazing to me: Nearly three quarters of Britons think human rights have become a ‘charter for criminals’, a poll has revealed. It showed a strong majority of 72 per cent hold negative views about the role of human rights laws. Only one in six said...
Ben Davis sends me this update on the new evidence submitted to the International Criminal Court against the Catholic Church. Today, a survivor-led support group for sex abuse victims, which is under attack by U.S. Catholic officials, submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) new and extensive documentation that the organization says shows ongoing child rape by Catholic clergy and continuing...
The faculty of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto are either pretty gutsy, or totally insane...
The Telegraph commits one of my pet peeves in this headline and article on the Greek Debt Crisis: Greek talks with international-law debt holders hit impasse Despite earlier this year forcing most creditors to take losses of 75pc on the debt, Athens has still to deal with its bonds which were issued under international, as opposed to domestic, law. The Greek government said...
I sense there is a trend of domestically-focused US civil rights and labor groups seeking to make their case in international fora. 1) CCR announces that the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights has accepted a case from a Guantanamo detainee. 2) Labor and civil rights groups have filed a complaint in the International Labour Organisation challenging Alabama's immigration law. 3) The NAACP has...
Tod Lindberg of the Weekly Standard worries that the "pristine" legality of the Libya intervention (under international law, at least), is preventing the U.S. from taking similar actions again Syria. As matters stand, intervention in Syria would be anything but a "model." The real question for the Obama administration, however, is whether Libya has set a standard for intervention so pristine...
We are pleased and honored this week to host Professor Jan Dalhuisen, Professor of Law at King's College London, a visiting professor at the University of California Berkeley, and the Miranda Chair at Catholic University Lisbon. Professor Dalhuisen will share some thoughts on a topic we too often ignore here at Opinio Juris: the transnationalization of private law. Professor Dalhuisen graduated...
Here is an excerpt from my report on the Chevron-Ecuador Panel at this year's ASIL meetings, published over at ASILcables.org: In my view, the best way to understand Chevron v. Ecuador is as a marriage gone horribly wrong, where, as usual, the children are the biggest losers. In this case, the “children” are theLago Agrio plaintiffs, most of whom are part...
Over at EJIL Talk!, Professors Joanna Harrington and Rene Provost note the passage of what Provost has dubbed "Canada's Alien Tort Statute." As for the details, the new Canadian law will now allow Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada who are victims of terrorism, as well as others if the action has a real and substantial connection to Canada, to...
From all I've read, there is very little chance that a NY court will dismiss a civil lawsuit against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on the grounds that he enjoys diplomatic immunity. I don't have the papers, but the description of his argument goes like this: Amit Mehta, one of Strauss-Kahn's lawyers, said his client's diplomatic immunity flowed from a 1947...
John Yoo and I will be discussing our new book, Taming Globalization, tomorrow night, Wednesday, March 28, 2012 from 6-8 p.m., at the The New York Athletic Club, 180 Central Park South New York, New York in an event hosted by the Federalist Society. Anyone who is interested is welcome to attend! For those of you on Long Island (and I know there...
