These are not the best of days for Greece, and even relatively small matters, like their ongoing dispute with Macedonia over the name "Macedonia" is going against them. Greece was wrong to block Macedonia's bid to join Nato in 2008 because of a row over its name, the International Court of Justice has ruled. It said Athens should have abided by a...
Following up on Dan Bodansky's excellent post, and our interesting discussion here on MEAs, I wanted to point readers to this useful report from Durban by Reason's science correspondent Ronald Bailey. Bailey has a very useful breakdown on why China's supposed shift on its views on a new climate change treaty is really meaningless. Here is his summary of China's...
My general view is that critical book reviews are much more interesting than positive ones (unless it is of my own book, that is). And so I read with great interest George Mason Law Professor Jeremy Rabkin's takedown of Kathryn Sikkink's new book "The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics." The Sikkink book argues, through an...
So talks on a new cluster bomb treaty have collapsed due to the refusal of countries party to the 2008 Cluster Bomb Convention to sign on to a less restrictive treaty that would have included the U.S, Russia, China, India and other key military powers. The draft treaty was vigorously promoted by the United States and had the backing of other...
The imminent collapse of the eurozone (and maybe the global financial markets as well) makes for terrifying reading. It also is one reminder of how the success of regional and international legal institutions has depended on the general health of the global economy (and of wealthy states in Europe, North America, and East Asia). Three stories from today, both big...
I haven't been following Australia's new law requiring plain packaging for tobacco products, but I am a bit surprised that Philip Morris has filed a notice of arbitration claiming the law violates Australia's bilateral investment treaty with Hong Kong. Here is PM's argument: Australia is in breach of the BIT because plain packaging: Amounts to unlawful expropriation of PMA’s investments and valuable...
Reports are a little uncertain, but it sounds like Libya will not comply with the ICC Prosecutors' arrest warrant and turn over Muammar Qaddafi's son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi. ZINTAN, Libya (AP) – Libya's new leaders said Sunday they will try Moammar Gadhafi's son at home and not hand him over to the International Criminal Court where he's charged with crimes against humanity. The government...
Here is a nice example of how international organizations and international lawyers can conspire to make international law seem ridiculous. Bus and subway workers had a right to strike in 2005 and their leader was wrongly jailed, a United Nations agency has found. The International Labor Organization said the state’s Taylor Law, which makes it illegal for public workers in New York...
Here is a story that no one (here in the U.S. anyway) is paying attention to: Russia’s accession to the WTO cleared a major hurdle when the WTO Working Party on its accession approved, ad referendum on 10 November 2011, the package spelling out Russia’s terms of entry to the organization. The Working Party will now send its accession recommendation to...
Eric Posner points out the NATO intervention into Libya appeared to violate numerous norms of international law (and maybe domestic U.S law as well). He suggests that it is further evidence that legal norms don't really matter much for international military actions. But if the Libya intervention turns out to be a political and moral victory, it also illustrates once again...
Interesting: Today FIDH and LDH filed a criminal complaint, together with an application to join the proceedings as a civil party against persons unknown before the Court in Paris concerning the responsibility of the company Amesys, a subsidiary of Bull, in relation to acts of torture perpetrated in Libya. This complaint concerns the provision, since 2007, of communication surveillance equipment to...
Just a quick note on the news reports about the internal Obama Administration legal debate over the use of cyberattacks in the Libya conflict. These reports seem to confirm Stewart Baker's complaint that cyberwar capabilities are being shaped by legal concerns as much as, if not more than, policy goals. Two small observations: 1) Following David Fidler's point here, how is...
