In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Julian Ku

12 Jan

[Please see the update below] Three U.S. citizens, and one Belgian national, have filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. against the State of Israel alleging various injuries and damages suffered during an Israeli commando raid on their U.S.-registered ship.  The plaintiffs were activists who were sailing their vessel in support of the Palestinians on the Gaza...

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11 Jan

When a country is brought to arbitration under a treaty, it often challenges the jurisdiction of that arbitral tribunal in arguments before that tribunal. But in recent years, we've seen several examples of countries that have simply chosen to "boycott" or not participate in the arbitral hearings whatsoever. China adopted this approach in its ongoing United Nations Convention on the Law...

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15 Dec

The UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal formed to consider the dispute between the Philippines and China gave China until January 1 to file a response to the arguments made by the Philippines at its most recent merits hearing.  China had not showed up at any of the hearings, nor has it submitted any official written arguments to the Tribunal.   I don't know...

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03 Dec

I can't resist one final post to complete an earlier discussion between myself and professors Bruce Ackerman and David Golove on the legal status of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal.  As several others in the blogosphere have noted, the U.S. State Department has confirmed, in a letter to Congress, the following: The...

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30 Nov

Reports suggest that the Japanese government will resume whaling in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica early next year.  This news is causing lots of teeth-gnashing and anger in Australia and New Zealand, whose governments had brought and won a recent International Court of Justice decision finding Japan's previous whaling program in violation of the International Whaling Convention.  The news also reveals (again) the...

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25 Nov

Last week, the U.S. Congress passed the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 (or the "Space Act"), which will authorize private U.S. companies to own and sell resources they extract from objects in space. Supporters (and detractors) are calling this historic, because it is the first time the U.S. government has plainly authorized commercial exploitation of outer space...

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18 Nov

I had the honor and pleasure of testifying today before the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee.  The topic of the hearing was "Examining International Climate Negotiations" and the upcoming conference in Paris. My own contribution argued that an agreement with legally binding emissions reduction obligations should be submitted to the Senate as a treaty rather than as a...

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16 Nov

Ilya Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy has suggested that if NATO invokes Article V's collective self-defense language against ISIS as a result of the terrible Paris attacks over the weekend, President Obama's ongoing use of military force against ISIS could be "legalized" as a matter of U.S. constitutional law.  Here is Ilya: Article 5 provides a much stronger justification for the war...

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05 Nov

Simon Lester of Worldtradelaw.net and the Cato Institute offered a very interesting pro-free trade argument against the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in trade agreements like the TransPacific Partnership or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.  I disagree and we discussed and debated the issue today in a lively conversation hosted by Columbia University's Center for Sustainable Investment. ...

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