The International Court of Justice, the "principal judicial organ of the United Nations", celebrates its sixtieth anniversary today with a solemn sitting at 2:30 GMT (about the time this post goes up). What is a "solemn sitting"? I am not really sure, but various dignitaries will attend, speeches will be made, and (hopefully) cake will be eaten. ...
Here is an amusing example of the type of legal drafting nearly unique to international lawyers: The delimitation shall extend from the junction of the line that is equidistant from the low water line of Barbados and from the nearest turning point of the archipelagic baselines of Trinidad and Tobago with the maritime zone of a third State that is to...
I want to thank Roger for posting on the Pineda case (see below). I agree with most of his analysis, but I want to jump in here with a brief addendum. I would go farther than Roger and call this decision a win-win-win-win for the Administration. The first holding of the court is exactly the position the administration has argued -...
This question is not necessarily relevant to the very hot immigration debate in the United States. Mexico's government has raised this slightly, however, in its sometimes harsh criticism of U.S. immigration policies. But Mexico also receives many immigrants. Can Mexico be accused of imposing a double-standard on the U.S.? Some conservatives have suggested this. The answer isn't quite as...
This interesting report on the results of the ICJ's witness testimony confirms my suspicions about the inadequacy of the ICJ's fact-gathering ability in this sort of case. The question here is whether to allocate state responsibility to Serbia for violations of the Genocide Convention. This requires evidence on, among other things, was there a genocide and was it...
This Reuters article nicely highlights how international tribunals have become a growth industry, at least for the Hague (and also for Arusha, Tanzania). The unquestioned capital of all of this is The Hague, which is home to the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the Yugoslavia Criminal Court, and soon, perhaps, the trial of Charles Taylor by...
One common charge leveled at the Bush Administration is that it refuses to consult with Congress on important matters involving foreign affairs. There is some truth to this charge, although I think a lot of it is overblown. Congress is regularly consulted on lots of stuff through their numerous oversight and appropriations powers. They often know what is...
The U.S. Court of International Trade issued a fascinating opinion yesterday finding that the much-hated now-repealed Byrd Amendment could not be applied to goods from Canada and Mexico. (See the Bloomberg report on the decision) For those who want a little background: the Byrd Amendment distributed duties collected on foreign goods, usually anti-dumping duties, and distributed those duties to domestic...
Last year, China denounced Japan's plans to start drilling in a disputed undersea natural gas field and demanded talks to settle the dispute. Now that talks have begun, China has quietly permitted its state-owned oil company CNOOC to start removing gas from that same disputed field. As Japan's spokesman points out: "It is the Chinese side that has...
As I noted below, the campaigning for membership of the new U.N. Human Rights Council has begun in earnest (34 nations have declared themselves). The United States, however, will not be seeking a seat. The strategy behind staying off the new Council is unclear. The U.S. has pledged to fund and support the new council, but it...
Folks in D.C. have many choices for conferences on Monday because, in addition to the American University conference, Georgetown Law is convening its inaugural Sam Dash Conference on Human Rights. This conference includes lots of top-notch scholars as well, including blogosphere personalities like Orin Kerr and Marty Lederman. It definitely seems worth attending. ...
Professor Ken Anderson is holding a conference entitled "Institutionalizing the War on Terror" on Monday, April 10 at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington D.C. (full details can be found here). Here is a brief summary: The Bush administration and many others have declared that the war on terror is a long term effort that will...
