In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Roger Alford

16 Dec

As discussed in my previous post, last month I was privileged to organize a conference at Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway on the topic of UK trade and Brexit. I discussed the first session in my previous post, which addressed UK trade negotiations with the EU. [embed]https://youtu.be/V5MYdhzXGAM?list=PLUqez-g-qh0lEWRv2XxnmZ_MmPRPZTzTD[/embed] In our second session, we discussed the topic of UK trade negotiations...

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08 Dec

On November 7, 2016 I was privileged to organize a conference at the University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway on the topic of UK trade and Brexit. The conference had three sessions: (1) UK trade negotiations with the EU; (2) UK trade negotiations outside the EU; and (3) UK’s post-Brexit status within the WTO. The participants were...

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01 Mar

We are pleased to announce that Opinio Juris will begin an occasional series on international law and Presidential politics. Foreign policy and international law have been a central topic of discussion among the U.S. presidential candidates, and there is much fodder for discussion regarding the fidelity of their positions with the United States’ commitments under international law. The...

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07 Apr

Negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) have highlighted the growing debate over investment arbitration. Last week the New York Times published an article summarizing objections to the TPP investment chapter. The article notes that politicians, law professors and liberal activists “have expressed fears the provisions would infringe on United States...

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13 Jan

I started blogging at Opinio Juris in June 2005. My first post was a postcard from India. Since that time I have published over 1,000 posts. During that same ten-year period I have also published dozens of articles and a few books. In light of that background, I thought I would use Opinio Juris’ ten-year anniversary...

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10 Dec

It so happens that I have been researching the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the same time that the Senate has published an alarming report of abuse and torture committed by Americans in the name of national security. Without equating South African apartheid with the Bush Administration's policies and practices, I thought that a few insights from...

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29 Nov

That's the provocative conclusion of the latest research by Joel Trachtman. Trachtman's articles are typically succinct and seductive, so you owe it to yourself to read the short article (and skim the long appendix). Trachtman examined 300 different CIL rules and found that only 13 (4.33%) have not been either incorporated in treaties or codified. Trachtman argues that the...

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21 Nov

Last week the Ninth Circuit issued a controversial opinion in Mujica v. Airscan, Inc., that sharply limits the scope of human rights litigation. The claims in Mujica arose in Colombia and allegedly implicate corporate collusion with the Colombian military. Following Kiobel the common consensus was that Alien Tort Statute litigation would be severely curtailed based on the presumption...

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13 Nov

Tomorrow I have the good fortune of participating in the Notre Dame Law Review symposium with leading foreign relations scholars. The topic of the symposium is Bond v. United States. The keynote will be given by Paul Clement, who won the case for Petitioner. The focus of my discussion will be the relationship between Supreme Court treaty interpretation...

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10 Sep

We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris beginning early next week about the Scottish independence referendum that will be held next Thursday, September 18th. As we have done in the past with other symposiums, we also welcome other academics to submit guests posts for possible publication. We particularly welcome Scottish, British, EU and state succession...

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05 Sep

Anyone familiar with foreign relations law hears the common refrain that treaties almost never supersede statutes under the last-in-time rule. Until recently, it was certainly my understanding that the ancient Supreme Court case of Cook v. United States was the only significant example in which a self-executing treaty trumped an earlier conflicting statute. But my recent research on the...

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