In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

05 Oct

The U.S. and eleven other Pacific Rim countries announced they have reached agreement on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which will more tightly integrate 40% of the world's economy into a single regional bloc. There will be a huge fight in Congress over the TPP by progressive Democrats in the U.S. Even presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has already announced...

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05 Oct

I stopped watching Crossing Lines about five episodes into Season 2 – about the time the ICC started investigating a series of home invasions. (Yes, really.) I had no intention of watching again, but I decided to give the show one more try at the urging of my friend Mel O’Brien. So a couple of nights ago I watched the...

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05 Oct

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Somalia last week deposited its instrument of ratification of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), leaving the United States as the world’s only country that has not done so. Militants claiming loyalty to Islamic State said they were behind suicide bombings near the...

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04 Oct

Announcements iCourts (Center of Excellence for International Courts), The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark is seeking applications for two or three positions as postdoc within the research area of one of the Faculty’s research centres - iCourts (the Center of Excellence for International Courts). The positions are available from 1st February 2016, and for duration of two (2) years. Start...

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02 Oct

I wanted to flag for interested readers the upcoming ASIL Research Forum in Washington, D.C., on October 23-24, 2015  I've been to a couple of the previous iterations and can attest that it's a great way to catch up on some new scholarship and to hear a mix of new and old voices in the field.  This year's event looks...

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02 Oct

It's been widely reported over the past few days that Russia has been bombing the Free Syrian Army under the pretext of joining the fight against ISIS. That development spurred an interesting post at Lawfare by Bobby Chesney about whether Art. II of the Constitution -- the Commander-in-Chief Clause -- would permit the US to defend the FSA, which it has been...

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01 Oct

The UN General Assembly is set to vote once again (for the 24th consecutive year) on a Cuba-sponsored resolution condemning the United States' economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba.  This resolution will probably get near majority support, and perhaps even unanimous support.  Indeed, there are rumors that the U.S. government itself may abstain from voting against the resolution, which is...

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30 Sep

[Matt Brown is a current LLM student at Leiden University, studying Public International Law, with a specific interest in international criminal law, transitional justice and cultural heritage law. He tweets about these and other topics @_mattbrown.] The International Criminal Court concerns itself with the ‘most serious crimes of concern to the international community.’ Often we understand this term to reflect examples...

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28 Sep

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa At least 21 people were killed in the capital of Central African Republic on Saturday and around 100 others were wounded as Muslims attacked a mainly Christian neighborhood, senior hospital officials and a government spokesman said.. A Norwegian-flagged ship that was held in Kenya for more than a...

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27 Sep

Announcements Queen's University Belfast has announced a position for a Lecturer in Human Rights Law. The closing date on applications is 5 October 2015. See the vacancy here. Calls for Papers/Abstracts: The American Society of International Law's Lieber Society Announces a call for papers for the 2016 Richard R. Baxter Military Writing Prize. Persons submitting papers need not be ASIL members and can be...

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26 Sep

States whose nationals died in the attack on MH17 were understandably upset when Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have created an ad hoc tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the attack. Their idea to create a treaty-based court, however, is simply not helpful: Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will meet with her counterparts from Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine on...

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