I'll one-up Julian's post below on Tom Cotton's letter to the leaders of Iran admonishing them that any agreement entered into today could be reversed by Obama's successor. It appears unprecedented for a group of opposition members of Congress to engage in such a communication. It may also be criminal. The 1799 Logan Act provides that: Any citizen of the United States, wherever he...
Most of the US Senate's Republican membership has signed an open letter to Iran's leaders "informing" them about the nature of the U.S. constitutional system with respect to international agreements. It is actually a very accurate statement of US foreign relations law, even if it is a little strange and potentially intrusive into the President's foreign affairs power. It...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The International Criminal Court's Pre-Trial Chamber II decided on Monday that Sudan had failed to cooperate in its war crimes investigation of President Omar al-Bashir and it plans to inform the United Nations Security Council (see press release here). Troops from Chad and Niger have retaken two northeastern...
Events The Conference of the African Association of International Law will take place in Libreville, Gabon from 29 – 31 August 2015. Deadline for submissions of abstracts: 15 March 2015. The African Association of International Law (AAIL) is pleased to announce its 2015 conference entitled: International Economic Law and Development in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. The working languages of the Conference are English and French. Submissions are welcome...
This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Kristen discussed the Elders Proposal for Strengthening the UN and its proposals to change the selection process for the position of the Secretary-General Jens pointed out how the end of an armed conflict can be as legally complex as its start, and wrote about the proposed CIA reorganisation. Patryk Labuda contributed a guest post on hybrid justice in Africa Julian asked whether...
Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times says that John Brennan has proposed a major reorganization of the CIA that will, to a large extent, break down the deep bureaucratic divide between agency analysts and clandestine operatives. Historically, analysts engage in research and, as their name suggests, intelligence analysis. Some of that was obscure and abstract--for example writing reports on the...
How does an international-law doctrine become conventional wisdom without actually having support in the practice of states? It starts with one article asserting the doctrine, but failing to defend it. Then another article makes the same claim, citing only the first article. And then another. And another. And so on -- until no one remembers that the first article did not...
According to the WSJ, the "Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act" that I discussed earlier this week may already have 64 declared supporters in the Senate. This means that supporters are only 3 votes shy of enough to override President Obama's veto of this bill. Since the bill might actually become law, it is worth reminding supporters of the bill that it...
Last September, Ghana commenced an arbitration under Annex VII of the UN Convention for the Law of Sea seeking judicial confirmation of its rights to explore for oil and other resources in maritime areas disputed by its neighbor Cote D'Ivoire. This past January, the two countries agreed to submit a dispute over maritime boundaries to a special chamber of the International Tribunal for...
As Washington continues to digest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's (possibly unconstitutional) address to the U.S. Congress criticizing a pending nuclear arms deal with Iran, a constitutional and political fight is brewing over the scope of the President's powers to make such an agreement and Congress's power to limit or overturn his agreement. A group of Senators re-introduced a bill last...
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers proposed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last week. The proposed law would "would enhance U.S. monitoring of Hong Kong’s autonomy and human rights and ensure that these issues remain a cornerstone of U.S. policy," according to the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith. Reactions in Hong Kong and China are already pretty negative. "We...
Japan has been slowly moving to modify its domestic law, both constitutional and legislative, restricting the use of its military forces outside of Japan. In its latest political discussions, it is worth noting that Komeito, a partner to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has been insisting on the three "Kitagawa" principles as a basis for any new law governing the...
