After a flurry of commentary in the wake of Obama's speech last week and the on-background legal justification that came with it, the silence has been deafening. The immediate reaction to the AUMF hook for the ISIL operation was something approaching disbelief. It came out of the blue and everyone felt blindsided. But it is attracting some support. Marty Lederman offers...
[Milena Sterio is The Charles R. Emrick Jr. - Calfee Halter & Griswold Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Faculty Enrichment at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.] As many readers may already know, Scotland may soon become an independent nation. Scots will vote in a September 18 referendum whether to secede from Great Britain. The exact question that they will answer, in...
[Tom Sparks is a PhD Candidate in Law at the Durham University School of Law and member of the ERC-funded "Neo-Federalism project."] We have been repeatedly told that the Scottish referendum of the 18th of September is an historic moment, and it surely is. As a matter of international law, however, it may be that the most significant decision in the...
[Jure Vidmar is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Law and Research Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Some arguments made in this post are further elaborated on in this article.] The Treaty on European Union (TEU) now gives member states an explicit right to exit the EU and provides for a mechanism that makes this right effective. However, the...
[Stephen Tierney is a Professor of Constitutional Theory, University of Edinburgh and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law.] In the Edinburgh Agreement of 2012 the United Kingdom Government committed itself to respect the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum. This suggests that, in the event of a Yes vote, the transition to independence will be relatively straightforward, as will...
5. Decides to elaborate and adopt through a process of intergovernmental negotiations, as a matter of priority during its sixty-ninth session, a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes with a view, inter alia, to increasing the efficiency, stability and predictability of the international financial system and achieving sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and sustainable development, in accordance with national circumstances and priorities; 6. Also decides to define the modalities for the intergovernmental negotiations and the adoption of the text of the multilateral legal framework at the main part of its sixty-ninth session, before the end of 2014.According to the General Assembly’s press release, the U.S. delegate stressed at the meeting “that she could not support a statutory mechanism for sovereign debt restructuring as such a mechanism was likely to create economic uncertainty.” Moreover, she expressed the view that “[i]n the past, market-oriented approaches had been preferred and work was ongoing in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and elsewhere.” In response to that, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Argentina stated that “[s]overeign debt held development back and the establishment of a better system could improve global economic security.” The Minister continued that “[t]he clear majority agreed it was time to establish a legal framework for restructuring that respected creditors while allowing debtors to emerge from debt safely. The profits currently made by vulture funds were scandalous and were funnelled into campaigning and lobbying to prevent changes to the situation.” Needless to say, this is a big step forward in terms of the development of international law on sovereign debt restructuring.
[Michael W. Lewis is a Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University where he teaches International Law and the Law of War.] Kevin was right that my Just Security post misstated the legal standard for self-defense by stating that Syria could rightfully treat US attacks on ISIS on Syrian soil as aggression if the US had established that it was acting in...
The concern over ISIL foreign fighters had ramped up even before President Obama announced that he will preside over a September 24th UN Security Council Meeting on the subject. No surprise that politicians are jumping on the bandwagon. Ted Cruz introduced legislation last week in the Senate that would purport to terminate the citizenship of those associated with terrorist organizations....
[David Scheffer is the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law and Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law.] If the Scottish people vote in the majority on September 18th to become an independent nation, then a host of legal issues will descend immediately upon Holyrood, where the Scottish Parliament sits in Edinburgh, and...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa A boat filled with up to 250 African migrants heading for Europe has sunk off the Libyan coast and many passengers have died, a spokesman for the Libyan navy has said. Middle East and Northern Africa French President Francois Hollande has called for a global response to counter the Islamic State...
Events The Raoul Wallenberg Legacy of Leadership event will take place in New York on September 18th at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. The event will include a panel discussion about the responsibility to prevent genocide and mass atrocities as well as keynote addresses by Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Minister of Justice, and...
