The heavy dumping of snow on the US East Coast made for a light dusting of posts this week. Kevin found the ICTR's recent acquittal of Augustin Ndindiliyimana after 11 years of pre-trial detention a stain on the tribunal's reputation. He also was not convinced by Eugene Kontorovich's use of Belgium's extension of the right to die to terminally ill minors as...
Eugene has graciously responded to my earlier post; you can find his new post here. It's well worth a read. I just want to offer a few thoughts on Eugene's response, because I think it fails to address the core of my critique: that it is incorrect to claim, as Eugene did in his first post, that Europe's opposition to the...
I'm currently in Belgium, teaching an intensive course on international criminal law at Katholieke University Leuven. So I was struck by Eugene Kontorovich's most recent post at the Volokh Conspiracy, in which he uses a new Belgian law permitting euthanasia for minors to criticize the Supreme Court's abolition of the juvenile death penalty in Roper v. Simmons. Here is the crux of...
Although the ICTY's recent high-profile acquittals have been getting all the attention, it's worth noting that the ICTR Appeals Chamber has just acquitted two high-ranking defendants, Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the former chief of staff of the Rwandan paramilitary police, and François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, the former commander of a military reconnaissance battalion, on the ground that the Trial Chamber erred in concluding that they...
One of the most frustrating things about China's response to the Philippines arbitration has been the brevity of its legal discussion and analysis. In particular, I've long thought that China had a pretty good argument that the Annex VII UNCLOS arbitral tribunal does not have jurisdiction over the dispute since, in many ways, territorial disputes are at the heart of the...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa A Red Cross spokesman says a vehicle carrying five people has gone missing in northern Mali and an official from the group known as the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa said that an al-Qaeda-linked group in Mali has kidnapped them. The Office of the Prosecutor for...
I had the great pleasure the last several months to serve on ASIL's Book Awards Committee (along with Jutta Brunnée, Jean d’Aspremont, Saira Mohamed, and a very well organized chair in Jacob Cogan). I'm pleased to announce that the Society's Executive Council has selected three winners for 2014 based on our nominations. The winners (plus the Committee's accompanying citation) are as follows: Certificate...
Sergey Vasiliev, an excellent young ICL scholar, has posted at the Center for International Criminal Justice a superb -- and very long -- analysis of the relationship between Perisic and Sainovic entitled "Consistency of Jurisprudence, Finality of Acquittals, and Ne Bis in Idem." I agree with almost everything Sergey says, although I don't think we should consider the Perisic AC's...
Calls for Papers The ICTBEL Organising Committee has now issued a call for papers to be presented in June 2014 conference, which will be held in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. International Conference on Trade, Business and Economic Law (ICTBEL) provides an opportunity for academics, practitioners, consultants, scholars, researchers and policy makers with different backgrounds and experience to present their papers in the...
The year is now officially in full swing on Opinio Juris with our first symposium of 2014. Up for discussion were both lead articles of the latest AJIL issue. The first article, on the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, was introduced here by Karen Alter, Larry Helfer and Jacky McAllister and was followed by comments by Solomon Ebobrah, Kofi Kufuor, and...
[Julian Davis Mortenson is Assistant Professor of Law at Michigan Law.] I am most grateful for the thoughtful comments offered by Bart, Richard, and Ulf. Their observations are well-informed, generous, and extremely useful in advancing the conversation about treaty interpretation. So first and foremost, sincerest thanks to each of them. In my response, I hope (1) to clarify the question that seems principally...
I have a piece up on Slate arguing that the Olympics should no longer require competitors to have the nationality of the country for which they compete. A journalist friend of mine once told me, "Don't ever read the comments. Just don't." Misguidedly thinking that Slate readers were somehow exempt from the laws of the internet, I made that mistake. Maybe 10 to 1...
