This week on Opinio Juris, we continued last week's Kiobel Insta-Symposium. Quoting from his and John Yoo's Forbes contribution, Julian argued that the rejection of universal civil jurisdiction is common sense because it leaves the decision on foreign policy consequences of extraterritoriality to the political branches. He also drew our attention to two positive assessments of the opinion, by John Bellinger and...
Professor Craig Allen of University of Washington alerts me to this excerpt from the press conference held yesterday at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is the first time, as far as I know, that a Chinese government spokesman has offered a detailed explanation of China's legal position in the Philippines arbitration. It still doesn't fully make sense, or...
As members of Congress begin calling more insistently for some unspecified form of U.S. military intervention against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, I admit to suffering the same doubt as Julian. What exactly is the legal theory here – under domestic and international law – that would authorize the United States to use force in Syria? There was,...
This week 170 garment workers in Bangladesh died after the Rana Plaza building collapsed. A few months ago 112 garment workers in Bangladesh died after the Tazreen Fashions garment factory was destroyed by fire. Both tragedies were the result of inadequate fire and safety standards. These tragedies could not have come at a worst time for major...
In the wake of a factory building collapse in Bangladesh, in which at least 273 lives have been claimed, many are calling for reform by Western high-street brands that rely on cheap labor as the accident reignited questions about the often lethal conditions in the country's garment industry. The Atlantic offers a piece about how garment workers are pushing for...
New evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons against insurgents have spurred new calls here in the U.S. for military action in Syria. Here is the LA Times (hardly an interventionist paper): An American or multilateral response should of course be proportional to the offense. That means considering whether chemical weapons were used against civilians or militants, and whether a "whole...
Yesterday, President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Shunji Yanai, announced the appointment of the final three members of the Annex VII UNCLOS tribunal. International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) President Shunji Yanai on April 24 transmitted a letter to Philippine Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, head of the Philippine legal team on the arbitration...
French President Hollande is receiving a warm welcome during his visit to Beijing, which according to the Financial Times is a snub to the UK government which has not been high on China's welcome list after David Cameron's meeting with the Dalai Lama last year. US Treasury officials appeared before the House Appropriations subcommittee to push for a different allocation in US contributions...
[Milan Markovic is an Associate Professor of Law at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law.] When the Supreme Court originally granted certiorari in Kiobel, many feared that it would bar ATS suits against corporations entirely. The Supreme Court’s actual decision bars ATS claims that do not “touch and concern” United States territory. I tend to agree with Marty Lederman that there...
[Austen Parrish is the Interim Dean and a Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.] With Kiobel, the general mood among those in the human rights community is pessimistic. Because it curtails use of the Alien Tort Statute, viewing the decision as a loss is tempting. From this perspective, Kiobel is another indication that the Court continues to reinvent itself with a particular...
Clashes have escalated on the Syria-Lebanon border, causing worries that Lebanon will be pulled further into the Syrian conflict. The French Parliament passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and extended the right to adopt children to same-sex couples as well, making France the 14th country in the world to do so. India is alleging that a Chinese platoon has entered its Ladakh...
[Beth Stephens is a Professor at Rutgers Law] As a late-arrival to this Insta-Symposium, I find that many of my thoughts about the Kiobel opinion have already been expressed. Corporate defendants won an important victory in Kiobel, at least for foreign corporations with no more than a “mere corporate presence” in the United States. I had not predicted that the justices...
