Of the 1500+ posts I've written for Opinio Juris over the past seven years, none angered my fellow progressives more than the post in which I claimed that the killing of Usama bin Laden was perfectly legal under international law. Here is what I wrote: To begin with, I think the applicable legal regime is international humanitarian law (IHL), not international...
French authorities have opened up a murder inquiry into the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004 at a Paris hospital, following allegations earlier this year that he may have died of polonium poisoning. India's Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani national convicted for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. A Pakistani newspaper has reported that Al Qaeda recruited two Somali...
It is a draft platform, but these parts of the 2012 GOP Platform are certainly interesting. It appears to have strong language in favor of "American Exceptionalism" and American sovereignty. Under our Constitution, treaties become the law of the land. So it is all the more important that the Congress -- the senate through its ratifying power and the House through...
Basil Katz at Reuters has an article about Section 502 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012. This section lifts the Central Bank of Iran's immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act of 1976 and effectively neuters the Bank's defences in a case pending before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in...
In an effort not to stoke tensions any further, Japan's central government has declined authorization to the Tokyo Metropolitan Authorities to survey the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Japan's territorial tensions with South Korea hinder their bilateral free trade negotiations. The EU has called on Gambia to halt executions of death row inmates after Amnesty International reported that 9 were executed last Thursday, and all remaining inmates are scheduled...
Calls for Papers The Irish Yearbook of International Law has a call for papers for a special symposium issue regarding Climate Justice in International Law (Word document). Submission deadline is August 31, 2012. The University of Sydney is hosting a post-graduate conference on November 1-2, 2012 entitled Crossing Boundaries (Word document), open to post-grads in the Asia-Pacific region. Deadlines of abstract submission (no more...
With the start of the US academic year just around the corner, activity picked up here at Opinio Juris this week. There certainly wasn't a shortage of international law items to discuss...
I hope this statement by Assange's legal team is just seeking leverage for negotiations, because I think their claim would be blown out of the water by the ICJ. It would be an international embarrassment for Ecuador. Actually, it would be a further international embarrassment for Ecuador, which is already beginning to seem a little ridiculous in its involvement in this...
Libya has set a date for the trial of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, despite the calls for him to be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. More from Jurist can be found here. Israel claimed that South Africa is acting like an "apartheid state" with its new move to mark goods coming from the West Bank with made in...
South Africa recently decided that, in order to avoid consumer confusion, goods imported from the Occupied Palestinian Territories must include special labels that make clear they were not produced in Israel. Israel's outrage was predictable -- but its rhetoric was anything but: The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it would summon South Africa's ambassador to lodge a protest over the decision on...
As summer winds down, I'm beginning to look ahead to the coming semester in which I'll be teaching public international law after a couple of years' hiatus. As a result, I've spent the week, re-working my syllabus (and thanking Ecuador for giving me a wonderfully topical way to start off the class). Beyond current events, however, I've once again spent...
Egypt has requested a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Despite the claims put forth by Julian Assange, the US says it has no case against him for which he could potentially be extradited. In Guantanamo Bay, tropical storm Isaac has delayed hearings for five detainees charged in the 9/11 attacks. The head of the IAEA has said he is "not too...
