[Steven Groves is a Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow at The Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C.] Many thanks to Julian Ku for inviting me to participate in this UNCLOS debate on one of my favorite websites. There is much I agree with in the posts of Professors Kraska, Noyes, and Allen. Professor Kraska correctly emphasizes the victory achieved by U.S. negotiators at UNCLOS...
[Jeremy Rabkin is Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law.] I entirely accept what James Kraska says about the benefits of the navigation rules in UNCLOS. But when Kraska and others say these rules are favorable, they mean the UNCLOS rules – as American officials would interpret them. Unfortunately, UNCLOS doesn’t leave it up to American officials to interpret...
Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to restart peace talks next week. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has warned about the lack of resources in hunting down Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA. Foreign Policy outlines why the West shouldn't expect Russia to change its position on Syria any time soon. The UK has warned Argentina about acts of "aggression" regarding the...
OK, that is a little overdramatic. Still, the U.S. government has effectively switched sides in the upcoming Supreme Court case: Kiobel v Royal Dutch Shell. In the first incarnation of this case, the U.S. government had filed a brief supporting the petitioners and rejecting the lower court's holding that corporations cannot be sued under the Alien Tort Statute. But in a...
I wanted to thank Professors Allen, Kraska, and Noyes for their contributions to our discussion on US ratification of UNCLOS. I've learned a great deal from their posts and I hope our readers have as well. I wanted to remind our readers, however, that we will hear from two leading scholars tomorrow -- Jeremy Rabkin and Steven Groves -- who...
[John E. Noyes is the Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law at California Western School of Law.] The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is currently holding hearings on U.S. acceptance of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, as modified by the 1994 Part XI Implementation Agreement (the “LOS Convention”). The Committee favorably reported the LOS Convention in 2004...
[Dr. James Kraska, Commander, U.S. Navy, is the Howard S. Levie Chair of Operational Law at the U.S. Naval War College]. Thanks for the opportunity to talk a bit about the major national security and strategic interests of the United States in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is also a pleasure to exchange thoughts on the...
[Craig H. Allen is the Judson Falknor Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle.] I would like to begin by thanking Opinio Juris for hosting this timely and important debate on the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) and Julian Ku in particular for inviting me to participate. My small contribution begins with two...
From the first class I ever took on international law, I've heard (mostly negative) references to the U.S. refusal to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. I've heard again and again throughout my studies about how the U.S. was shirking its global responsibilities as well as how the U.S. was hurting its own national interests by...
The Falkland Islands are set to hold a referendum about sovereignty. IntLawGrrls points to interesting issues arising around citizenship and globalization. The ICC Prosecutor seeks a 30-year sentence for Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, convicted of conscripting child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In other ICC news, a team from the Court has visited the four detained staff members in Libya, accused...
Public Citizen, an anti-free trade group based here in the U.S., sent around an email detailing its objections to a leaked draft text of the ongoing TransPacific Partnership negotiations, which would create a massive Pacific free-trade zone. Its main complaint is not actually to the free-trade portion of the agreement, but to the proposals for a robust investor-state dispute resolution...
That's the question being asked this past week over at US News & World Report's Debate Club. To answer it, US News assembled 7 experts who, with the exception of Bruce Schneier, replied in some form of the negative (see e.g. the responses of Herb Lin (no, or not yet), James Lewis (it's not workable) Sean Lawson (it would be...
