In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

08 Nov

[Harold Hongju Koh is the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State.] Professor Duncan Hollis’ magisterial new book, The Oxford Guide to Treaties, collects an enormously useful amount of up-to-the-minute scholarship on myriad pressing questions of international treaty law. Its publication comes at a particularly opportune moment, as the International Law Commission’s (ILC’s) Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties was finalized by the...

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08 Nov

[David P. Stewart is a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center] Duncan Hollis deserves hearty congratulations on the publication of the Oxford Guide to Treaties.  There’s no doubt that it will quickly become the essential reference for lawyers and other treaty specialists in foreign ministries and international organizations everywhere, to say nothing of judges, professors and private practitioners. ...

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08 Nov

The Atlantic has a piece on the foreign policy priorities of Obama's second term. Shortly after Obama's re-election, the US has supported a call in the UNGA's Disarmament Committee to revive talks on an Arms Trade Treaty. Other reactions to Obama’s re-election: it may be the right time to reopen negotiations with Iran and it may spell trouble for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu. Puerto Rico...

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08 Nov

I'm extraordinarily pleased to be able to announce that today marks the start of the Opinio Juris symposium on my recently-edited volume, The Oxford Guide to Treaties (you can buy your copy here and there's even a discount for Opinio Juris readers!). The Oxford Guide provides a current and comprehensive guide to treaty law and practice. It does this in two parts.  First,...

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07 Nov

In a roundup of some of the big news coming out of the US elections, President Barack Obama was elected to serve a second term, the Republicans have kept control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats still control the Senate, Maine and Maryland have legalized same-sex marriage and Washington state and Colorado voted to legalize marijuana for all...

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06 Nov

This week, state delegates to the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the UN have been debating the most politically sensitive topic of the latest International Law Commission‘s (ILC) report: Head of State Immunity from criminal jurisdiction. The topic is sensitive for several reasons.   First, it raises the question of whether there should be exceptions to immunity for serious crimes.  In this regard...

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06 Nov

The United States heads to the polls today to choose a second term for President Obama or to put Mitt Romney in the Oval Office. It may be election day in the US, but Bloomberg has a profile of Xi Jinping, who will most likely be chosen to replace Chinese President Hu Jintao later this month. Amnesty has reported that Malawi's Justice minister has suspended...

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05 Nov

As everyone gets a little weary from the blizzard of last-week polls in the lead-up to the election itself, it's not surprising that pollsters have widened their scope to measure the preferences of non-Americans outside the United States. The result: overwhelming for Obama. (The only country in which Romney bests Obama is Pakistan.) Though perhaps not exactly rocket science, Joseph Stiglitz...

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05 Nov

European and Asian leaders are meeting in Laos for the biennial Asia-Europe meeting.  Violence between rival militias in Libya underscores the security challenges facing the new government. A grenade attack on a church in Kenya on Sunday is believed to have been the work of a Somali group protesting against Kenya's involvement in the UN-backed force in Somalia. A new cabinet has been formed in Somalia, includes the...

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04 Nov

Upcoming Events Next weekend, the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute is organizing a conference entitled "The International Criminal Court at 10". The program is available here, and you can register via this link. The SHARES Seminar: Principles of Shared Responsibility in International Law will take place in Amsterdam on February 7-8, 2013. There is limited room for inclusion of academic experts...

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