In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

02 Feb

The D.C. Circuit on Friday ordered the government to provide detainees' lawyers and the court access to virtually all the information the government has on the detainees. The case attempts to balance the need for adequate information for federal court review of CSRT status determinations with the concerns about comprosing national security by providing sensitive documents to detainees' counsel,...

|
02 Feb

The latest law blogging trend — self-citation studies. Volokh, Concurring Opinions, Conglomerate, and Balkinization all seem to be moving us to a new status symbol for academic blogs: How many times have you been cited? Although most bloggers watch their sitemeter stats to get a sense of how the blog is doing, we all know that a...

|
02 Feb

If you do, the University of Auckland Faculty of Law is hiring. We're looking to fill two positions, one at the lecturer/senior lecturer level (the equivalent of assistant professor and associate professor with tenure) and one at the associate professor level (the equivalent of a full professor without a chair). We are primarily interested in academics who specialize...

|
01 Feb

This is an odd item on today's AP wires: A list of recent incidents of US diplomats who have gone off the administration talking points without permission. It includes UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad's appearance at Davos on the same stage as the Iranian Foreign Minister. I wonder, is there someone in the public affairs office at State...

|
31 Jan

Many thanks again to Monica Hakimi and Larry Helfer for commenting on my essay. I am grateful that they took the time to read and reflect upon it and to write such thoughtful comments for this symposium. Monica points to two potential dangers of competition in international adjudication: first, that competition “would result in more fragmentation and confusion in the law”;...

|
31 Jan

Thanks to Opinio Juris for inviting me to comment on Jacob Cogan’s interesting and thought-provoking paper, Competition and Control in International Adjudication. Jacob’s essay correctly recognizes that a system of controls is essential to the successful operation of the international legal system in general and international tribunals in particular. Controls are necessary, Jacob persuasively argues, because the states...

|
31 Jan

Jacob Cogan’s Competition and Control in International Adjudication provides a rich and thought-provoking analysis of the importance of, and options for, maintaining controls over international courts. Jacob argues that existing controls are relatively weak, and that we should encourage competition among courts to fill the gap. Competition, he asserts, will help constrain international judicial power and may lead...

|
31 Jan

My thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this online symposium, to the Virginia Journal of International Law for publishing my essay Competition and Control in International Adjudication, and especially to Monica Hakimi and Larry Helfer for commenting. The essay takes issue with the standard view among international law and international relations scholars that States have sufficient and effective tools to constrain...

|
30 Jan

Our friend and colleague Ken Anderson is hosting a timely and important conference at American University Washington College of Law this Friday: "Terrorists and Detainees: Do We Need a New National Security Court?" Ken and his co-sponsors at Brookings have put together a terrific line-up of speakers and commentators (including Opinio Juris alums John Bellinger and Bobby Chesney)....

|
30 Jan

The Widener Law Review has posted its symposium issue on global democracy, along with a narrated and nicely edited documentary version of the companion conference (perhaps this will be the next generation to archived webcasts - a highlights approach to facilitate later viewing. Sort of an academic version of those old NFL Films recaps of the early Super Bowls....

|
30 Jan

First, we thank Susan Franck again for her very insightful comments on our recent article, Investment Protection in Extraordinary Times: The Interpretation and Application of Non Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties. We are pleased that she agrees with us on many points and welcome the thought provoking comments she has offered. Our response focuses on the three issues...

|
30 Jan

The recent article by Burke-White and von Staden raises critical and timely issues about international economic law and treaty interpretation. The paper acknowledges challenges posed to the institutional legitimacy of investment treaty dispute resolution (which I have written about elsewhere) that are caused by different tribunals coming to different interpretations of the same or similar treaty provisions. It...

|