In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Featured

09 Jul

I truly enjoyed reading Monica Hakimi’s “Making Sense of Customary International Law” (CIL). It is an exceptional paper, where Monica elegantly brings the entire concept of CIL back to the drawing board. The argument, I believe, can only be properly understood if the reader takes a few steps back and accepts that international law is a construct built by the assembling and disassembling of different legal...

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08 Jul

[Jean d’Aspremont is the Chair in Public International Law at the University of Manchester.] That international lawyers constantly feel a need to revisit their doctrinal fundamentals is no sign that the international legal discipline is running out of steam (and out of inspiration). Even if international lawyers feel the world is crumbling in front of them and demanding urgent interventions, there...

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08 Jul

[Martin Scheinin is a Professor of International Law and Human Rights at European University Institute and a former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism.] Professor Monica Hakimi’s article ’Making sense of customary international law’ is both rewarding and thought-provoking. It fully merits this Symposium. She makes a convincing case that most if not all mainstream doctrinal writing on the topic has serious flaws. She rightly criticizes...

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07 Jul

[Jutta Brunnée is University Professor and Metcalf Chair in Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto.] With her provocative new article Making Sense of Customary Law, Monica Hakimi challenges doctrinalists as well as theorists of international law to engage in a sophisticated conversation about a classical problem: how do we know when customary international law (CIL) exists as “a general practice...

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07 Jul

Introduction Monica Hakimi’s new article, “Making Sense of Customary International Law,” is my favourite kind of scholarship: bold, critical, revisionist, tendentious. Too few scholars are brave enough to confront the sacred cows of public international law this forthrightly, and for that reason alone Hakimi deserves our thanks and praise. That said, I disagree with nearly every word in Hakimi’s article. An adequate response would require an article of its...

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06 Jul

[David Stewart is Professor from Practice; Co-Director, Global Law Scholars Program; Director, Center on Transnational Business and the Law at Georgetown Law.] As a general proposition, the law prizes clarity, precision and certainty.  Tolerance of ambiguity is not a virtue taught in most law school classrooms.  That’s one reason why beginning students of international law often find it difficult to grasp...

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06 Jul

[Monica Hakimi is the James V. Campbell Professor of Law at Michigan Law School.] I’m extremely grateful to Opinio Juris for hosting this symposium on my recent article on customary international law (CIL). And I’m honored by the fantastic group of contributors. In the article, I aim to dismantle a common conception of CIL—an idea that shapes how many international lawyers think...

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06 Jul

This week, we have the pleasure of hosting a robust discussion on Monica Hakimi's latest article, Making Sense of Customary International Law. Abstract: This Article addresses a longstanding puzzle about customary international law (CIL): How can it be, at once, so central to the practice of international law—routinely invoked and applied in a broad range of settings—and the source of...

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05 Jul

[Psymhe Wadud is Lecturer in Law, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP). She specializes in International and Comparative Law.] There have been informed claims that China’s internal suppression of information and bureaucratic as well as governmental policies exacerbated the novel coronavirus crisis and contributed to its transmission beyond Chinese borders, resulting in transboundary harm. There have been scholarly observations on the...

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03 Jul

[Rosemary Grey is a University of Sydney (Australia) Postdoctoral Fellow, based in the Sydney Law School & Sydney Centre for International Law. Valerie Oosterveld is a Professor at Western Law (Canada) and a member of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and Rebecca Orsini is a second-year law student at Western Law (Canada) and a graduate of the University of Toronto.] Part 1 of this post discussed...

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03 Jul

[Rosemary Grey is a University of Sydney (Australia) Postdoctoral Fellow, based in the Sydney Law School & Sydney Centre for International Law. Valerie Oosterveld is a Professor at Western Law (Canada) and a member of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and Rebecca Orsini is a second-year law student at Western Law (Canada) and a graduate of the University of Toronto.] Recent months have seen an important shift...

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03 Jul

[Danilo Ruggero Di Bella is a lawyer at Bottega Di Bella.] Upon overthrowing a dictatorship, the swift recovery of stolen assets hidden abroad by a dictator is a key concern for every newly established government. At times, a newly constituted government may rely on the voluntary cooperation of foreign state authorities in which stolen assets are located. In other instances, the newly established government may face difficulties...

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