In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Regions

02 May

An Ontario court in Yaiguaje v. Chevron has dismissed the Ecuadorian plaintiffs' efforts to enforce the Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron Canada. Essentially the dismissal rests on the doctrine of the separate legal identities of parent and subsidiary corporations. Chevron has no assets in Canada, and the subsidiaries' assets there cannot be attached to enforce a judgment against the parent...

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01 May

I have no desire to get into an argument with Eugene Kontorovich about the ostensibly "landmark" decision of a French intermediate court -- especially because, like him, I am far from fluent in French and the decision strikes me as quite legally complicated. But it is important to push back against claims like these (emphasis mine): This is an extraordinarily important holding in...

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01 May

This report out of Prensa Latina in Havana suggests that the ICJ has expressed some sort of positive opinion on quality of Bolivia's case against Chile. In a press conference, [Bolivian Foreign Minister] Choquehuanca announced the International Court notified Chile on the start of the process and reasserted the Bolivian will of not affecting the bilateral relations with Chile. He also said the...

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30 Apr

I want to take a moment to spruik (if you don't know the word, look it up!) Jeffrey Kahn's new book, Mrs. Shipley's Ghost: The Right to Travel and Terrorist Watchlists, which has just been published by the University of Michigan Press. Here is the publisher's description: Today, when a single person can turn an airplane into a guided missile, no...

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29 Apr

Last week, the government of Bolivia filed an application in the International Court of Justice against Chile arguing that Chile has breached its "obligation to negotiate in good faith and effectively with Bolivia in order to reach an agreement granting Bolivia a fully sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean." Is it just me, or is this the weakest case ever filed at the...

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27 Apr

I cannot find the relevant document on the ICC website, but Kenya's CapitalFM is reporting that Judge Christine van den Wyngaert, sitting in the Trial Chamber, has withdrawn from the case against Uhuru Kenyatta because of concerns about the prosecution's behavior: In her opinion the prosecution failed to disclose to the Pre-Trial Chamber on the credibility of witness four and disclosing new...

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26 Apr

Professor Craig Allen of University of Washington alerts me to this excerpt from the press conference held yesterday at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  It is the first time, as far as I know, that a Chinese government spokesman has offered a detailed explanation of China's legal position in the Philippines arbitration.   It still doesn't fully make sense, or...

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26 Apr

This week 170 garment workers in Bangladesh died after the Rana Plaza building collapsed. A few months ago 112 garment workers in Bangladesh died after the Tazreen Fashions garment factory was destroyed by fire. Both tragedies were the result of inadequate fire and safety standards. These tragedies could not have come at a worst time for major...

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25 Apr

New evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons against insurgents have spurred new calls here in the U.S. for military action in Syria.  Here is the LA Times (hardly an interventionist paper): An American or multilateral response should of course be proportional to the offense. That means considering whether chemical weapons were used against civilians or militants, and whether a "whole...

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25 Apr

Yesterday, President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Shunji Yanai, announced the appointment of the final three members of the Annex VII UNCLOS tribunal. International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) President Shunji Yanai on April 24 transmitted a letter to Philippine Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, head of the Philippine legal team on the arbitration...

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