Though most of the outrage was manufactured and hypocritical, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) deserved criticism for her ill-expressed tweet about AIPAC. But she has more than redeemed herself with this exchange with Elliott Abrams, Trump's Special Envoy to Venezuela, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting yesterday. It is a delight to watch Elliott Abrams' face as he is asked --...
As I was doing some research into the invasion of Cambodia by South Vietnamese and US forces in 1970, I came across two official government accounts of the invasion -- one by the US, the other by Australia, one of the six countries that sent ground troops to Vietnam. They tell a rather different story...
[Alonso Illueca is a lawyer and adjunct Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Universidad del Istmo.] It is highly unlikely that someone would argue that, currently, Venezuela is not affected by a disaster, i.e. a series of events resulting in widespread loss of life, great human suffering and distress, mass displacement and large-scale material damage, which are thereby disrupting...
Amidst all the faux outrage over a Muslim Congresswoman's (admittedly problematic) tweet -- much of it coming from evangelicals who think all Jews will burn in Hell after the rapture and right-wingers who say nothing about blatantly anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros or Israel's support for the deeply anti-Semitic Prime Minister of Hungary -- here is your daily reminder of the...
[Ralph Janik teaches international law at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Law and Webster Private University Vienna. He specializes in the interplay of international law and international relations. Twitter: @RalphJanik] The crisis in Venezuela could enter a new phase. Juan Guaidó recently flirted with the idea of a US intervention on his behalf when he refrained from ruling out to...
[Carlos Arturo Villagrán Sandoval is a PhD Candidate at Melbourne Law School. His doctoral thesis considers Comparative Regional Integration with particular emphasis on Central-America. He is currently representing civil society actors in a constitutional injunction against the Presidential decision to denounce the CICIG treaty.] The CICIG is a pioneering international body, created between Guatemala and the UN, with broad reaching effects...
[Ralph Janik teaches international law at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Law and Webster Private University Vienna. He specializes in the interplay of international law and international relations.] Guaidó versus Maduro. Virtually every state has had something to say about the political stalemate in the once-third oldest democracy outside of the industrial world. We are once again witnessing a clash...
[Bashar H. Malkawi is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. He holds S.J.D in International Trade Law from American University, Washington College of Law and LL.M in International Trade Law from the University of Arizona.] China’s rising economic preeminence has been stunning, firmly ensconcing China as the second most powerful world economy replacing previously...
At Lawfire, my friend Charlie Dunlap has a long post arguing that the mission to kill Osama bin Laden was consistent with both the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello -- a response to a recent Stephen Carter op-ed that raises questions about the mission. I agree with much of what Charlie says, particularly about the jus in bello...
[Fernanda G. Nicola is a Professor of Law at the American University Washington College of Law, the Director of the Program on International Organizations, Law and Diplomacy, and Permanent Visiting Professor at iCourts, University of Copenhagen.] Europe is in turmoil, with European Union leaders struggling to respond to the political and economic fall out of the no-deal Brexit, the threat of...
As I've noted before, the jurisdictional regime at the ICC for aggression is exceedingly narrow. In essence, the Court will have jurisdiction over an act of aggression only in the following situation: 1. The aggressor is a member of the Court, has ratified the aggression amendments, and has not opted out of the Court's jurisdiction. 2. The victim is a member of...
[Nicolás Carrillo-Santarelli is a Colombian lawyer, PhD on international law and international relations. He works as a researcher and lecturer of Public International Law at the La Sabana University, Colombia. This is Part II of a two-part post. Part I can be found here.] The extradition debate Even though there has been a non-international armed conflict in Colombia, under domestic law members of...