With the start of the US academic year just around the corner, activity picked up here at Opinio Juris this week. There certainly wasn’t a shortage of international law items to discuss…

First, there is of course the diplomatic spat between the UK and Ecuador over Julian Assange’s extradition to Sweden. Once Kevin was done banging his head on the table after yet another news article confusing the ICJ and the ICC, he reposted Mark Klamberg’s discussion on the likelihood of Assange’s extradition from Sweden to the US. Julian argued that his notorious namesake has no right to safe passage out of the UK to take up diplomatic asylum in Ecuador, and assumed that Assange’s legal team must be bluffing with its threats of taking the case to the ICJ.

Then, there are the growing territorial tensions in Asia. Julian argued that Korea’s refusal to accept Japan’s invitation to have the ICJ settle their dispute over the Dokdo/Takeshima islands does not bode well for the future of international arbitration in Asia. He also posted about his recent article about China’s wariness towards international adjudication.

As always, Kevin kept us up to speed with the latest developments in international criminal law. He questioned why the UN’s Human Rights Council’s Commission for Inquiry on Libya did not investigate whether the rebels (Thuwar) committed the crime against humanity of persecution or even genocide against the Tawerghans. He also discussed why a non-state actor cannot – and should not be able to – challenge admissibility at the ICC.

Kevin also donned his advertiser hat; he plugged Sandy Sivakumaran’s book on the Law of Non-International Armed Conflict, welcomed Google’s tool visualizing small arms trade and gleefully announced that his current hometown, Melbourne, was voted the world’s most liveable city by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

In other posts, Kevin accused Israel’s Foreign Ministry of being tone-deaf for using apartheid rhetoric in response to South Africa’s decision that goods imported from the Occupied Palestinian Territories have to be labelled as such. Julian drew a parallel between the Bush Doctrine and Obama’s recent statement that the use of chemical or biological weapons in Syria could trigger a military response by the US and its allies. Peggy discussed the Pussy Riot sentence in Moscow, and Duncan published an update of his six essential international law cases for the classroom.

Finally, we also provided you with a list of upcoming events and weekday news wraps.

Have a nice weekend!

It may be summer break in the US, but in Australia the academic year is in full swing with Kevin keeping the spotlight on Libya. First, he linked to his new essay on SSRN, entitled “The International Commission of Inquiry on Libya: A Critical Analysis.”

Kevin also posted Saif Gaddafi’s unsigned statement about the fairness of his trial in Libya, discussed the OPCD’s response to Libya’s admissibility challenge and particularly the argument that Libya is unable to obtain custody of Saif. Kevin also questioned Libya’s integrity in its motion requesting more time to reply to OPCD’s response. Libya’s problem obtaining custody of Senussi, whom Mauretania wants to prosecute first, was the topic of another of Kevin’s posts. Last week Kevin added this swatch to his wishlist, but now that an image of it has been released, it may look more appropriate on his better half. As it turned out, Libya didn’t only make claims about a video pen and GPS swatch, but now also claims that the OPCD team was on a mission to assassinate their own client.

This concluded our week of Libya coverage. As always, we also provided you with weekday news wraps and a weekly listing of upcoming events.

We wish all our readers a great weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris we provided a forum to two guest posters, Gabor Rona and Michael W. Lewis, who continued their earlier conversation on targeted killing over at Lawfare. In his first post, Gabor asked whether the politicians and military leaders in charge of defining the criteria for targetability will take a more liberal attitude because their own risk is zero and argued that the concept of ‘co-belligerency’ cannot as easily be transposed from an international armed conflict to a non-international armed conflict. Michael Lewis disagreed that leaders are willing to take higher risks with civilian lives and argued that the application or IHL or HRL should not depend on whether a group focuses on military, or only on civilian targets. Since Michael had the final word over at Lawfare, Gabor was given the final word this time.

Ken Anderson marked the passing of Sir John Keegan and reminisced on his own interactions with him.

As you may remember, in June Kevin intensively covered Melinda Taylor’s detention in Libya. He followed up on this with a discussion of the OPCD’s response to Libya’s admissibility challenge which contains a detailed account of the facts leading up to, and during, her detention. He also added a swatch with hidden spy capacities to his wish list for his next 29th birthday. In another post, Kevin fine-tuned his earlier argument that an ICC case does not become admissible simply because the national investigation or prosecution does not live up to international standards of due process. The added nuance is that a case would be admissible if a state does not live up to its domestic standards of due process.

Kevin gleefully noted how the climate change denial camp lost a high profile member whose research funded by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation revealed results that the donors probably were not too thrilled about.

As always, we provided you with our daily news wraps and with a list of upcoming events. Junior Faculty Members may also be interested to read more about the Second Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law to take place at Nottingham in May 2013.

Thank you to our guest posters and have a nice weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris, we shared what our Readers’ Survey taught us about our readers, and we implemented a widely requested new feature: the Opinio Juris Job Board. You can access the Job Board here or via the link on the right-hand sidebar. If the survey has left you wanting to know more about Opinio Juris, check out Chris Borgen’s recent TV interview about the blog’s origins. Recent research has shown that we have become one of the top 10 cited blogs, as Kevin mentions here.

Peter Spiro posted about the possibility that Honduras may outsource certain appeals procedures to Mauritius, which could ultimately lead to cases with respect to Honduras being decided by the Privy Council, and raised three points about overseas voting and campaign finance in response to Mitt Romney’s visit to the UK.

Speaking of Mitt Romney, while he may have questioned whether London is ready for the Olympics, we here at Opinio Juris certainly are, with Peter paying attention to questions of the nationality of competitors. He posted about a decision by the IOC’s Executive Board allowing a marathon runner to compete as an Independent Olympic Athlete, and discussed whether there is a solution to avoid strategic nationality choices in the Olympics. You can find more about the latter, including Peter’s argument to remove the requirement that an athlete is a national of the country of the National Olympic Committee entering him or her, on NYTimes’ Room for Debate.

Kevin Jon Heller discussed a change in policy in the US towards Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame over military support to warlords in the DRC. He was also puzzled by a statement of the OTP that the ICC does not have jurisdiction because Rwanda is not a party even though the alleged aiding and abetting took place in the DRC, which is a party.

Duncan Hollis argued that the Aurora shootings are unlikely to change US positions during negotiations of the Arms Trade Treaty.

In a guest post, Solon Solomon wrote about the dynamic interpretation of the law of occupation. A second guest post, by Annie Gell, discussed the practical lessons to be learned from the recently concluded Taylor trial.

Finally, our list of upcoming events is here and the weekday news wrap is here.

Thank you to our guest posters for their contributions and have a nice weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris, Julian Ku discussed how the announcement by two US Senators of their position against ratification of the UNCLOS, has effectively sunk ratification for this year, and argued that the next administration should seek out bilateral agreements to protect commercial exploitation of the seabed on the high seas.

Deborah Pearlstein argued why the US, even if it is not at war with Yemen, is at war in Yemen, and discussed the legal consequences thereof.

Kevin Jon Heller gave four reasons why the ICC should not get involved in Mali and discussed the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber’s rejection of the Office of the Public Counsel for the Defence’s request that certain information in its response to Libya’s admissibility challenge be kept confidential to all other parties involved.

Roger Alford summarized empirical evidence on the question whether democracies are less corrupt than autocratic regimes.

We also had a guest post by Sari Bashi who welcomed the candor, although not the conclusions, of a recent Israeli committee report renouncing the existence of a state of occupation in the West Bank.

Our bloggers also wrote about interesting new material that has recently become available. Duncan Hollis, our resident connoisseur of databases and digests, posted about the release of the 2011 Digest of United States Practice and the wider availability of a database on bilateral civilian nuclear co-operation agreements. Duncan also welcomed Arms Control Law to the blogosphere.

Kevin Jon Heller drew your attention to a recent essay by David Frakt on direct participation by civilians in hostilities as a war crime, which led to further discussion between John C. Dehn and David Frakt in our comments.

Jessica Dorsey posted about the digital release of volume 88 of the US Naval War College’s International Law Studies’ Blue Book series.

Finally, we published a list of upcoming events and our daily news wraps.

Have a great weekend!

This week, Opinio Juris was a bit lighter on the blogging due to the Fourth of July holiday in the US, but we did feature a post from Peggy McGuinness that pointed out a discussion on the St. John’s Center for Law and Religion Forum around the question of whether American foreign policy is Christian, in a conversation Mark Movsesian had with Andrew Preston. Preston is the author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of the Faith, a book examining the role of faith in US foreign policy and military strategy.

Kevin Jon Heller kept us abreast of the sentencing of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo at the ICC this week, wherein Lubanga received 14 years (minus the six years he has already served while in the custody of the Court) for conscripting enlisting and using children under the age of 15 to directly participate in hostilities. Additionally, Kevin blogged about the implications of a story in the UK’s The Guardian wherein Professor James Crawford alleged that the EU may ban imports from the West Bank.

Kevin also blogged about the new PhD program in law at Yale University, the first of its kind (though there are other universities in the US offering interdisciplinary PhD programs coupled with legal or jurisprudential studies), which drew many insightful comments on the introduction of such a degree to the American system. And finally, Kevin compared the criticism about the operation of the ICC found in Eric Posner’s recent op-ed with the costs involved in the military commissions system in the United States. Both legal systems are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year.

The Opinio Juris readers’ survey closed at midnight on Friday, so to those who participated: a big Thank You Very Much! The results of the survey will certainly give us here at OJ helpful insight about what we might be able to do to make the site better for all of you.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

This week on Opinio Juris, we had Kevin Jon Heller weighing in on Melinda Taylor’s release in Libya and offering thoughts related to whether she should be prosecuted there. Additionally, Kevin Jon proposed a thought experiment regarding ICC-State cooperation in response to the Melinda Taylor situation and gave an analysis offering more evidence as to why Libya is unable to prosecute Saif al-Islam Gaddafi with regard to its admissability challenge to the ICC, which he urged the Pre-Trial Chamber to reject until Libya could demonstrate control over Saif. Finally, Heller pointed to a recent essay by Marjolein Cupido, recently appearing in the Criminal Law Forum regarding the rhetoric of the policy requirement for crimes against humanity.

Chris Borgen highlighted international law in literature, pointing to the Daredevil story arc and analyzing the rights to a fair and public hearing therein. Julian Ku posted about the Obama/Romney War on Terror, looking at each candidate’s standpoint on foreign policy in light of the upcoming election. Duncan Hollis offered some insights into July as Arms Trade Treaty Month, illustrating some issues related to developing such a treaty, while Kenneth Anderson summarized a letter sent by some 130 US lawmakers warning the Obama administration about an arms treaty before he posted about the negotiations process and the problems of consensus for a hegemonic player.  

We hosted a Symposium for the Leiden Journal of International Law’s Volume 25:2, wherein two discussions arising from the contents of the Volume took place. The first, involving Mario Prost and Alejandra Torres Camprubi’s Against Fairness? International Environmental Law, Disciplinary Bias and Pareto Justice, has a thought-provoking response from Karin Mickelson mostly agreeing with what the article had to say but also highlighting the understated problem of engagement with common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDRs) from the perspective of the global South. Additionally, Eric Posner offers insight into Prost and Camprubi’s claims in the article involving Posner’s book (written with David Weisbach–Climate Change Justice), and responds to them in kind before also critiquing a few substantive points within the article itself. Prost and Camprubi take the opportunity to respond to many of Posner’s points as well as addressing Mickelson’s issue with CBDRs.

The second discussion involved Nico Krisch’s book, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law. Tom de Boer reviews the book in the LJIL volume and Daniel Halberstam offers a commentary on the book as well as on De Boer’s review. Nico Krisch responds to the critique raised in De Boer’s review, specifically addressing its constitutionalist nature and internationalist outlook. Finally, Tom de Boer offers his reaction to both Krisch and Halberstam in his post analyzing how radical pluralism bites its own tail.

And another reminder: it’s still not too late to participate in our readers’ survey and enter the sweepstakes to win a $100 Amazon gift voucher.

Thank you very much to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris, Kevin Jon Heller continued coverage of the Melinda Taylor situation in Libya, pointing out a special report in the Guardian detailing her detention and that so far, the “non-apology apology” issued by the ICC has not helped the situation. In other ICC-related news, he pointed out John Bellinger’s editorial on the Court at 10 years old. Kevin additionally gave an informative look at how Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch do not, in fact, ignore labor rights, as Kathleen Geier might have us believe and pointed us to his playlist of the best anti-war songs ever.

Peter Spiro followed a couple of US Supreme Court stories looking at them from an international law perspective, including how the Court studiously avoided it entirely in the recent Miller v. Alabama case (striking down laws mandating juvenile offenders be sentenced to life without parole) and calling attention to Justice Scalia’s dissent in the SB 1070 case.

In other US news, Julian Ku pointed out that on the same day the Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Health Care Act, other employees in Washington were debating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea ratification during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing and highlighted a letter to the editor at in the Wall Street Journal that previewed China’s argument about the dispute involving the Scarborough Shoal/Huangyan Island. Additioanlly, Duncan Hollis put out an open sollicitation for novelists looking for advice on international law in response to Brad Thor’s new novel, Full Black.

This week, we hosted a Symposium for the Yale Journal of International Law’s Volume 37:2, wherein two articles from the issue were discussed at length. First, in Avoiding Adaptation Apartheid: Climate Change Adaptation and Human Rights Law, Margaux J. Hall and David C. Weiss discuss how international human rights law can inform and guide policy decisions regarding climate change adaptation. Hall and Weiss introduced their article with a post here and Bonnie Docherty and Tyler Giannini offer comments regarding climate change refugees, and specifically how human rights can affect the underlying principles of a climate change refugee instrument here.

Robin Kundis Craig discusses the inherent temporal complexities related to climate change as an example of how complex the human rights approach to climate change could be and discusses the role and burden of women and girls in adapting to climate change and J.B. Ruhr also adds to the discourse raising many questions regarding the issue of whether the international right to equity in climate change is substantial or procedural.  Siobhan McIneney-Lankford contributed thoughts regarding the value added of human rights law with respect to climate change and Hall and Weiss respond to the comments raised by the other posts here.

The second article of the Symposium is Permitting Pluralism: The Seal Products Dispute and Why the WTO Should Accept Trade Restrictions Justified by Noninstrumental Moral Values, wherein Robert Howse and Joanna Langille analyzed in how far countries can use animal welfare concerns and morals, generally, to justify restrictions on international trade under the law of the WTO. The authors begin by introducing their article here and as a first response, Simon Lester discusses the seal dispute as it related to the boundaries of international trade law.

Isabel Feichtner adds an analysis of the article focused on a critical look at TEFU and European regulations before Tamara Perisin pointed out a few subtleties about which she disagrees with the article’s authors and opens several questions for discussion regarding the aims, coherence and necessity of the EU’s seal product regulations. Howse and Langille respond to the comments on their article in a post here.

And last but not least, it’s not too late yet to participate in our readers’ survey and enter the sweepstakes to win a $100 Amazon gift voucher.

Thank you very much to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris, we continued last week’s discussion on the US debate on ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea with a follow-up post by Craig Allen, addressing the Convention’s extended continental shelf revenue sharing and its compulsory dispute settlement. John Noyes’ response to last week’s post by Steven Groves discussed why ratification would create more stability for US claims with respect to the extended continental shelf. He also responded to Jeremy Rabkin’s concerns about compulsory arbitration, but the latter didn’t find the precedents on compulsory arbitration reassuring.

Another symposium this week focused on Paul Schiff Berman’s book “Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders”. The symposium, introduced here by Peter Spiro, kicked off with a post by Paul Berman outlining the book’s argument. Jeff Dunoff criticized the book for paying insufficient attention to the issue of international regime interaction; Janet Levin offered suggestions of how the work could push beyond its own boundaries; and David Zaring applied Berman’s cosmopolitanism to international financial regulation. Peter Spiro offered two thoughts on community formation and the role of international law to test, and if necessary, limit community practices. Hari Osofsky commented that there are multiple visions possible of global scale and worried about inequality in legal orderings. Paul Berman’s closing post offered “three responses and a quibble”.

A stand-alone guest post by Jonathan Hafetz discussed how habeas reviews of Guantanamo detentions turn a blind eye to the length of the detention.

In our regular posts, Duncan Hollis discussed the parallels between the Enrica Lexie dispute between India and Italy and the seminal Lotus case; Roger Alford discussed how extraterritorial application of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act could jumpstart anti-corruption prosecution in other OECD countries, and Julian Ku posted about Germany v Greece in the Euro 2012.

Peter Spiro asked whether the pending Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s SB1070 will make any difference and whether Julian Assange will live out his days in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Peter also pointed to the plight of persons of South Sudanese descent residing in Sudan who have become stateless after South Sudan’s secession.

As always, Kevin Jon Heller kept us up-to-date with ICC news, discussing the ICC’s Appeals Chamber’s “farewell present” to Moreno-Ocampo. He continued to write about Melinda Taylor’s detention in Libya, criticizing Australian’s foreign minister’s radio interview on the issue as well as the reporting on the reasons for her detention in the Libya Times. He followed up with a Guardian article reporting that Melinda Taylor is being interrogated. Kevin also thought that the ICC was risking its credibility with its statement on Melinda Taylor’s detention. In a more technical post, Kevin explained his argument regarding article 89(2) Rome Statute and the obligation to surrender.

Deborah Pearlstein drew our attention to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s candid article about work-life balance for professional women. Since you’re probably reading this during the weekend, I will stop interfering with your work-life balance and just quickly point out that it’s not too late yet to participate in our readers’ survey and enter the sweepstakes to win a $100 Amazon gift voucher.

Thank you very much to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris, we launched our first Readers’ Survey. Your input is valued so we hope you will find a spare ten minutes to complete yours if you have not yet done so. If you want, you can enter your e-mail address in the draw to win a $100 Amazon gift voucher.

In our regular posts this week, Kevin Jon Heller asked about publishing etiquette when reviewing a journal essay that has already been published as a substantial blog post. Many readers offered their views in the comments. Kevin also discussed Moreno-Ocampo’s heated exchange with the Sudanese Ambassador at the UN and argued that diplomatic immunity should extend to lawyers with the ICC’s Office of Public Counsel for the Defence based on para. 5 of SC Res. 1970.

Deborah Pearlstein discussed two commentaries on the NY Times reports on targeted killings and argued that what is necessary to advance the debate is a stable definition of what it means to be at war, and Duncan Hollis discussed a debate addressing whether there should be an international treaty on cyberwarfare.

Julian Ku asked whether the equality guarantee under the ECHR requires the Church of England to perform same sex marriages and noted how Public Citizen’s objections to the negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement are similar to those traditionally made by right-wing sovereigntists. He also discussed a change in stance by the US government in the Kiobel case, as it now argues that the complaints lack a sufficient nexus to the US.

Two guest posts discussed the Charles Taylor sentencing judgment, published last week. Mark Drumbl remarked how the judgment reflected traditional international law by taking into account as aggravating factors the extra-territoriality of Taylor’s acts and his status as a head of state. Dov Jacobs focused on the limits of international criminal law in addressing mass atrocities.

Another focus this week was the debate in the US on accession to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Julian Ku discussed an op-ed by Donald Rumsfeld announcing his opposition. Julian then introduced the Opinio Juris discussion here. Favoring accession, Craig Allen criticized the argument that the US has nothing to gain from accession since the most of the Convention reflects customary international law; James Kraska argued that UNCLOS is a force multiplier for American power; and John Noyes defended the Convention’s regimes on fisheries, oil and gas, and seabed minerals, as promoting US interests. On the second day of our debate, introduced here by Julian, Jeremy Rabkin cautioned against accession because of the risk that compulsory arbitration might interpret treaty rules in ways contrary to US interests. Steven Groves partially agreed with the arguments in favor of accession but argued that the overall benefits are outweighed by the costs.

As always, we also had our two regular features: the overview of upcoming events and the weekday news wraps.

Many thanks to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris, we are happy to announce that the blog is now available on Kindle devices to our US readers. This new feature allows you to read the blog even when you are not wirelessly connected, and we hope that those of you who are often on the road will appreciate it. We of course welcome any feedback.

As always, you could rely on Kevin Jon Heller this week to keep you up-to-date with developments at the International Criminal Court. On Saturday, he was not convinced by the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision that article 95 of the ICC Statute applies to requests for surrender, and it was not only because they did not agree with him on this point. Later in the week, he was more positive about the OTP’s response to Libya’s challenge to the admissibility of the cases against Saif Gaddafi and Abdullah al-Senussi. Further on international criminal law issues, Marina Aksenova argued in a guest post why Charles Taylor’s sentence is adequate.

Kevin congratulated the Chief International Co-Prosecutor of the ECCC, Andrew Cayley, on taking silk in England, and the editors of a new book on International Prosecutors to which he contributed a chapter.

Other recent scholarship by our permanent bloggers includes Roger Alford’s recent article on the WTO Security exception, which although self-judging is rarely invoked in bad faith by WTO Members. Julian Ku’s book with John Yoo was discussed in a podcast with Martin Flaherty and at an American Enterprise Institute conference on the impact of globalization on US sovereignty of which Julian posted a video that also featured Opinio Juris’  Peter Spiro.

In other posts, Julian placed a bet that the EU would eventually give in to political pressure over its controversial decision to include international aviation in its Emission Trading Scheme, Ken Anderson discussed the alphabet soup of UN agencies and Duncan Hollis welcomed Cyber Dialogue to the blogosphere.

At the start of the week, we hosted a symposium on the new edited volume on Targeted Killings, introduced here by Jens David Ohlin. On Monday, Craig Martin and Jens discussed whether in the armed conflict paradigm jus ad bellum or jus in bello principles should govern the legality of targeted killings, and the related question whether an armed conflict with al-Qaeda exists. The distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, was also central to Richard Meyer’s comments on Tuesday of Col. Maxwell’s chapter on status-based targeting. John C. Dehn provided the response. On Wednesday, the discussion dealt with the distinction between the armed conflict paradigm versus the law enforcement paradigm. Andrew Altman commented on Fernando Tesón’s proposal to take a middle ground between the two paradigms to which Fernando Tesón responded here.

Continuing on the subject of targeted killings, John C. Dehn provided another guest post criticizing John Yoo’s statements that Obama is micro-managing the drone attacks.

Finally, as usual, we also brought you the weekday news wrap and a list of upcoming events and call for papers.

Thank you very much to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!

This week on Opinio Juris, Roger Alford marked Memorial Day with the Battle of Blenheim poem, and Deborah Pearlstein weighed in on the discussion about Chris Hayes’ controversial suggestion that the label of “hero” is too often used to refer to US service personnel.

Deborah also posted a snippet from the NY Times report on Obama’s “Kill List” in the conflict with al-Qaeda. A few days after the report was published, Julian Ku asked whether the mild fallout can be seen as a solidifying of the legal framework for the US War on Terrorism. Prompted by a second NY Times report, this one on Obama’s authorization of cyberattacks against Iranian nuclear facilities, Julian questioned whether the President has the constitutional authority to do so.

Julian also looked forward to the hearings on the US ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and posted a list of questions by Professor Craig Allen.

Kevin Jon Heller discussed the conviction in Pakistan of Dr. Afridi who ran a fake vaccination program to collect DNA evidence to assist the CIA in its search for the bin Laden family. Kevin suppressed snarky comments about Moreno-Ocampo’s new appointment as FIFA’s chief investigator into allegations of match-fixing and corruption. He was shocked to read that Yale University offered a course by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in which students could only take notes on a non-attribution basis, which led to a discussion whether the Chatham House Rule belongs in the classroom. Kevin also argued that the Special Court for Sierra Leone’s decision to sentence Charles Taylor to 50 years’ imprisonment is disproportionate, given that Taylor was not found guilty on the basis of ordering the crimes or of joint criminal enterprise.

Roger Alford updated us on the steps taken by the plaintiffs to enforce the Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron through the Ontario Superior Court in Canada. A guest post by Stephen A. Pitel discussed the relevant precedents in Ontario law.

This week we hosted a symposium on three articles from the latest issue of the Virginia Journal of International Law, introduced here. The first article was Andrew Woods’ Moral Judgments & International Crimes: The Disutility of Desert. Jonathan Barron commented how international criminal law is in transition from second-party to third-party punishment and Adil Haque questioned whether Andrew’s suggestions would make the international criminal law regime no longer a criminal regime or no longer a legal regime. Jens Ohlin debated Andrew’s assumption that international criminal law is fundamentally retributive and his application of social science insights about the power of moral sentiments to crowd out consequentialist calculations. Andrew’s response can be found here.

The second article, by Alvaro Santos, discussed how developing countries can carve out regulatory space in the WTO. Robert Howse’s comments described how NGOs are increasingly challenging the conventional wisdom on the limits on regulatory autonomy that is perpetuated by the lack of independent expertise and by uncritical journalists. Andrew Lang emphasized the need to make the WTO dispute settlement bodies more receptive to developing countries’ arguments. Alvaro’s response can be found here.

Jason Webb Yackee’s article on Investment Treaties and Investor Corruption: An Emerging Defense for Host States? was third in the symposium’s line-up. Andrea Bjorklund’s and Daniel Litwin’s criticized the article’s focus on the “supply side” of corruption and its disregard of the demand side of corruption within the state and his preference to deal with corruption as a jurisdictional issue. Jarrod Wong raised similar issues in his comments and questioned whether a defense had already crystallized in international law. Jason’s response is here.

Roger’s post on the three international law scholars in the list of “most-cited law reviews of all time” may inspire you in your own scholarship, in which case you may want to have a look at our listing of upcoming events.

Finally, if you want to catch up with this week’s news, our Weekday News Wraps can help you with that.

Thank you very much to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!