I've received some very good (though pretty much all critical) comments to my original post defending the consistency of the recently enacted U.S. Space Act with the Outer Space Treaty. I will concede that my reading of the statute and treaty is not exactly a cut and dried simple legal issue. But I think too much of the reporting on the Space...
As I was researching a new essay on complementarity, I stumbled across a fantastic article in the Chinese Journal of International Law by Paidrag McAuliffe, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool School of Law. Here is the abstract of the article, which is entitled "From Watchdog to Workhorse: Explaining the Emergence of the ICC's Burden-sharing Policy as an Example of...
In my post on biological and chemical weapons yesterday, I rejected the idea that Art. 8(2)(b)(xviii) "squarely appl[ies]" (Ralf Trapp) or "plainly applies" (Alex Whiting) to chemical and biological weapons by arguing that the drafters of the Rome Statute intended Art. 8(2)(b)(xviii), the war crime of “[e]mploying asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases,” to have precisely the kind of "special meaning" that Art. 31(4) of...
Simon Lester of Worldtradelaw.net and the Cato Institute offered a very interesting pro-free trade argument against the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in trade agreements like the TransPacific Partnership or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. I disagree and we discussed and debated the issue today in a lively conversation hosted by Columbia University's Center for Sustainable Investment. ...
Over the past week, two posts at Just Security have argued that the ICC can prosecute the use of chemical and biological weapons as a war crime, even though they -- unlike other types of weapons -- are not mentioned in Article 8 of the Rome Statute. The first post was written by Ralf Trapp, who argued as follows: Furthermore, there are the...
U.S. commentary has largely celebrated the UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal’s award finding it has jurisdiction to consider the merits on many of the Philippines’ South China Sea related claims against China. Perhaps the most positive note is found in Jill Goldenziel’s essay at the Diplomat entitled, “International Law Is the Real Threat to China in the South China Sea.” But just by...
I'm in the middle of a week-long trip to Georgia, where I'm giving nine lectures in five days to the military and university students. (Thanks, Anna Dolidze, Deputy Minister of Defence and friend-of-OJ!) I'm talking about perfidy a couple of times, but most of the lectures -- not surprisingly -- are about the OTP's request to open a formal investigation...
It's been a rough week for China's South China Seas policy. In addition to facing a US Freedom of Navigation operation near one of its artificial islands, the arbitration tribunal formed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has decided that it has jurisdiction to proceed to the merits on the Philippines' legal challenge to certain...
Last week, the inestimable Chase Madar gave a fascinating talk at SOAS entitled "The Weaponisation of Human Rights." More than 100 people showed up, and I was privileged -- along with Heidi Matthews, a British Academy postdoc at SOAS -- to respond to Chase's comments. Here is Chase's description of the talk: Human rights, once a rallying cry to free prisoners of...
Last month, Ashley Deeks claimed that France appeared "to be prepared to invoke the 'unwilling or unable' concept in the Syria context." France did indeed attacks ISIS targets in Syria. And it reported those strikes to the Secretary-General of the UN, claiming self-defence under Art. 51 of the UN Charter as a rationale for violating Syria's sovereignty. But then something funny...
A few days ago, I pointed out that Kate Martin's "broad consensus that there is a right to use military force in self-defense when the host country is unable or unwilling to stop the attack" actually includes no more than four of the world's 194 states. That consensus is not exactly broad -- and it looks even shakier now that Russia...
States whose nationals died in the attack on MH17 were understandably upset when Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have created an ad hoc tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the attack. Their idea to create a treaty-based court, however, is simply not helpful: Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will meet with her counterparts from Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine on...
