This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Jens predicted that the Ebola crisis will become a Chapter VII issue at the UN. The theme of the UN and diseases continued in Kristen's update on a hearing on the UN’s Privileges and Immunities in the Haiti Cholera case. In other UN news, she summarized some of the issues discussed at a meeting on the Security Council's...
Everyone is ramping up for Monday's Supreme Court argument in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, with notable entries from Jack Goldsmith on Lawfare, Marty Lederman on Just Security, and Eugene Kontorovich on Volokh. They have been debating a narrow doctrinal basis (suggested by the SG and pressed by Jack) for striking down the law as a kind of passport regulation beyond Congress'...
Earlier this year, Chris Gevers blogged about the Zimbabwe Torture Docket case, in which the Constitutional Court of South Africa was asked to determine whether the South African Police Service (SAPS) is required to investigate allegations that high-ranking government and security officials in Zimbabwe committed acts of torture. Those acts took place solely in Zimbabwe and involved only Zimbabweans, so the key...
Paul Barrett gave a talk earlier this week at Temple on his Law of the Jungle. It's a terrific journalistic account of the epic 20-year battle over Chevron's pollution of Ecuador's rain forest. For anyone with a vague awareness of the case the book supplies a highly readable cheat-sheet. I suspect like many with incidental interests in international law, I had...
The UN Ombudsperson’s office currently has jurisdiction over the 1267 sanctions regime, but the discrepancy between the due process afforded to individuals affected by that regime as opposed to other regimes has long been noted: individuals listed under the various sanctions regimes applicable to situations in Africa, and the Weapons of Mass Destruction regimes applicable the situations in Iran and...
In observance of United Nations Day on October 24, China's foreign minister Wang Yi issued a long statement expressing China's view of itself as a "staunch defender and builder of international law" (Chinese version here). As China-watchers know, China's Communist Party has just completed its "Fourth Plenum" (sort of a Party leadership strategy meeting) on the theme of the promotion of...
Lawyers for the Lago Agrio plaintiffs have filed a communication with the ICC asking the OTP to investigate Chevron officials for alleged crimes against humanity in connection with the company's "rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador. Ecuador ratified the Rome Statute in 2002. Regular readers know my sympathies -- both ethical and legal -- lie squarely with the Lago Agrio plaintiffs. The only thing more...
An interesting and significant hearing on the UN’s Privileges and Immunities in the Haiti Cholera case took place on Thursday morning, October 23, in the Southern District of New York. For plaintiffs, the hearing was a milestone because it represented the first time that they have had the opportunity to argue any aspect of their case regarding the cholera epidemic...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed at least 17 people and abducted dozens in a series of attacks in the central region of Nigeria's northeast Borno State, the head of a local administration said on Sunday. Three UN peacekeepers were injured in northern Mali on Saturday when a...
Events ALMA and the Radzyner School of Law of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) invite you to the opening session of the Joint International Humanitarian Law Forum for the 2014-2015 Academic year. The session will be held on Wednesday, October 29, 2014, 18:30, in the meeting room of the Communication school (room C228, Arazi-Ofer Building, 3nd floor) at the IDC. In this session they...
While in DC last week for the ICC/Palestine event at George Mason -- I'll post a link to the video when it becomes available -- I had the pleasure of sitting down with Lawfare's Wells Bennet and Just Security's Steve Vladeck to discuss the oral argument at the DC Circuit on the al-Bahlul remand, which the three of us attended...
These days, I usually use Twitter to point readers to blog posts that deserve their attention. But Mark Kersten's new post at Justice in Conflict is so good -- and so important -- that I want to highlight it here. The post achieves the near-impossible, passionately indicting Canada's right-wing government for creating a political environment ripe for terrorism without in any way suggesting that...
