I am delighted to announce that Lt. Col. Chris Jenks -- currently the head of the International Law Branch at the U.S. Army JAG, an occasional contributor to Opinio Juris, and my very first PhD student (my colleague Gerry Simpson is his other supervisor) -- has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at SMU's Dedman School of Law. Chris will...
The Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) continues to prompt intense opposition from Americans overseas. In my post below, I suggested that some would simply take their citizenship underground, on the expectation of imperfect enforcement and the continuing value of holding a US passport -- becoming, in effect, secret Americans. Others are predicting that large numbers of Americans abroad will shed...
Last fall, I posted about possible governance effects of eurozone crisis on the EZ and, more broadly, the EU. I raised questions not as an expert on European institutions, law, or governance, but as someone with a long interest in governance and legitimacy questions for the international system. They elicited some very interesting responses, particularly from University of Connecticut’s Peter...
A certified English translation of the Lago Agrio Ecuador Appeals Court judgment, together with the original Spanish, was filed with the Second Circuit today and is available here. ...
Opinio Juris seeks candidates for the position of Assistant Editor. Responsibilities include monitoring international law developments, liaising with permanent contributors to organize special events, working with guest bloggers and partner publications on submission of posts and commentary, and other administrative duties. It is anticipated that the assistant editor will work ten to twenty hours a week. The...
I think there is little doubt where I stand on the merits of the Chevron litigation, so I am not going to get into the substance of the dispute here. But I have an honest question that I am hoping someone will answer. Let's assume, for sake of argument, that Chevron is correct to argue that the $18 billion judgment...
As Kevin noted yesterday, on January 3, 2012 an Ecuador Appeals Court affirmed the $18 billion judgment against Chevron in the long-running battle over environmental damage. (Available in English and the original Spanish here). According to an unofficial English translation of the sixteen page opinion, the Court dismissed all of Chevron’s arguments, including the allegations of fraud....
The US is one of the few countries in the world to tax nonresident citizens. But enforcement overseas has never been easy, or much of a priority. That is, until the authorities uncovered some big-time asset offshoring by resident citizens (yes, in Swiss bank accounts) for purposes of tax evasion. That resulted in legislation directed at foreign holdings of all US...
Great news -- an appeals court in Ecuador has upheld the $18 billion damages award imposed on Chevron for the damage caused by its deliberate dumping of more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste-water in the country, known as the "Rainforest Chernobyl": The lawsuit deals with pollution of the rainforest by energy company Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2001. Chevron...
We hope you never left, but in case you have not been keeping up with Opinio Juris over the holiday season, here is what you missed: 1. Two excellent blog posts setting the record straight about the NDAA, graciously provided to us by two experts on the subject, Marty Lederman and Steve Vladeck. You can find Part I here and Part...
This post will seem like an extended plug for my own work, so apologies. But I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the legal issues raised by Ruti's excellent post, the politics of which -- with one exception, noted below -- I completely share. First, Ruti asks whether Libya should be able to claim the right to try to Saif...
In the comments to my previous post, I described refusing to allow comments on a blog as an "act of cowardice." Ben Wittes, one of the contributors to Lawfare, a blog that does not allow comments as a matter of policy, doesn't appreciate the description: Anyone who wants to understand why Lawfare does not take comments need only take a brief...
