[Marko Milanovic is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Nottingham School of Law.] In their timely article Brilmayer and Tesfalidet address an important issue of general international law – when should states bear obligations to either put an end to or not contribute to violations of international law by other states, even when the obligation in question is...
[Chiara Giorgetti is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law Center and a member of the International Arbitration Group at the Washington, D.C. office of White & Case.] I am very pleased to join this discussion on Professor Lea Brilmayer and Isaias Yemane Tesfalidet’s upcoming article on third State obligations and the enforcement of international law. In their article, Brilmayer and Tesfalidet...
[Lea Brilmayer is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. Isaias Yemane Tesfalidet (LL.M. '10, J.S.D. Candidate, Yale Law School) is a fellow with the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law.] International legal theorists have always had substantial interest in what can be called the “first party” question -- whether States are themselves obliged...
This is the first project in a new partnership between the NYU Journal of International Law & Politics and Opinio Juris. This series of postings will feature reactions from leading scholars to our three forthcoming articles to be published in 44:1. The editorial board of the Journal would like to thank Opinio Juris and Professor Peggy McGuinness, as...
Durban, South Africa, December 8 - The one silver lining to the slow pace of the climate change negotiations is that it gives one plenty of time to attend "side events" to learn what is going on in the broader world of climate policy. In the past couple of days, I attended side events on innovative climate finance, the "partnership...
We are grateful to Justine Nolan for her thoughtful comments on the article, and in particular for highlighting two recent circuit court cases – Flomo v Firestone Natural Rubber Co in the Seventh Circuit and Doe VIII v Exxon Mobil Corporation in the DC Circuit – which affirm that corporations can be liable under the Alien Tort Statute (‘ATS’), contrary...
[Justine Nolan is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales] I am in concurrence with the timely article co-authored by Odette Murray, David Kinley and Chip Pitts in the Melbourne Journal of International Law and agree that the death of the Alien Torts Statute (‘ATS’) owes more to exaggerated rumours than legal substance. The article...
[Odette Murray is a Legal Officer at the Office of International Law, Attorney-General's Department, Australia. David Kinley is a Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Sydney. Chip Pitts is a lecturer in law at Stanford Law School. The views expressed in these posts are those of the authors, and not of the Attorney-General's department or the Australian Government] The decision...
(Update: On a more serious note, Stuart Benjamin at Volokh discusses whether Gingrich saying he would appoint Bolton as Secretary of State violated any law, as has been argued around the blogosphere; Benjamin says no law violated.) One of my Business Associations students asked me what a "black swan event" is - I think she read it in a Wall Street...
Yes, at least according to this account by Douglas Gillis in Foreign Policy, the ECCC has been nearly a complete and utter failure (and a waste of money). The main problem seems to be, according to the article, incompetent international judges (or at least one shady German judge). Obviously, the U.N. Secretariat, which was managing this tribunal, seems to have...
I'm so saddened to report that Professor David J Bederman has passed away at the age of 50 after a lengthy illness. Emory has a tribute to David here. I still vividly remember my first encounter with David's work when I was a new attorney in the Legal Adviser's Office and read his concise, witty and simply wonderfully written introductory text,...
Gideon Boas makes a number of valuable points in his comments on my article, not least of which is the fact that the evidentiary challenges I highlighted with respect to the Lubanga trial are not new. I particularly appreciate the experiences he recounts from his time at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (‘ICTY’), which, like its sister tribunal...
