Ilya Somin has a characteristically thoughtful post on the shortcomings of the U.N. system for promoting human rights and of international human rights law more generally, as seen in the recent hapless efforts of the U.N. Human Rights Council to protect Iranians from repression by their own government. The bottom line is that the main weaknesses of the international human rights...
Here is another persuasive account of why the U.S. is disadvantaged by not joining the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The case is fairly simple: There is a lot of oil and natural gas up there, and the U.S. can't negotiate with other countries to divvy it up until it signs on to UNCLOS. The 5.5 million-square-mile area...
The following is a guest post by Lt. Col. Chris Jenks, the Chief of the International Law Branch in the U.S. Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General. Lt. Col. Jenks is posting in his personal capacity. On March 8th, the Supreme Court "invited" the Solicitor General to file a brief in Carmichael v. Kellogg, Brown & Root...
In the long-running battle between Chevron and Ecuador over environmental damage, a federal court in New York has denied Ecuador's motion to stay arbitration of a Ecuador-U.S. BIT claim. In September 2009, Chevron filed a notice of arbitration alleging, among other things, that "Ecuador has breached ...
It is always unpleasant to get lectured by foreign governments about "violating international law", but this is something U.S. government officials should be used to. Still, it must be galling for the new U.S. administration to be lectured by Brazil's president over U.S. non-compliance with a WTO ruling on cotton subsidies. The United States must comply with a World Trade Organization...
Yesterday, the Japanese Government (now led by the Democratic Party after nearly five-plus decades of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party) confirmed that in the 1960s Japan and the United States entered into a series of secret defense pacts. Specifically, a committee of scholars has identified various tacit agreements allowing U.S. warships to carry nuclear weapons into Japanese ports, granting unrestricted use of...
I'm not exactly surprised to read this: United Nations human rights investigators called on the Obama administration on Tuesday to prosecute the accused September 11 masterminds in a civilian court, declaring that U.S. military tribunals would not be fair. The White House is reviewing options to bring the 9/11 detainees to justice and U.S. officials said on Friday senior administration officials may...
Given our past discussions about State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh on this list, I thought I'd pass along word of an upcoming event some might find of interest. My colleagues at the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security are hosting a breakfast discussion with Koh this coming Tuesday, March 16, from 8:00-9:00 a.m. ...
The always knowledgeable Marko Milanovic, responding to an earlier post of mine, reviewed the possibility of an international tribunal resolving the Falklands dispute here, and concludes that no court decision will happen because "...
As I have noted earlier, there is a pitched battle between victims of Pan Am 73 terrorist hijacking over the distribution of treaty funds secured by the United States for American victims in a 2008 diplomatic settlement with Libya. The treaty and Executive Order stipulate that the money shall be distributed solely for the benefit of United States nationals,...
Politico (linked here to Yahoo) carries a story today on a letter drafted by Benjamin Wittes and signed by a number of conservative and centrists lawyers, former Bush administration officials, and policy analysts on conservative attacks on the role of lawyers in terrorism cases - the so-called Al Qaeda 7 at the Justice Department. I'm one of the signers, but...
Our friends at the German Yearbook have asked us to post the following call for papers, and we are happy to oblige: The German Yearbook of International Law is Germany’s oldest yearbook in the field of public international law. The GYIL is published annually by the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel and contains contributions on...
