Der Spiegel has an excellent story on the possibility that a Eurozone country might default on its sovereign debt, with economic, political, and legal consequences that could be anything from serious to dire. The country is Greece: Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. The government has borrowed more than...
The Guardian has a leaked copy of what it's calling "the Danish text" (see it here). Apparently, this draft was developed by the Danes along with other developed countries including the United States and the United Kingdom in the hope that it might become the basis for whatever instrument emerges from Copenhagen. As widely expected, the instrument is framed as a "political agreement"...
The just-released CFR web publication "Public Opinion on Global Issues" offers one-stop shopping for those looking for public opinion surveys across a range of transnational policy issues. The overview explains how CFR and the Univ. of Maryland consolidated all publicly available opinion polls and provides a few significant findings: The international community confronts a daunting array of transnational threats and challenges...
My former colleague, current friend, and somewhat-regular OJ contributor Dan Bodansky has published The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law. Here is Harvard University Press's description of the book: International environmental law is often closer to home than we know, affecting the food we eat, the products we buy, and even the air we breathe. Drawing on more than two...
The Fifth Circuit earlier this month issued a highly unusual decision addressing whether state law could "reverse preempt" the New York Convention. As any student of international arbitration knows, state law occasionally attempts to limit the enforceability of arbitration agreements. Such a policy is preempted by the New York Convention as implemented by the Federal Arbitration Act. ...
[Daniel Bodansky, University of Georgia School of Law and OJ guest blogger, sends this second dispatch on the state of the Climate Change talks leading up to the Copenhagen Conference. Professor Bodansky will also be blogging from Copenhagen here at Opinio Juris in December.] This week, the chair of the negotiations and the executive secretary of the UN climate change...
[Daniel Bodansky, University of Georgia School of Law and OJ guest blogger, sends this dispatch on the state of the Climate Change talks leading up to the Copenhagen Conference. Professor Bodansky will also be blogging from Copenhagen here at Opinio Juris in December.] Barcelona, 4 November 2009 The UN climate change negotiations resumed on Monday in Barcelona, after only a three week...
Just when you thought the global financial crisis was subsiding, with returns to growth in most leading economies, including the US, Europe, China, etc., we have a counter-indicator. The Financial Times reports today that McDonald's is closing its three outlets in Iceland, citing the difficult economic environment: Iceland edged further towards the margins of the global economy on Monday whenMcDonald’s announced...
My colleague Trey Childress has a nice summary of the recent decision by a federal court in Florida in Osorio v. Dole Food Company to refuse to enforce a $97 million Nicaraguan judgment. Here's the key excerpt of the decision: “the evidence before the Court is that the judgment in this case did not arise out of proceedings that comported...
Following-up on my recent post on commercial space ventures, I note that Richard Bilder has a new article posted to SSRN: A Legal Regime for the Mining of Helium-3 on the Moon: U.S. Policy Options. I know that "helium-3" might sound like the name of some sci-fi show like "Deep Space 9," but it is really a great hope for...
Back in July, I had written a post about current issues in governmental space programs and I promised a follow-up on the private space industry. Well, that post never materialized. However, in lieu of that post I want to point to this post by author Brenda Cooper on Futurismic that has a quick and fun tour of the major U.S. players among the...
Assuming that the other Circuits follow suit, Roger is almost certainly right that the Second Circuit's recent decision in Talisman Energy "will be the death knell for most corporate liability claims under the Alien Tort Statute." That's regrettable in itself. What's particularly regrettable, though, is that the Second Circuit still has no idea what it's talking about when it comes...
