In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Trade & Economic Law

13 Nov

[caption id="attachment_5503" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Malé, Maldives"][/caption] This week's news out of the Maldives is the sort of story that makes international lawyers salivate. It has something for everyone, bringing together issues of democracy, transitional justice, climate change, the law of the sea, not to mention good, old-fashioned sovereignty.  On Tuesday, Mohamed Nasheed was sworn in as the archipelago's new President, ending...

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12 Nov

Julian has already written a cautionary note about expecting a new Bretton Woods out of the upcoming global economic summit.  I could not agree more, and note that the Washington Post agrees in an editorial yesterday - indeed, the Post takes Sarkozy to the proverbial woodshed for a whuppin': With the global economy in crisis, and his own tenure as temporary...

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10 Nov

As discussions of a(nother) bailout for Detroit automakers continue, one question that intrigues me is whether any Opinio Juris readers drive Detroit-made cars - i.e., cars made by the Big Three US automakers?  Please feel free to indicate in the comments. My wife and I own two Hondas, one of them a 1993 Honda Civic that we bought used from the...

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10 Nov

Two items of Sudan news to report.  First, the Sudanese government has lawyered up, hiring the prominent British firm Eversheds LLP to represent it at the ICC.  I wonder if that means Bashir is expecting the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue the arrest warrant; although Article 19 of the Rome Statute is not the picture of clarity, it seems to allow...

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09 Nov

Something that my international business law students often have trouble grasping is that the Chinese economy remains enormously dependent upon exports to the rest of the world and to the US in particular.  On account of so much attention, often in undergraduate political science classes and elsewhere, I suspect, to the "rise of China and India," my students, and perhaps...

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30 Oct

The OECD has released a very interesting new study of relative income distribution, poverty, inequality, and tax burdens and progressivity of the tax burden, comparing the OECD member states.  "Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries."   The study is sure to produce a number of discussions about the relative position of the US in relation to the OECD...

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30 Oct

Okay, now I'm confused.  The Republicans keep telling me that Obama is a socialist, a Marxist, and a communist all rolled into one tasty expropriation-minded morsel.  So why is The Economist, center-right at best, endorsing him for President?  Has the left infiltrated that august journal, as well?  Call in Michelle Bachmann! Read the endorsement here....

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29 Oct

Sure, some kind of important event will happen on November 4th involving the coronation of some guy named Barack, but international economic law geeks will have their eyes focused on a different date: November 15th.  On that day, G-20 industrial leaders will gather at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. to try to come up with a global response to the global financial...

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27 Oct

A couple of months ago, I blogged about the possibility that Blackwater would support the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Darfur.  That hasn't happened yet, but the company seems to have found another line of work -- fighting pirates off the coast of Somalia: Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms — some with a reputation for being quick on the...

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