If you haven't seen it yet, the Elders Proposal for Strengthening the UN is a must read. Chaired by Kofi Annan, The Elders is an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights. Released earlier this month at a conference in Munich, the four proposals are generating a lot of attention include: 1) A new category of Security...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa A young girl with explosives strapped to her killed five people and wounded dozens at a security checkpoint outside a market in the northeast Nigerian town of Potiskum on Sunday, witnesses said. Boko Haram militants attacked an island on Niger's side of Lake Chad but the army repelled...
Here is the advertisement, which I hope will be of interest to Opinio Juris readers: 3 x full-time posts & 1 x part-time (0.5 fte) post Lecturer: £33,476-£48,088 p.a / pro rata inclusive of London Allowance Senior Lecturer: £49,462-£56,975 p.a / pro rata inclusive of London Allowance The SOAS School of Law invites applications for 3 full-time and 1 part-time (0.5) Lectureships/Senior Lectureships in Law...
This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Kevin recommended an article on China's proposed broad definition of terrorism, argued that there is no practice supporting the "unwilling or unable" test, and was surprised by the news that David Hicks' conviction for material support for terrorism has been voided. Julian questioned whether the Outer Space Treaty allows for private exploitation of the Moon's resources. Kristen advanced...
It's finally seeping into the mainstream consciousness that the U.S. tax system works very aggressively against citizens abroad, even those who are citizens in name only. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, is renouncing his U.S. citizenship after he had to pay a hefty IRS tab on capital gains on the sale of his London home. Johnson was born in the U.S....
On February 12, the UN Security Council unanimously passed an important new Chapter VII resolution – Resolution 2199 - to respond to terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. This resolution is significant for four reasons. First, the resolution specifically targets the supply of oil. In other words, it attempts to degrade the supply chain and the support networks. The preamble refers...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa A female suicide bomber has killed at least ten people at Damaturu Central Motor Park, a bus station in the northeast Nigerian city. Boko Haram fighters attacked a village in Chad on Friday, the first known lethal attack in that country by the Nigerian militant group, which killed several...
The White House has proposed a draft resolution authorizing the President to use military force against ISIL (also know as "ISIS" or simply the "Islamic State"). While it is laudable that the president is asking for specific congressional authorization for military strikes against ISIL, I remain troubled by several aspects of the proposal. First, the passage of the proposed resolution would replace the existing...
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit (and of the University of Tennessee Law School) has a short op-ed in USA Today celebrating the first official US government statement of support for the private exploitation of resources on the moon. As Reynolds describes it: Bigelow [a private US company] has decided that it wants to go to the moon, and — here's the real...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Boko Haram fighters waged twin attacks Sunday in Niger, their latest front in a widening regional insurgency, with a market bomb blast sowing panic. At least two people were killed when Somali militants al Shabaab attacked the house of a senior police official in the semi-autonomous region of...
This week on Opinio Juris, Kevin argued that the CIA and Mossad violated the Terrorist Bombing Convention in the 2008 bombing of Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief. Kevin also responded to Ryan Goodman's Just Security post on Serdar Mohammed. A second part of that response is still to come, but Kevin already flagged the ICRC's November 2014 Opinion Paper on detention in NIAC. Kevin also...
I am pleased to announce that a new ILA Study Group on sanctions has been formed. Larissa van den Herik and I will be working together, with the support of a group of sanctions scholars and practitioners, to address questions of individualization, formalization and interplay in multilateral sanctions. Here are the three aims of the group: To evaluate the individualization and...
