In case you haven't seen it, The High Commissioner for Human Rights' recent speech addressed to "populists, demagogues and political fantasists" is well worth reading. The speech can be viewed here, and a link to the video here. As Prince Zeid says: "The proposition of recovering a supposedly perfect past is fiction; its merchants are cheats. Clever cheats." ...
I have admired Mark Tushnet's work since I was a law student, so I was very disappointed to read his critique of the now-notorious letter the University of Chicago sent to first-year students about "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings." Here is the bit that got Tushnet so riled up: Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Nigeria would let Boko Haram choose a non-profit organization as an intermediary in any talks on the release of about 200 schoolgirls kidnapped from the northeastern village of Chibok in 2014, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Sunday. A landmine planted by Islamist group Boko Haram...
Buzzfeed's Chris Hamby is out today with the first installment of a promised four-part investigative report into the system of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Like all such reports, it needs a spectacular headline and summary to draw clicks, and this one's a doozy: The Court That Rules the World A parallel legal universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone...
Defense One points to a news story in the Baghdad Post that the Iraqi Security Forces may be preparing to deploy a ground-combat robot: Loosely dubbed Alrobot — Arabic for robot — it has four cameras, an automatic machine gun, and a launcher for Russian-made Katyusha rockets, and can be operated by laptop and radio link from a kilometer away, the...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has begun the trial of 215 members of an armed group accused of killing hundreds of civilians in and around Beni town in the country’s northeast. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and counterparts from eight...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa At least 64 people have been killed in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in an attack carried out by suspected rebels. Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has published a video apparently showing recent footage of dozens of school girls kidnapped two years ago, and...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The United States has recommended that the United Nations Security Council authorise a force of 4,000 peacekeepers for South Sudan's capital Juba after a recent outbreak of violence. A United Nations peacekeeper was killed and four others wounded on Sunday when their vehicle hit a mine...
We are looking for two Senior Teaching Fellows. Here is the advertisement: Salary: £34,336 - £40,448 per annum pro rata inclusive of London Allowance Fixed term, part time for two years from September 2016 SOAS, University of London is the world’s leading institution for the study of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East, offering programmes in arts, humanities, languages, law and social sciences. Inaugurated...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa United Nations children's agency UNICEF said it is continuing its aid work in northeastern Nigeria, a former stronghold of Islamist militant group Boko Haram, despite an attack on a humanitarian convoy earlier this week. Several people have been killed in an assault on a police...
I have been trying to move on from writing about the blockbuster UN Convention on the Law of the Sea arbitral award on the South China Sea. As our readers know, I have written way too much on this topic lately. But the Chinese government’s outrageous statements criticizing the award deserve one last post from me before I head out...
Are you a new PhD or about to finish your PhD? Do you focus on comparative constitutional law? If so, you will definitely want to apply for one of the two postdocs at Melbourne Law School that Adrienne Stone, now a Laureate Fellow, is offering: About the role Professor Adrienne Stone's Kathleen Fitzpatrick ARC Laureate Fellowship Program aims to address a problem...
