The ICJ has ruled against Nicaragua in the territorial and maritime dispute it had filed against Colombia, and rejected claims that Colombia violated international law. International pressure to reach a ceasefire after six days of conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip is building and there are signs that Israel is open to a diplomatic solution in which Egypt...
Just in time for the holidays, the American Bar Association and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism are releasing a volume of essays geared toward folks who work on or write about or teach national security and foreign policy, but need a primer on the relevant law. National Security Law in the News: A Guide for Journalists, Scholars, and Policymakers...
President Obama's visit to Burma/Mynamar has centered the status of the country's Muslim minority Rohingya community which has been denied Burmese citizenship notwithstanding their historical presence in the country. (The issue gets a lot more coverage in the Muslim world than in the West.) Obama's speech today welcomed recent steps by the Burmese government "to address the issues of injustice and...
Ban Ki-moon has called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Another Israeli air strike early on Monday morning has increased the death toll to 85 Palestinians and three Israelis. IntLawGrrls reports that James Stewart has been elected as the new ICC Deputy Prosecutor On Friday, the ICTY Appeals Chamber issued its judgment in Gotovina and Markac. Over at EJIL:Talk!, Marko Milanovic issues a...
This week on Opinio Juris, we finished last week's symposium on the Oxford Guide to Treaties, recently edited by our own Duncan Hollis. Peter Spiro discussed Kal Raustiala's chapter on NGOs and treaty-making, and argued that we should look beyond traditional treaties to understand the full scope of NGO participation in international lawmaking. A final set of posts discussed the increasing public...
[Dr Michelle Foster is an Associate Professor and Director of the International Refugee Law Research Programme in the Institute for International Law and the Humanities at the Melbourne Law School.] This post is part of the MJIL 13(1) Symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Both Professor Crock and Professor Kneebone, in their respective contributions,...
Israel has intensified its aerial bombardment on the Gaza strip, after shells targeted Tel Aviv for the first time in 20 years. CNN has a Q&A about the conflict. Syrian opposition leaders are in London to meet UK Foreign Secretary William Hague. The UK has summoned the Spanish Ambassador after Spanish naval vessels allegedly intruded in Gibraltar territorial waters. The UK Ambassador to...
Israel has hammered the Gaza Strip in a series of airstrikes, one of which has killed Hamas' military commander Ahmad Jabari. The United Nations Population Fund has declared contraception and family planning to be a human right having a positive effect on economic development. Unlike France, the United States has stopped short of recognizing Syria's opposition coalition. Nigerian lawmakers have passed a bill criminalizing same-sex marriage. The International Monetary Fund...
Everyone else has a piece of this reality show, so why not international law? It turns out that Jill Kelley (for those of you not keeping score, here's the roster) is the honorary consul of Korea in Tampa. She's now looking to use the status defensively. From USA Today: Jill Kelley, the socialite whose complaint to the FBI began the unraveling...
UN Development Program Chair, Helen Clark, has argued for a greater UN economic role. Preparations are underway to exhume Yasser Arafat's body for forensic analysis. France has become the first European country to recognize the Syrian opposition coalition as the sole representative of its people. Despite the EU's decision to suspend its ETS with respect to international aviation, the US House of Representatives has accepted a modified...
Argentina has opened a new front in its battle with Ghana over a local court order detaining its naval training ship ARA Libertad until Argentina posts a bond for payment on its defaulted sovereign debt. It is now threatening to sue Ghana in the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 13th, all the deadlines expire for...
The EU has stopped the clock on the inclusion of international aviation in its Emissions Trading System to allow recent developments in the ICAO negotiations on global aviation greenhouse gas emissions, mentioned in yesterday's news wrap, to run their course. Argentina is preparing to file a claim at the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in Hamburg to obtain the release of its vessel...
