In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

24 Oct

In his August 9, 2012 report, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, makes the claim that there is an emerging norm that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.  Mendez acknowledges that international law does not prohibit the death penalty, but notes it does encourage its elimination.  Specifically, his report states:  "there is an evolving standard whereby states...

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24 Oct

More than 50 rockets have been fired from the Gaza strip into South Israel,an Israeli officer was wounded in the exchange of fire, and one Palestinian was killed when Israel launched rockets back into Gaza. Senior Japanese and Chinese diplomats met last week to discuss the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. The US is finding itself at both ends of two new WTO disputes after the WTO Dispute Settlement...

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23 Oct

I've long wondered whether and when the American Law Institute (ALI) might try to update its 3rd Restatement on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.  Since its 1987 publication, the two-volume set, culled together under the leadership of Professor Lou Henkin, has had a tremendous impact.  It has been a frequent resource for U.S. courts and American international...

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23 Oct

Let's just say international law was not a fulcrum in last night's debate. It's not like the topic was being discriminated against -- many important topics were ignored.  (Among them the Eurozone crisis, climate change, cyberwar, NATO, anything much of Asia beyond China, Mexico or Canada.)  Bob Scheiffer asked a question about drones, which Romney answered by agreeing with the...

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23 Oct

Iran has said it may stop oil production if Western sanctions tighten. The United Kingdom will double the number of drones it has in Afghanistan for combat and surveillance missions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany could take part in assisting a European mission to Mali that would train troops to fight Islamist insurgents in the north of the country. Former US...

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22 Oct

With all the 50th anniversary retrospectives, seems like a good time to revisit Abram Chayes' foreign relations law classic, The Cuban Missile Crisis: International Crises and the Role of Law. Chayes was the State Department Legal Adviser in October 1962, on leave from Harvard Law School; though Chayes was a participant in deliberations around the crisis, the book wears its...

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22 Oct

I am delighted to announce that Oxford University Press has just published a paperback edition of my book, The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law.  The paperback is priced at a very reasonable £25 -- £45 cheaper than the hardback.  Here again is the description: This book provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of the twelve war...

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22 Oct

Violence erupted in Beirut after the funeral of the slain intelligence chief, raising fears that Lebanon will be unable to escape the tensions in Syria. Foreign Policy has more here. In Syria itself, violence continues, and Special Envoy Brahimi has once again called for a ceasefire over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha starting this Thursday. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has told the special envoy...

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20 Oct

This week on Opinio Juris, we hosted a book discussion on Informal International Lawmaking, a new volume edited by Joost Pauwelyn, Ramses Wessel and Jan Wouters, hot of the presses from OUP. In a post on the conceptual approaches adopted by the authors, Joost Pauwelyn explained what they mean by "informal" international lawmaking and what the book hopes to add to the debate on non-traditional forms...

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19 Oct

Earlier this week, Harold Koh gave a speech.  And it wasn't about conflicts, drones, or cyberwar, topics that have dominated the attention of international lawyers in recent years.  Rather, Koh's speech was a meditation on the processes of international law-making that confront the State Department on a daily basis.  It was, simply put, a survey of the current international legal landscape...

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19 Oct

We are happy to announce that this Monday Professor Kristen Boon of Seton Hall Law School will join Opinio Juris as our newest member. Kristen’s articles range across a variety of topics in international law and, in particular, she has become a respected scholar regarding questions of the responsibility of international organizations and of states. She also writes...

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19 Oct

Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, Rwanda and South Korea have been elected for a two year term as UN Security Council members. They will replace Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa from 1 January 2013. North Korea has threatened with violence if activists in South Korea release balloons with propaganda messages into North Korea next week. One day after a drone strike killed eight...

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