With the start of the US academic year just around the corner, activity picked up here at Opinio Juris this week. There certainly wasn't a shortage of international law items to discuss...
Libya has set a date for the trial of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, despite the calls for him to be tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. More from Jurist can be found here. Israel claimed that South Africa is acting like an "apartheid state" with its new move to mark goods coming from the West Bank with made in...
As summer winds down, I'm beginning to look ahead to the coming semester in which I'll be teaching public international law after a couple of years' hiatus. As a result, I've spent the week, re-working my syllabus (and thanking Ecuador for giving me a wonderfully topical way to start off the class). Beyond current events, however, I've once again spent...
Egypt has requested a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Despite the claims put forth by Julian Assange, the US says it has no case against him for which he could potentially be extradited. In Guantanamo Bay, tropical storm Isaac has delayed hearings for five detainees charged in the 9/11 attacks. The head of the IAEA has said he is "not too...
The IAEA has confirmed that it will engage in new talks with Iran on Friday. Iran has unveiled a new short-range missile and introduced plans to build a new missile-defense system in a show of readiness for any potential Israeli attack. Were a conflict to break out between Israel and Iran, it could cost Israel's economy upwards of $42 billion, according to...
I will refrain from adding too much to the increasingly ridiculous battle over Julian Assange's refuge at the Ecuador Embassy in the UK. Assange is acting like a paranoid lunatic and it is astonishing to me that so many folks who should know better instinctively side with an accused rapist whose main argument is that the Swedish (Swedish!) justice system...
As UN monitors left Syria, fighting progressed to suburbs of Damascus. US president Barack Obama has said that if Syria's government were to use chemical weapons, the US would be forced to act. German politicians have said that they will give no leeway to Greece regarding financial reform. Israel has positioned an Iron Dome, a rocket interceptor and destroyer, on the Egyptian border...
Julian Assange has thanked Ecuador's president Rafael Correa for the "courage he has shown" in granting him political asylum in his first public appearance from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. While Britain still denies Assange safe passage from London, Correa chastised the UK for their threats to storm the embassy to remove Assange, calling them "vulgar, inconsiderate and intolerable." He also...
News sites and blogs are full of condemnation for what appears to be an excessive sentence for the political protest/stunt pulled by the Russian punk band Pussy Riot in an Orthodox church earlier this year. (Even President Putin had hoped the group would not be judged "too harshly.") Over at the CLR Forum, my St. John's colleague Mark Movsesian, who...
The big news yesterday was that Ecuador granted WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, political asylum, angering Britain. Swedish and British authorities are critical of the decision, while UK authorities are refusing to grant Assange safe passage out of London. One of Assange's attorneys, Baltazar Garzon, has entertained the idea of taking this dispute between Ecuador and the UK to the International Court...
Militants have attacked Pakistan's nuclear air base which houses US F-16 fighters and about 100 nuclear warheads. The Organization on Islamic Co-operation has suspended Syria over the violent repression of the political protests, although there was no support for an external military intervention. A political and media advisor to Syria's Assad is visiting Beijing where she has praised China and Russia for not being colonizers. A UN Independent Commission...
In Syria, fresh clashes have broken out in Damascus and Aleppo, even though the defected Prime Minister Hijab has said the regime is close to collapse. Human Rights Watch reports that fighter planes have struck a hospital in Aleppo, while Reuters provides an exclusive about Libyan fighters joining the rebel forces. US Defense Secretary Panetta has accused Iran of supporting pro-Assad militias...
