On November 7, 2016 I was privileged to organize a conference at the University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway on the topic of UK trade and Brexit. The conference had three sessions: (1) UK trade negotiations with the EU; (2) UK trade negotiations outside the EU; and (3) UK’s post-Brexit status within the WTO. The participants were all trade experts, including Lorand Bartels at Cambridge, Meredith Crowley at Cambridge, Piet Eeckhout at UCL, Jennifer Hillman at Georgetown, Rob Howse at NYU, Simon Lester of the CATO Institute, Sophie Robin-Olivier at Paris II Sorbonne, and yours truly.

Today I am linking to the first session that features Piet Eeckhout, Simon Lester, and Sophie Robin-Olivier. Piet Eeckhout focused on the High Court of Justice decision regarding Parliamentary oversight of the Prime Minister’s Article 50 withdrawal from the EU. Simon Lester focused on the possible meanings of the referendum and the likelihood of a “hard” or “soft” Brexit. Sophie Robin-Olivier focused on the linkage between the free movement of goods and persons, and the EU’s likely response to the UK’s attempts to decouple the issues. The discussion then addressed expert predictions of the likely result of UK trade negotiations with the EU. The consensus was that the EU has the stronger negotiating position and will not accept any free trade deal without free movement of persons. If the UK does not accept those terms, then the most likely result will be the UK trading with the EU under WTO rules.

UPDATE: Summary of Session Two on UK Trade negotiations outside the EU is available here.

Urbanization is our present and it is our future. Between the recently completed UN Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, and Iraqi Special Operations entering Mosul, starting what may be a complex urban battle, we face constant reminders that  much of the world’s population now lives in cities. How we protect rights, foster development, interact with the environment, organize politically, and fight wars is increasingly an urban story.

Consider the bleak picture of megacities and the future of combat in this leaked Pentagon video (at the link and also embedded above). Some key take-aways from the video:

• By 2030 60% of world’s population will be in cities. Most of the urban growth will be in the developing world.
• Illicit networks will fill the gaps left by overextended and undercapitalized governments.
• Growth will magnify the increasing economic separation between rich and poor, even thought they may be in close proximity. Uneven growth means that slums and shantytowns will rapidly expand alongside ever increasing levels of prosperity.
• Moreover, religious and ethnic tensions will be a defining element of these urban environments
• Megacities are complex systems where people and structures are compressed together in ways that defy both our understanding of city planning and military doctrines.
• Living habitats will extend from the high-rise to the ground level cottage to subterranean labyrinths, each defined by its own social code and rule of law.
• Social structures will also be stressed. Criminal networks will offer opportunity for the growing class of unemployed  and will be part of the nervous system of non-nation state, unaligned, individuals and organizations that live and work in the shadow of national rule.
• There will be increasing complexity of human targeting as proportionally smaller number of adversaries mix with an increasingly large population of citizens.
• The interactions of governmental failure, illicit economies,  economic growth and spreading poverty, informal networks, environmental degradation, and other factors leads to an environment of convergence hidden within the enormous scale and complexity of megacities, which become the source of adversaries and hybrid threats.
• Classic military strategy counsels either (a) avoiding the cities or establishing a cordon to wait out the adversary  or (b) draining the swamp of non-combatants and then engaging the adversary in high-intensity conflict. But megacities are too large to isolate or cordon in their entirety.  The U.S. military will need to operate within the urban environment and current counterinsurgency  doctrine is  inadequate to address the sheer scale of megacities
• “This is the world of our future. It is one we are not prepared to effectively operate within and it is unavoidable.”

According to FoxtrotAlpha, this video was produced for a course at the Joint Special Operations University on “Advanced Special Operations Combating Terrorism,” it is focused on urbanization from the perspective of military planning. A 2010 issue of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s journal was devoted to humanitarian law and conflict in built-up urban areas. The ICRC also had recommendations for the UN’s Habitat III conference that just ended.

The topics covered, though, are very much the province of law and lawyers, including the needs of the urban poor, the operations of criminal networks, environmental degradation and climate change, the law of armed conflict and targeting in built-up areas, informal rulemaking in communities (“order without law”), informal markets and economies,  and the role of non-state actors, to name only some of the topics that crop up. While this video is (understandably) focused on the implications on combat operations, what I also see is the need for sustained  engagement in the protection of human rights, the distribution of public goods, the fostering of inter-communal dispute resolution, and the spurring of bottom-up economic development in megacities.

The video emphasizes that the future is urban. But, as the writer William Gibson has said, “The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

As we face the first U.S. presidential debate tonight (on my home campus of Hofstra University!),  the possibility of a President Trump seems more and more real.  Although U.S. election analysts all make Hillary Clinton the favorite, most of them continue to give Trump a very realistic chance of winning on November 8.  I am not a Trump supporter, but I think it would be irresponsible not to think seriously about the legal policy consequences of his election to the presidency.  In particular, candidate Trump has promised or threatened to withdraw the U.S. from numerous international treaties and agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, NATO, the U.S.- Japan Mutual Defense Treaty, the Paris Climate Change Agreement, and the Iran Nuclear Deal (I am sure I am missing a few more).  Unlike our friends in Britain who weren’t really planning for Brexit, I think those of us here in the U.S. should start planning, before it happens, for “Trumpxit.”

As an initial matter, we should consider to what extent a President Trump could unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from international treaties and agreements.  I notice that most commentary, including this scary piece by Eric Posner in the NYT from this past spring, assume the President has this unilateral power. But I do not think this issue is not entirely settled as a matter of U.S. constitutional law.

In the 1979 decision Goldwater v. Carter, the U.S. Supreme Court dodged the question of whether a President could unilaterally terminate the U.S.-Republic of China (Taiwan) mutual defense treaty without consulting or getting the approval of the U.S. Senate by invoking the political question doctrine and (in a concurrence) the judicial ripeness doctrine.  No U.S. court has, as far as I am aware, reached the merits of this question.  I think scholars are somewhat divided, and historical practice is mixed.

President George W. Bush did set a precedent in favor of presidentialism, however, by withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 without getting the approval of the Senate and President Carter did likewise in the 1979 Taiwan defense treaty.    It seems likely that the president does have unilateral authority to withdraw the U.S. from treaties which specify terms for withdrawal and which don’t require further alterations or changes to domestic U.S. law.

Defense Treaties/Military Alliances

This suggests that a President Trump could terminate NATO and the US-Japan Defense Treaty pursuant to those treaties’ withdrawal provisions.  Interestingly, the NATO Treaty Article 13 specifies that “Any Party” can terminate their membership with one year’s notice.  That notice must be sent to the U.S. Government. So I guess a President Trump could give himself a one year’s notice?

Because the issue has not been settled by the U.S. Supreme Court, another Goldwater v. Carter type lawsuit could be brought.  It seems less likely that such a case would be dismissed on political question grounds given recent Supreme Court jurisprudence, but I think the smart money would be on a President Trump prevailing on the merits on a challenge to a presidential NATO or US-Japan Defense Treaty termination.

Nonbinding/Sole Executive Agreements

On the other end of the spectrum, I think there is no legal problem with a President Trump  unilaterally withdrawing from the Paris Agreement or the  JCPOA (aka the Iran Nuclear Deal).  As I have argued in the past (here and here), both agreements are likely to be “nonbinding” political agreements, and can be terminated at the new President’s sole discretion.   This would be true, even if the agreements were treated as binding international agreements, since both agreements have withdrawal provisions.  Since the Senate or Congress never approved either agreement, there is no need to ask them for approval to terminate it either.

Trade Agreements 

The hardest question here has to do with trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO.  Most commentary, including this paper by Gary Hufbauer, have assumed a President Trump could unilaterally terminate all trade agreements (see some dissenting views from Rob Howse here).  Unlike the Paris agreement or the JCPOA, these are unquestionably binding agreements that are approved by Congress.  But unlike a traditional arms control treaty like NATO, withdrawing from NAFTA or the WTO could require some meaningful changes to U.S. domestic law.  Moreover, unlike a traditional treaty, the President engages in trade agreement negotiations under the “trade promotion” authority enacted by Congress prior to the conclusion of any trade agreement.  In other words, the President could be understood to be negotiating pursuant to a delegated congressional power as opposed to under his inherent constitutional powers.

For instance, in the most recent version of the “fast track” enacted by Congress to allow President Obama to finalize the TPP, Section 103(b) states:

“[w]henever the President determines that one or more existing duties or other import restrictions of any foreign country or the United States are unduly burdening and restricting the foreign trade of the United States and that the purposes, policies, priorities, and objectives of this title will be promoted thereby, the President—

(A) may enter into trade agreements with foreign countries before— (i) July 1, 2018…

(Emphasis added).  This language means that there is at least a colorable argument in favor of requiring a President Trump to seek congressional approval before withdrawing from a trade agreement like NAFTA or the WTO.  To be sure, both trade agreements have specific withdrawal provisions similar to those found in the NATO treaty. But the fact that the president is acting pursuant to his congressional authorized “trade promotion authority” suggests that Congress did not necessarily delegate the power of termination to the President alone.

Moreover, the implementing legislation for some trade agreements further suggests Congress has reserved some residual “termination” power.  In Section 125 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, for instance, Congress may terminate U.S. participation in the WTO with a joint resolution of both Houses.  This does not necessarily mean the U.S. is automatically out, but since the President can’t (under the terms of the law) join the WTO until Congress approves, presumably withdrawing that approval terminates U.S. participation.  It is all somewhat uncertain, but again, I think there is colorable argument that a President Trump could not unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the WTO,  NAFTA and other trade agreements.

O O O

None of this may matter, of course, if we get a President Clinton instead.  But as the possibility of a President Trump gets closer to reality, we need to start thinking about the legal authority he would have to fulfill his campaign promises, and the limits (if any) on that authority,

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 else, helps executives convicted of crimes escape punishment.

The article itself is much more fair and thorough than this ridiculous headline teaser suggests.  It contains lots of original reporting on three ISDS cases involving Egypt, El Salvador, and Indonesia where Hamby says actual or threatened ISDS actions allowed corporate executives to escape criminal punishment.

I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of Hamby’s reporting on these cases. But I do have two initial somewhat critical reactions:

• ISDS does give foreign investors leverage with host nations like Egypt or El Salvador that they wouldn’t otherwise have.  But I think Hamby overstates the amount of leverage a real or threatened ISDS claim creates.  Foreign governments don’t immediately comply with all ISDS awards and collecting judgments against foreign sovereigns, even weak ones like Egypt or El Salvador, is no easy task given those states’ sovereign immunity legal defenses and the difficulty of seizing state-owned assets.  Moreover, research shows that ISDS shows that states win more often than investors do, or they at least prevail as often as investors do. (See Footnote 3 to this letter defending ISDS as well as this EU Commission report).  ISDS may have allowed some foreign investors to unjustly avoid liability for their actions, but it is hard to know (and Hamby’s article cannot prove) that such cases represent a majority, or even a meaningful percentage, of overall ISDS actions.
•  I don’t have a problem with Hamby reporting on these cases where it seems ISDS has been abused.  But I think it is important to keep the larger context of ISDS in mind.  What would be the impact of not having ISDS at all?  Would it make cross-border investment less common?  A lot less common?  Would the elimination of ISDS result in more corruption as foreign investors feel a need to pay protection money to host countries rather than resort to legal means?  Would the elimination of ISDS result in simply more cross-border investment among “rich” countries with well-developed domestic legal systems such as the US and Europe to the exclusion of “poor” countries with developing legal systems?  In other words, ISDS may be bad in many ways, and much abused (although I doubt the abuse is as common as Hamby intimates), but would eliminating ISDS be worse?

I am not an uncritical cheerleader for ISDS. I am doubtful, for instance, that ISDS adds much to the (now pretty much dead) proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US.  And I have questioned the constitutionality under US law of the ICSID Convention’s requirement of automatic enforcement of ISDS awards.   But I do feel ISDS critics should eventually have to answer the question: If not ISDS, then what? And will that non-ISDS future be better or worse? Hopefully, one of Hamby’s remaining three parts will address this important policy issue.

As regular readers know, although I’m opposed to academic BDS, I fully support its economic incarnation. Which is why I find stories like this both depressing and infuriating:

You want to know why so many people despise BDS? Because of childish, appalling actions like these — actions that make it all too easy to erase the necessary distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. I don’t watch the Olympics, in part because I don’t find them interesting (outside of a few sports like football), but mostly because I find the rampant jingoism sickening. But I would never hold the politics that pervert the Olympics against the individual athletes who compete in the games, all of whom — to a man and a woman — have dedicated their lives to sporting excellence. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for disrespecting an Olympic athlete simply because of the country he or she represents. None.

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine you did not view the Olympics solely through the prism of politics. Which country do you think more highly of now that the Olympics have ended? Egypt, whose judoka wouldn’t shake an Israeli judoka’s hand? Or New Zealand, whose 5000-metre runner gave up any shot at a medal to help an injured American runner who had initially helped her?

I don’t think what the Egyptian and Saudi athletes did is anti-Semitic. But I sure as hell think what they did was stupid — and profoundly damaging to the BDS cause. If these actions are a “new milestone” for BDS, as Mondoweiss claims, BDS is in serious trouble.

William Gibson, repurposing a Gertrude Stein quip, said about cyberspace “there’s no there, there” capturing the ethos of the internet as a place beyond the physical world of borders and jurisdiction.  Bitcoin melded cryptography and networked processing to attempt to make a currency that was not based in or controlled by any state.

But the internet is based on servers and fiber-optic cable and telecom switching stations that are firmly rooted in the physical world.  The cloud is made out of metal and plastic and glass. And as for Bitcoin, there increasingly is a there, there. And “there” is China. (For a quick background on Bitcoin, see this video, which explains how Bitcoin builds a payment system that replaces trust and personal allegiance with “mathematical confidence” or  this article.)

The New York Times reports how Chinese companies have come to dominate the production of Bitcoins:

In its early conception, Bitcoin was to exist beyond the control of any single government or country. It would be based everywhere and nowhere.

Yet despite the talk of a borderless currency, a handful of Chinese companies have effectively assumed majority control of the Bitcoin network. They have done so through canny investments and vast farms of computer servers dispersed around the country. The American delegation flew to Beijing because that was where much of the Bitcoin power was concentrated…

…But China’s clout is raising worries about Bitcoin’s independence and decentralization, which was supposed to give the technology freedom from the sort of government crackdowns and interventions that are commonplace in the Chinese financial world.

“The concentration in a single jurisdiction does not bode well,” said Emin Gun Sirer, a professor at Cornell and a Bitcoin researcher. “We need to pay attention to these things if we want decentralization to be a meaningful thing.”

What follows is a story considering the possible factors that contributed to Bitcoin’s popularity in China (including attempts to avoid government financial regulators and the popularity of online gambling) which, in turn, incentivized large investments in Bitcoin businesses, leading to the situation where “over 70 percent of the transactions on the Bitcoin network were going through just four Chinese companies…”

And, through it all, there is the question as to whether these and other Chinese companies even want to exercise leadership over Bitcoin at all. There is an interesting question of the psychology of power. The frame of the NY Times story is a meeting that took place in China between US and Chinese corporate leaders. The Americans flew to China because, as the Times put it, “that was where much of the Bitcoin power was concentrated.” They tried to persuade Chinese leadership to make certain changes to Bitcoin but were unable to do so. They also expressed frustration at the reluctance of the Chinese companies to exercise leadership in the industry. But then consider this description by one of the Chinese CEO of the same meeting:

“It was almost like imperialistic Westerners coming to China and telling us what to do… There has been a history on this. The Chinese people have long memories.”

Same room; completely different views of the dynamics of the meeting.

So, before we deploy too much post-modern, post-Westphalian, post-everything analysis to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or to the internet more generally, perhaps we need to  give jurisdiction, territory, memory, and psychology a second look. There is a there, there.

[Laurence R. Helfer is the Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law at Duke University and a permanent visiting professor at iCourts: Center of Excellence for International Courts at the University of Copenhagen.]

As the world reacts to the shock of the Brexit referendum, international lawyers are turning their attention to the mechanics of Britain’s departure from the EU.  Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – the clause governing withdrawal – is now front page news.  A state’s decision to leave any international organization raises thorny questions of law and politics.  As I explain below, Article 50 answers some of these questions for withdrawals from the EU, but leaves many others unresolved.

The basics of Article 50

EU law was originally silent as to whether a state could leave the Union, generating debate over whether there was an implied right to exit.  Article 50(1) settles this issue, providing that “any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.”

Under Article 50, the decision to quit the EU is not self-executing, nor does it have immediate effect.  Rather, the exiting country must first “notify the European Council of its intention” to leave, which triggers a process for negotiations over withdrawal.  The hope, set out in Article 50(2), is that the remaining EU members and the departing nation will “conclude an agreement … setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.”  That agreement must be approved by a “qualified majority” of the Council (20 of the 27 remaining EU members), by the European Parliament, and by the UK itself.

Article 50’s third paragraph specifies that the Lisbon Treaty (and, by implication, all other EU laws) “shall cease to apply” to the exiting state on the date the withdrawal agreement enters into force.  If no agreement is reached, EU membership ends “two years after the notification” of withdrawal – unless the Council and the UK unanimously agree to an extension.  Once the UK has officially departed, it can rejoin only by following the Lisbon Treaty procedures applicable to states seeking admission to the EU for the first time.

The least worst outcome – bargaining for an orderly withdrawal

By setting the ground rules for Britain’s withdrawal, Article 50 is already shaping talks between London and Brussels over the terms of the UK’s exit.  The effects can be roughly divided into three time periods:  the pre-notification period, the negotiations phase (what one reporter waggishly calls the UK’s departure lounge), and the post-exit relationship between the Britain and the EU.

Brexit supporters did not wake up to an EU-free Britain on the morning after the referendum.  The UK is still a fully-fledged member of the Union – and it will remain so if the British government does not formally notify the European Council of its intent to withdraw.  Article 50 says nothing about how, when or by whom such notification is to be made.  Presumably, notice would be given by the Prime Minster.  Before the vote, David Cameron stated that he would inform the European Council “straight away” after a “leave” vote.  But on Thursday he announced that notification would be given by his successor, who will take office by October 2016.

Why the change?  Having campaigned against Brexit and lost, it is not surprising that Cameron wants someone else to pull the trigger on the UK’s withdrawal and squelch any campaign to block withdrawal – a possibility raised by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.  But even fervent British sovereigntists would be advised to support some delay in notifying the Council.  So long as the UK has not fired the starting gun on the two-year exit clock, it has the upper hand in negotiations with the other 27 EU nations.  Britain keeps both the benefits and the burdens of EU membership while the terms of its departure are hammered out.  It can’t be forced to leave the Union (or can it? – see below) unless those terms are to its liking.

Once notice is given, however, the advantage shifts to the continent.  If Britain and its former EU partners do not reach a deal within 24 months – or unanimously agree to extend negotiations – the UK is out.  A divorce that is finalized while the spouses are still squabbling over custody of the children and the division of marital property is messy and painful.  The equivalent for a non-negotiated Brexit – the sudden re-imposition of barriers to free movement of capital, goods and labor – is an outcome that even diehard British nationalists should want to avoid.

How long can the UK defer notification?  Article 50 doesn’t say, but politics rather than law will almost certainly provide the answer.  Both pro-Brexit voters and EU leaders are unlikely to oppose a modest delay.  But the uncertain economic and political fallout of a protracted British withdrawal will push both sides to the bargaining table regardless of when the UK gives notice – unless the British public catches a bad case of “Regrexit.”

Contrary to what some have claimed, however, the exit negotiations need not conclusively resolve London’s status vis-à-vis Brussels.  Article 50(2) requires a withdrawal agreement that “tak[es] account of the framework for [the UK’s] future relationship with the Union.”  An deal that takes plausible steps toward defining that relationship should suffice, even if it is a modus vivendi whose principal aim is an orderly disengagement.  The details of the Britain’s post-withdrawal status can be finalized at a later date – although in the interim EU law will cease to apply to the UK.

Avoiding a rush to the Brexit

As described above, Article 50’s withdrawal rules, although incomplete, do a reasonably good job of channeling the parties toward a political settlement of the UK’s departure over the next several years.  But some in the pro-Brexit camp are calling for more precipitous action, including introducing an EU Law (Emergency Provisions) Bill in the current session of the British Parliament to revise the European Communities Act 1972.  The Bill aims to “immediately end the rogue European Court of Justice’s control over national security, allow the Government to remove EU citizens whose presence is not conducive to the public good (including terrorists and serious criminals), [and] end the growing use of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights to overrule UK law ….”

There is no doubt that Parliament has the power to adopt such a Bill.  But from an international perspective, the enactment would rightly be seen as a grave violation of EU law, which continues to bind the UK until an exit deal is finalized or, failing that, two years after a notification of withdrawal.  The Bill would surely trigger a raft of lawsuits, by the EU Commission and by private litigants, challenging its legality and seeking fines and damages.  How would British judges respond to such suits?  The Bill would force UK courts to choose between their duty to apply EU law over conflicting national law and their obligation to defer to Parliament.  The result, as Cambridge professor Kenneth Armstrong has warned, would be a constitutional conflict of the first order.

The Bill might also provoke the remaining EU members to try to force Britain out.  The EU has no expulsion clause; one was considered but ultimately left out of the Lisbon Treaty.  But as my coauthors and I explain in a recent working paper, it is unsettled whether international law recognizes an implied right to expel.  And European leaders could attempt to achieve the same result indirectly, treating the Bill as a material breach that authorizes a suspension or termination of the Lisbon Treaty vis-à-vis the UK.  In either case, the legality of any expulsion effort would almost certainly be challenged in court.

In all events, the far better course for all concerned is to avoid a precipitous unilateral break and instead to negotiate Britain’s orderly departure from the EU.

Well, Julian beat me to the punch by a few minutes, but here’s my take…

The Wall Street Journal reports:

U.S. officials appear poised to make history by approving the first private space mission to go beyond Earth’s orbit, according to people familiar with the details.

The government’s endorsement would eliminate the largest regulatory hurdle to plans by Moon Express, a relatively obscure space startup, to land a roughly 20-pound package of scientific hardware on the Moon sometime next year.

It also would provide the biggest federal boost yet for unmanned commercial space exploration and, potentially, the first in an array of for-profit ventures throughout the solar system.

Moon Express is a company looking towards extracting resources from the moon. They explain on their website:

Most of the elements that are rare on Earth are believed to have originated from space, and are largely on the surface of the Moon. Reaching for the Moon in a new paradigm of commercial economic endeavor is key to unlocking knowledge and resources that will help propel us into our future as a space faring species.

There are a variety of different business models for the growing commercial space industry. Some companies are focused on providing launch services for ferrying cargo and crew to orbit and beyond (SpaceX, United Launch Alliance), others have models based space “tourism” (Virgin Galactic), or providing the modular building blocks of space habitats (Bigelow Aerospace) or extracting resources from asteroids or the moon (Planetary Resources, Moon Express). It is this last business model, resource extraction,  that particularly challenges existing regulatory structures, the Outer Space Treaty and  the Moon Agreement.

The U.S. is not a party of the Moon Agreement. However, it is important to note that the Agreement states, in part:

Article 11

1.       The moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind, which finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement and in particular in paragraph 5 of this article.

2.       The moon is not subject to national appropriation by any claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

3.       Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof. The foregoing provisions are without prejudice to the international regime referred to in paragraph 5 of this article…

7.       The main purposes of the international regime to be established shall include:

           (a)    The orderly and safe development of the natural resources of the moon;

           (b)    The rational management of those resources;

           (c)    The expansion of opportunities in the use of those resources;

           (d)    An equitable sharing by all States Parties in the benefits derived from those resources, whereby the interests and needs of the developing countries, as well as the efforts of those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly to the exploration of the moon, shall be given special consideration.

[Emphases added.]

Julian and others discussed similar provision in the Outer Space Treaty in relation to asteroid mining in  these posts and  comments: 1, 2.

Based on this text,  some have argued that one cannot mine the Moon or asteroids for private profit.  Julian has set out in his posts an interpretation of the OST language that would allow private ventures.  Others, such as Richard Bilder, have concluded that the regulatory uncertainties regarding mining the Moon argues in favor of constructing a clear multilateral legal regime.

International law can play an important role in this burgeoning field. Rather than attempting to ban such mining enterprises, international law can provide a framework so that such ventures can have greater certainty and better assess risks, as well as have certain limits on their activities. A multilateral agreement can recognize the property rights of companies extracting resources, define where resources can and cannot be extracted, define a regime of noninterference among mining ventures (there are broader noninterference norms in the existing OST and Moon Agreement), and so on. Such an agreement would appreciate the opportunities of this new frontier of exploration and economic activity but also provide some reasonable bounds to avoid conflict, avoid the wasteful degradation of asteroids or the moon, and ban certain activities that could endanger the public. I am skeptical of any attempts, though, at large-scale wealth redistribution. That did not work in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (and needlessly hampered the acceptance of an important treaty)  and I see no reason why there would be a different outcome here.

This is why the U.S.’s taking a step forward to approve a private mission my a moon mining company has significant implications.  The Journal continues:

The expected decision, said the people familiar with the details, is expected to set important legal and diplomatic precedents for how Washington will ensure such nongovernmental projects comply with longstanding international space treaties. The principles are likely to apply to future spacecraft whose potential purposes range from mining asteroids to tracking space debris.

Approval of a formal launch license for the second half of 2017 is still months away…

But this is only the first of many steps that U.S. companies may be taking in private space exploration. Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX plans to send an uncrewed lander to Mars around 2018 and a crewed mission around 2026. If that timetable holds, and if states do not jumpstart their Mars programs then the first person on Mars will have been sent by a private company, not a national space program (The key word, of course, being “if.”) I believe the current NASA scenario is to land a crew sometimes in the mid 2030’s.

Although US companies are currently the main actors in these private space ventures, that will not always be the case.  These are early days, still. The “commercial space race” is still among toddlers. But those baby steps quickly become small steps. And then giant leaps.

To answer the question of the title of this post: should the U.S. approve this commercial moon mining venture? If it meets U.S. regulatory requirements and in the absence of clear international law to the contrary: Yes.

But it is also in the interest of American companies, and the US as a whole, to clarify multilateral regulations concerning the commercial exploitation of the Moon and other celestial bodies.  Now is the time to define some ground rules for everyone in the space race.

This is big.  Huge, even. From the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. officials appear poised to make history by approving the first private space mission to go beyond Earth’s orbit, according to people familiar with the details.

The government’s endorsement would eliminate the largest regulatory hurdle to plans by Moon Express, a relatively obscure space startup, to land a roughly 20-pound package of scientific hardware on the Moon sometime next year.

The main obstacles to this commercial moon mission are not technical or financial. The main problem appears to be legal.  First, the U.S. government must approve the launch (this appears to be happening soon).  Second, the U.S. and the world need to figure out how to regulate commercial exploitation of the moon, because companies like “Moon Express” are not in this for the science alone.  The Moon Treaty seems to prohibit any commercial exploitation of the Moon’s resources under Article 11 (“[N]atural resources of the moon… shall [not] become the property of any ..person”), but the U.S. never ratified it and neither did any of the other major spacefaring nations.

So we are left to the “Outer Space” treaty, which the U.S. did join, but which has much less emphatic limitations on commercial development of celestial resources (as I argued here and here).  I think it is safe to say commercial exploitation of the moon and asteroids is going to happen sooner than we think (starting next year?).  The law will have to catch up later.

The game in question — from which the screenshot is taken — is entitled Liyla and the Shadows of War. Here is how the gaming magazine Hardcore Gamer describes it:

Liyla and the Shadows of War is a short, dark game about exactly what the title implies. You play as a father running home through a war zone attempting to collect his family and get them to safety as the bombs fall and the drone strikes mow down anything that moves.

[snip]

At the start I navigated a few platforming sections, figured out how to avoid gunfire, made a couple of story choices, and even did a simple auto-run section where I had to control the jumping of two characters simultaneously. Of the 30-ish minutes of using the app, this was about 28 or so. The final two  minutes (and it might have been less, I wasn’t running a timer) were spent reading.

A game, right? Not if you’re Apple, apparently:

The gaming community is mocking Apple’s decision, and rightfully so. As Hardcore Gamer points out, “Liyla and the Shadow of War is a game. Having a serious message about a real-world conflict doesn’t make it any less so, and it’s insulting not just to the developers but to gaming in general to say otherwise.” Indeed, there is no way Apple actually believes that Liyla and the Shadow of War isn’t a game; it simply doesn’t want to host a game developed by a Palestinian that encourages thinking critically about Israel’s violence toward Palestinians. But rejecting the game on political grounds would itself be seen as political — correctly — so Apple comes up with a ridiculous pretext for rejecting it and hopes nobody notices.

I know what you’re thinking: doesn’t Apple has the right to avoid “political” games? Isn’t it smart business to stay out of the Israel/Palestine conflict?

Fair question. And in response I give you this:

Meet Israeli Heroes, an Angry Birds rip-off in which — according to Boing Boing — “you hurl cartoon missiles at vaguely Arabic-looking adversaries.” Currently available for free on iTunes.

So much for Apple’s political neutrality.

Liyla and the Shadow of War is still available for Android on Google Play. I haven’t tried it yet, but it has a 4.9 average from 333 reviews, so it’s obviously good. Check it out. Maybe you’ll have fun playing and learn something about life in Palestine in the process.

Which is precisely what Apple doesn’t want you to do.

Russia scored a huge victory today when the Hague District Court in the Netherlands court set aside a $50 billion arbitral award in favor of former shareholders of Yukos.  The $50 billion Yukos award (that’s BILLION, with a “B”),  is the largest arbitration award ever issued, was issued under the authority of the Energy Charter Treaty.  The arbitral tribunal (hosted at the Permanent Court of Arbitration) had found that the Russian government was liable for expropriating the former shareholders of Yukos through use of tax laws, harassment, criminal punishments, and other government measure without providing adequate compensation.

The Hague District Court set aside the award on jurisdictional grounds.  According to this English-language summary, the Dutch court held that Russia was not bound to arbitration under the Energy Charter Treaty because it never ratified the ECT.  The arbitral tribunal held in its interim award that Russia was bound under Article 45, which calls for provisional application of the treaty pending ratification.  But the Hague District Court disagreed.

Here is Article 45(1) and (2)(a):

(1) Each signatory agrees to apply this Treaty provisionally pending its entry into force for such signatory in accordance with Article 44, to the extent that such provisional application is not inconsistent with its constitution, laws or regulations.

(2) (a) Notwithstanding paragraph (1) any signatory may, when signing, deliver to the Depository a declaration that it is not able to accept provisional application. The obligation contained in paragraph (1) shall not apply to a signatory making such a declaration. Any such signatory may at any time withdraw that declaration by written notification to the Depository.

Russia did not make such an Article 45(2) declaration, but the Dutch Court held that Article 45(1) still acted as a jurisdictional bar on the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction because it requires the arbitral tribunal to go back and assess whether the dispute resolution provision (Article 26) of the Energy Charter treaty is “inconsistent” with Russia’s “constitution, laws or regulations.”  the Dutch court concluded that Russia’s constitution does not permit it to be bound to an arbitration assessing the legality of its tax laws without the consent of its legislature.

I don’t have a strong view on who is right here. I will note that Russia is represented by the well-known New York law firm Cleary Gottlieb (where I once toiled as a young summer associate) and that Russia mustered an impressively long list of international law experts on its behalf such as Martti Koskenniemi, Alain Pellet, and Gerhard Hafner (to list just a few).  The claimants had their own impressive list including James Crawford and my former Yale professor Michael Reisman.  This is a truly difficult treaty interpretation question, which just happens to have $50 billion riding on it.  So we can be sure there will be an appeal of the Hague District Court’s ruling.

It is worth noting that also that Russia has a lot riding on this case, but it also decided to litigate this matter fully even though it believes the tribunal has no jurisdiction.  This turns out to be a smart move, since they seem to have won (for now) and because not litigating would have still subjected them to lots of enforcement actions against them around the world. So litigation seems to have worked out for Russia this time. I wonder if that will encourage Russia  to try its hand at litigation in future cases as well?

Over the years a few of us have written issues concerning battlefield robots. (See, for example: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.)  Sometimes, we had links to remarkable videos of quadruped robots stomping through forests. Those robots and videos were made by Boston Dynamics, a company that started from an MIT research group.

Besides its designing quadruped robots, Boston Dynamics gained further renown when, in 2013, it was acquired by Google as part of that company’s broad push into robotics. Just last month, one of Boston Dynamics’ new videos wen viral; it highlighted its two-legged Atlas robot walking indoors, on snowy hillsides, lifting and stacking boxes, and being pushed by a human (and righting itself). Yesterday, Google announced that it was selling Boston Dynamics. Why? And what does this say about all the prognostications about the rise of the robots, either on the battlefield or in the workplace?

At its most basic level, the story here seems to be as much about the difficulties of post-acquisition integration of business cultures and goals as it is about robotics. An article in Bloomberg Business notes:

Executives at Google parent Alphabet Inc., absorbed with making sure all the various companies under its corporate umbrella have plans to generate real revenue, concluded that Boston Dynamics isn’t likely to produce a marketable product in the next few years and have put the unit up for sale, according to two people familiar with the company’s plans.

After Boston Dynamics’ 2013 acquisition, it was made part of Google’s broader robotics initiative, called Replicant. (Query whether naming the division after the murderous androids of Philip K.Dick’s dystopian classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which became the movie Blade Runner, was a good idea.) Bloomberg Business explains:

At the heart of Replicant’s trouble, said a person familiar with the group, was a reluctance by Boston Dynamics executives to work with Google’s other robot engineers in California and Tokyo and the unit’s failure to come up with products that could be released in the near term.

While the issue inside of Google was less about the technology of artificial intelligence (AI) than about the return on the investment (ROI) of the robotics company acquisitions, according to Bloomberg Business the Atlas video did cause concern among some of the public relations folks at Google over whether humanoid robots  would be perceived as taking jobs from real human. Plus, as one PR person put it, some people found the robot “terrifying.” (Yeah, that “Replicant” name-choice seems increasingly like a bad idea. At least they didn’t call the business unit the “Terminator Division.”)

Many  have spent time writing and talking about the legal issues related to the use of remotely controlled or autonomous battlefield robots. The immediate issues stemmed from the use aerial drones, of course, but on the horizon has been the possibility of robots being deployed in ground combat (as opposed to in bomb demolition, or other areas where remotely controlled units are already deployed). I am all for lawyers anticipating issues caused by technological change. But before we get there, there are a host of legal issues concerning the transactions that will support the R&D that will develop this technology. With the potential sale of Boston Dynamics to Toyota, it bears noting that the immediate legal issues may have to do more with international business transactions than international humanitarian law.