In the past fortnight on Opinio Juris, Kevin wasn't convinced by the Muslim Brotherhood's argument that can accept the ICC's jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis because it is still Egypt's legitimate government. He also discussed the OTP's motion to challenge Rule 134quater and the Trial Chamber's decision to conditionally excuse Ruto from continuously attending his trial in The Hague. Julian gave the US...
From the third paragraph of President Obama's implementation of surveillance reforms (Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-28). [O]ur signals intelligence activities must take into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside, and that all persons have legitimate privacy interests in the handling of their personal information. The primary operative provision of the...
The American Journal of International Law has posted electronic excerpts from its "Agora: Reflections on Kiobel", which will be published in its next issue. As a contributor to the AJIL Agora myself, I was fascinated to see the different takes that everyone had on the decision. For the most part, contributors seem to read Kiobel the same way: as sharply cutting...
Excited to see news of a new blog by former National Institute of Military Justice head Gene Fidell on military justice systems worldwide. Here's a description: Developments in the field of military justice have been coming at an extraordinary pace for the last several years, both in the United States and around the world. Some of these developments have been...
Last week at the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) annual conference I had the honor of speaking on a panel on UN Law Making, with Mahnoush Arsanjani, formerly of the UN Secretariat, Kimberly Prost, Ombudsperson for the Al Qaida sanctions regime, and Pablo Castillo-Diaz, of UN Women. A summary of the matters discussed by the panel is available here. Our...
Well, it's not exactly a secret treaty in the sense that yesterday, the news wires were abuzz about the fact that the United States, Iran and five other world powers concluded an agreement to implement Iran's earlier November deal on its nuclear program. But, what's being held back is the actual text of the deal. There's not many details (the...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Negotiators are still trying to reach a peace deal in South Sudan. Asia China has destroyed more than 6 tonnes of illegal ivory in a bit to discourage poaching. China and Japan have resorted to naming each other Voldemort in the latest discussion over PM Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni...
Put the words “Al Qaeda” in a news headline, and you inevitably conjure a very particular idea in the mind of the American reader. “Al Qaeda” is the group that attacked the United States on 9/11. The group led by Osama bin Laden (now led, some might recall, by his successor, Ayman Zawahiri). The group we’ve been at...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa South Sudan peace talks were scheduled to start on Sunday in Addis Ababa, but were delayed once again. Congolese troops staved off armed attacks in Kinshasa by armed followers of a religious leader who is critical of President Kabila over his decision to make peace with Tutsi rebels in...
If you've been away for the holidays, here is a summary of what we got up to at Opinio Juris over the break. Kevin posted Banksy's Christmas postcard, linked to his new essay on the legal recharacterization of facts at the ICC, and held another round in the Amnesty-Goodman-Heller debate on universal jurisdiction, and hoped the Muslim Brotherhood's legal team would explain the...
There’s never a boring year in international law and 2013 turned out to be particularly eventful: Syria, major cases in front of national and international courts, a possible nuclear deal with Iran, and turmoil in Eastern Europe, Egypt, and South Sudan, to name but a few reasons. This post is not an attempt to log all that we have written about...
I've been working hard this break teaching in Hofstra's winter program in Curacao. But I couldn't resist stepping away from the beach and posting on the India-US flap over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York. Dapo Akande at EJIL Talk! has two great posts on the consular and diplomatic immunity legal issues. I have nothing to add,...
