Participants from around the world failed to agree on a UN arms-trade treaty last Friday, eliciting disappointment from Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Foreign Policy has a post on Friday's decision of the US to back away from supporting the Arms Trade Treaty. The landmark intellectual property case between global leaders in smartphone technology, Apple and Samsung, is slated to begin. Apple is demanding...
This week on Opinio Juris, we shared what our Readers' Survey taught us about our readers, and we implemented a widely requested new feature: the Opinio Juris Job Board. You can access the Job Board here or via the link on the right-hand sidebar. If the survey has left you wanting to know more about Opinio Juris, check out Chris Borgen's recent TV interview...
According to research conducted by Jay Brown of theRacetotheBottom.org, blogs have been cited in "law reviews, journals, and other legal publications" more than 6300 times -- a nearly fourteen-fold increase since 2006. Here are the 10 most-cited faculty law blogs: 1. Volokh Conspiracy -- 742 cites 2. Balkinization -- 426 cites 3. Patently O -- 393 cites 4. Concurring Opinions -- 279 cites 5. Sentencing...
With opening ceremonies about to get underway in London, there's a discussion on Olympic nationality over at the NY Times Room for Debate with contributions from myself, Ayelet Shachar, Ian Ayres, and Jean-Loup Chappelet. Ayres and I agree that the current regime is unfair to both spectators and athletes by excluding would-be top competitors. Ayres would allow countries to grant...
The skies over Somalia have become so congested with drones that the UAVs pose a threat to air traffic and potentially to an arms-embargo. In a shift from the past, the Egyptian president, Mohamed Mursi, met with the leader of Hamas, Ismael Haniyeh. The Netherlands suspended $6.15 million in aid to Rwanda yesterday, following a similar move by the US a day...
Not likely it seems. The tragic shootings in Aurora, Colorado may be responsible for moving President Obama to talk about gun control as he did yesterday in New Orleans, despite a noticeable earlier reticence to engage that topic. But that speech was clearly aimed at a domestic audience, emphasizing a need for improved domestic regulations and responses to gun violence....
Mitt Romney is holding a fundraiser this evening in London. (Here's a nice scene-setter.) Almost quaint how he promises not to criticize Obama while abroad, in the tradition of politics stoppping at the water's edge (as if physical location still mattered in the context of completely transnationalized media). Three quick thoughts: 1. This kind of extraterritorial campaigning is becoming routine. Lots of...
The UN Security Council has lifted travel bans and asset freezes on 17 Liberians, including at least two of Charles Taylor's ex-wives. A special assembly met in Somalia to set up a new government. Using drones for surveillance and then shooting from helicopters, Turkey has killed 15 Kurdish rebels near its border with Iraq. EJIL: Talk! has more on the Belgium v. Senegal case,...
The International Olympic Committee will allow marathoner Guor Marial to compete as a man without a country. From the IOC's executive board summary of its decision in the case: Passport-less athlete approved to compete The EB also approved a request to allow marathon runner Guor Marial to compete in the London 2012 Games as an Independent Olympic Athlete (IOA) under the Olympic...
Ghana's President John Atta Mills has died, though details are unclear as to the cause of death. Foreign Policy has more here. Vice-President John Dramani Mahama has succeeded him, taking the oath of offices a few hours after the announcement of Mills' death. Fighting has intensified in Syria's Aleppo. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has joined the chorus of warning Syria against...
From the Guardian, an account that even an academic would have a hard time making up: Honduras may allow for extraterritorial appeals in some number of jurisdictions, amounting to "semi-independent city-states," established to improve investment appeal: The complex constitutional agreement under discussion involves Mauritius – an island 10,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean – guaranteeing the legal framework of the...
Our own Chris Borgen recently did an interview about Opinio Juris on a New York City Cable Show, Today's Verdict. You can watch it here. Chris talks about the origins of the blog, past successes and our more recent work (mostly for an audience unlikely to know much about international law). To top it all off, Chris looks great on...
