Massimino is the head of Human Rights First, one of the leading human-rights organisations in the US. Here is a snippet from her editorial today in the Washington Post, with which I almost completely agree: As a close observer of the U.S. government’s national security policy, I know it is better for Koh’s involvement. That’s not to say that I agreed with all...
[Laurie Achtouk-Spivak is a member of the Bar in Paris and New York. She acts as counsel and advocate in investment treaty arbitrations before ICSID as well as other arbitration institutions. She teaches investor-State dispute settlement at the University of Poitiers. She also regularly publishes on investment treaty arbitration and is a member of the Peer Review Board of the...
Events The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva (IHEID), International Law Department will hold a conference entitled "International Law and Time" in Geneva, Switzerland, from 12-13 June 2015. Registration for the conference is now open. For more information please visit the conference website or email lawconference@graduateinstitute.ch. A one-day conference entitled The European Convention on Human Rights and General International Law is...
At least according to Fionnuala Ní Aolain, criticising the counter-petition that I and hundreds of others signed in defense of Harold Koh. Her entire Just Security post is deeply problematic; let's go through it systematically. When asked to sign, I articulated a deep discomfort with the petition and the precedent it sets. I strongly believe that any academic should be able (as...
[Natia Kalandarishvili-Mueller is a Lecturer in Humanitarian Law at Tbilisi State University, Institute of International Law, Faculty of Law, and a PhD Candidate at the University of Essex, School of Law. The views expressed in the post are that of the author only.] Russia still occupies twenty percent of Georgian territory. On 24 November 2014, the Russian Federation and Abkhazia, one of...
Calls for Papers Call for papers for ‘The Latin American Challenge to the Current System of Investor-State Dispute Settlement’ will analyze current developments and the proposed design of UNASUR’s investment dispute settlement centre, as an example of the Latin American ‘challenge’ to investment arbitration and place it within the wider context of reform of investor-state dispute settlement as evidenced elsewhere in the ...
I'm one of them. Here is the text of the letter: To Whom It May Concern, A recent petition at NYU urges people to express "no confidence" in the Law School's invitation to Harold Hongju Koh to teach international human rights law this semester. We understand that this petition is motivated by Professor Koh's recent service as Legal Adviser to the U.S....
Events On April 13-14, 2015, the University of Alabama School of Law will host a workshop and symposium event on the topic of the Rights of States in International Law. The event will be organized by Professor Dan Joyner. The participants will workshop their papers, which are to comprise a special issue of the Cambridge Journal of International & Comparative Law, which is being...
[Philip Allott is Emeritus Professor of International Public Law at the University of Cambridge.] Interpretation of any text – religious, political, historical, scientific, literary, artistic, legal – raises profound philosophical problems. Interpretation of a legal text is in a class of its own, because it can have direct and substantial social effects, determining people’s lives. The philosophy of legal interpretation is...
[Fuad Zarbiyev is an Associate in the International Arbitration Group of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP.] The interpretation discourse in modern international law is dominated by a textualist paradigm. This claim may seem empirically wrong if it is taken to mean that nothing other than eo nomine textual arguments features in the international legal discourse. After all, the interpretive regime...
[Julian Arato is an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School.] Interpretation in International Law is something of an iconoclastic volume, from its critical ethos to its provocative structure around the metaphor of the game. The object of its revisionism, above all, is an apparently stagnant formalism that seems too prevalent in the theory and practice of interpretation in international law today. Symbolic...
Newsweek published a long article today about a petition organized by NYU students, alumni, and non-law faculty claiming that it would be "unacceptable" for Harold Koh to teach international human-rights law at the law school. Here is a snippet: While working for the Obama administration, Koh was the most public legal defender of the president’s drone strike program. Last month, a...
