I am totally swamped with various overlapping projects right now, so let me procrastinate anyway by noting that Iran took my suggestion and sent a response to the "open letter" sent them from 47 US Senators yesterday. The letter actually shows why the President, and not the senators, is the one who is operating on the edge of constitutionality. In the...
Most of the US Senate's Republican membership has signed an open letter to Iran's leaders "informing" them about the nature of the U.S. constitutional system with respect to international agreements. It is actually a very accurate statement of US foreign relations law, even if it is a little strange and potentially intrusive into the President's foreign affairs power. It...
Events The Conference of the African Association of International Law will take place in Libreville, Gabon from 29 – 31 August 2015. Deadline for submissions of abstracts: 15 March 2015. The African Association of International Law (AAIL) is pleased to announce its 2015 conference entitled: International Economic Law and Development in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. The working languages of the Conference are English and French. Submissions are welcome...
Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times says that John Brennan has proposed a major reorganization of the CIA that will, to a large extent, break down the deep bureaucratic divide between agency analysts and clandestine operatives. Historically, analysts engage in research and, as their name suggests, intelligence analysis. Some of that was obscure and abstract--for example writing reports on the...
How does an international-law doctrine become conventional wisdom without actually having support in the practice of states? It starts with one article asserting the doctrine, but failing to defend it. Then another article makes the same claim, citing only the first article. And then another. And another. And so on -- until no one remembers that the first article did not...
Last September, Ghana commenced an arbitration under Annex VII of the UN Convention for the Law of Sea seeking judicial confirmation of its rights to explore for oil and other resources in maritime areas disputed by its neighbor Cote D'Ivoire. This past January, the two countries agreed to submit a dispute over maritime boundaries to a special chamber of the International Tribunal for...
Japan has been slowly moving to modify its domestic law, both constitutional and legislative, restricting the use of its military forces outside of Japan. In its latest political discussions, it is worth noting that Komeito, a partner to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has been insisting on the three "Kitagawa" principles as a basis for any new law governing the...
Events On Tuesday, 3 March, Opinio Juris' own Kevin Jon Heller will be giving a Supranational Criminal Law Lecture at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in The Hague entitled "What is an International Crime?" The event starts at 19:00 and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Calls for Papers The Board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development [TL&D] is pleased to invite original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the...
[Patryk I. Labuda is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Before joining the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, he worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan.] Although international criminal law is increasingly assimilated with the International Criminal Court (ICC), hybrid justice remains surprisingly common thirteen...
Events This Friday, February 27, from 12pm to 1pm ET, join the American Society of International Law New Professionals and International Criminal Law Interest Groups for a special online event featuring speakers from the international courts and tribunals in The Hague and other organizations engaged in international criminal law. "Getting Started in International Criminal Law" is part of the ASIL New...
Big news -- and news I wasn't expecting: A former prisoner at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from Australia on Wednesday won a legal challenge to his terrorism conviction before a military court. The U.S. Court of Military Commission Review struck down the March 2007 conviction of David Hicks in a unanimous ruling that reverses what had been one...
Lately, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the future of cyberspace and how to deal with the coordination and collective action problems that are leading to the normalization of cyber insecurity. As I've written previously, I'm skeptical that the standard legal regulatory move -- proscription -- will work at either the individual or the State level. Thus, I've...
