I hope this statement by Assange's legal team is just seeking leverage for negotiations, because I think their claim would be blown out of the water by the ICJ. It would be an international embarrassment for Ecuador. Actually, it would be a further international embarrassment for Ecuador, which is already beginning to seem a little ridiculous in its involvement in this...
South Africa recently decided that, in order to avoid consumer confusion, goods imported from the Occupied Palestinian Territories must include special labels that make clear they were not produced in Israel. Israel's outrage was predictable -- but its rhetoric was anything but: The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it would summon South Africa's ambassador to lodge a protest over the decision on...
Mark Klamberg, who is a lecturer in public international law at the University of Stockholm, has a detailed post on his personal blog about the likelihood -- or unlikelihood, to be more precise -- that Sweden would extradite Julian Assange to the United States. He has kindly given me permission to reprint a significant portion of it (I've made minor...
While I am at it, I might as well flog my most recent piece on China's relationship with international tribunals and international adjudication more generally. This study, which attempts to document all of China's treaties that include compulsory dispute resolution clauses (excepting bilateral investment treaties), concludes that China is unlikely to become a strong supporter and participant in mechanisms of...
President Obama emerged from his campaign bunker to face the press, and he issued what the NYT seems to think is a pretty serious military threat against Syria. “We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said in response to questions at an impromptu news conference at...
I've been trapped in an August blogging-slump. But I am roused to my keyboard by the surge of territorial disputes in Asia. China has aggressively asserted ever stronger and more expansive claims in the South China Sea, sparking dissension amongst the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and serious protests in Vietnam and the Philippine. China, Taiwan, and Japan are...
Fresh off the failure of the Arms Trade Treaty -- aka The UN's Secret Plan to Disarm the Defenders of Freedom and Enslave Mankind -- Google has released an amazing new tool that maps global flows of light weapons and ammunition. Here is how the Huffington Post describes the tool: The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), a Norwegian initiative focused on...
Call for Papers The African International Economic Law Network has issued a call for papers for its upcoming conference taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa, March 7-8, 2013: "Trade Governance: Integrating Africa into the World Economy Through International Economic Law." The call can be found here; anonymous abstracts of no more than 300 words are due by September 7, 2012. The International Review...
A friend of mine asked me that question the other day. Imagine that a non-state actor (NSA) had both a legislative branch that enacted criminal laws and a functioning criminal-justice system that prosecuted violations of those laws. Could the NSA challenge the admissibility of a case pending at the ICC on the ground that it was already investigating or prosecuting...
For the love of God, is it really too much to ask for reporters to do five minutes of research before they write about international law? See if you can spot the mistake in this article about Britain's silly threat to invade the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest Julian Assange: Ecuador has said it may appeal to the International Criminal Court (ICC)...
It's been a slow blogging week, so I think I can get away with a completely self-serving post about the awesomeness of Melbourne. And yes, Melbourne is awesome. The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Livability Survey says so -- again: 1. Melbourne 2. Vienna 3. Vancouver 4. Toronto 5. Calgary 5. Adelaide 7. Sydney 8. Helsinki 9. Perth 10. Auckland The survey assesses 140 cities on factors in five categories: stability, healthcare,...
As I noted last week, I have just finished a long chapter critically assessing the work of the Human Rights Council-created International Commission of Inquiry on Libya (COI). My basic conclusion is that although the COI generally did an excellent job, particularly in terms of its fact-finding methodology, it seems clear that it was less interested in holding the rebels...
