In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Upcoming Events: September 2, 2012

02 Sep

Calls for Papers The Southern Illinois University Law Journal is seeking scholarly legal articles from newer legal scholars for possible inclusion in a special Symposium issue, Guantanamo Bay: What Next?, on legal issues arising from the continued detention and trial of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Full submissions (in Microsoft Word) should be in by November 19, 2012. The International Organizations Interest Group of the American Society of...

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31 Aug

A recent post at Mother Jones mentions my view of UBL's killing and provides Ken's brief thoughts on his death: Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at American University Washington School of Law, disagrees. "Being wounded does not necessarily render one hors de combat; hors de combat means they’re not actually posing a threat to you," Anderson says, citing moments where wounded...

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29 Aug

Of the 1500+ posts I've written for Opinio Juris over the past seven years, none angered my fellow progressives more than the post in which I claimed that the killing of Usama bin Laden was perfectly legal under international law.  Here is what I wrote: To begin with, I think the applicable legal regime is international humanitarian law (IHL), not international...

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29 Aug

It is a draft platform, but these parts of the 2012 GOP Platform are certainly interesting. It appears to have strong language in favor of "American Exceptionalism" and American sovereignty. Under our Constitution, treaties become the law of the land. So it is all the more important that the Congress -- the senate through its ratifying power and the House through...

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26 Aug

Calls for Papers The Irish Yearbook of International Law has a call for papers for a special symposium issue regarding Climate Justice in International Law (Word document). Submission deadline is August 31, 2012. The University of Sydney is hosting a post-graduate conference on November 1-2, 2012 entitled Crossing Boundaries (Word document), open to post-grads in the Asia-Pacific region. Deadlines of abstract submission (no more...

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24 Aug

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...

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24 Aug

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...

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22 Aug

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...

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21 Aug

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...

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20 Aug

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...

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20 Aug

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...

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