The New York Times has posted online the (possibly fraying) cease-fire agreement concerning the conflict in Georgia. At the time of its signing, President Sarkozy had said something to the effect that this is not a document for a lasting peace, but rather just to stop the shooting. Looking at the text, I can see why he wanted to make that clear. ...
According to Interfax, Russia is considering referring the situation in South Ossetia to the ICC. It quotes Russia's Prosecutor General, Yury Chaika, as saying that he "doesn't think setting up a special [international] court is necessary. Complaints and applications from our citizens which will be referred to the International Criminal Court would suffice." That's an interesting statement, given that Russia...
As events move, I fervently hope, to an end to fighting in Georgia, international law discussions of the war will inevitably return to perennial themes - the authority to use force, the role of the Security Council and the Charter, the rationales and precedents offered for and against each side's use of force, and so on. So let me introduce...
Those of us who teach International Business Transactions often face the pedagogically tough situation of having students whose knowledge of basic business and finance varies enormously, from those who were business undergraduates to those who were art history majors. In my case, my IBT class typically also has half to two thirds foreign LLM students whose undergraduate studies in law...
As the fighting winds down or escalates (depending on whom you believe), the legal battle that Ken discussed yesterday seems to be gearing up and getting more complex, with the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the European Court of Human Rights now all being mentioned in news stories. The AP is reporting the following: The Georgian security council...
Although the Modern Olympic Games have been held since 1896, it was only recently that professional athletes were permitted to participate in the Olympics. Until the late 1980s, in a futile effort to prevent professionalization of the Olympics, only “amateur” athletes were deemed eligible by the International Olympic Committee to compete in the Olympic Games. Since then, the international federation...
Military analyst at AEI Fred Kagan has offered a list of provocative possibilities for where the Georgian-Russian war goes next (HT Rich Lowry at NRO, here; I have not been able to find an original link but will amend this when one is available. Here it is - you can read Fred Kagan's updates at the Institute for the Study...
My thanks to Chris for posting on the Georgian conflict as it has unfolded. I've been watching, unsure what exactly to say about policy. I'm still unsure. I mean, it's easy to agree with both the Obama and McCain campaign reactions (I paraphrase) ...
This is a follow-up to my previous post concerning the legal issues of the conflict in Georgia with some more about the current military and diplomatic situations (and the resultant legal concerns). The fighting is moving beyond South Ossetia and into other parts of Georgia, such as the port city of Poti. According to the New York Times: Mr. Bush referred particularly to...
Russia's intervention in Georgia is the latest, and most obvious, example of the peculiar role that Russia plays in the various so-called frozen conflicts in former republics of the USSR. As international security expert Dov Lynch has put it, Russia can be thought of as a “mediator-cum-supporter-cum-combatant.” Why has Russia undertaken such a foreign policy in Georgia and what, if anything,...
The frozen conflict over the Georgian separatist region South Ossetia has become a shooting war. On the first day of the Olympics, no less. According to CNN: "All day today, they've been bombing Georgia from numerous warplanes and specifically targeting (the) civilian population, and we have scores of wounded and dead among (the) civilian population all around the country," President Mikhail...
I have had the distinct pleasure of spending my spring and summer as a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. SAIS offers a program of studies in international law and organizations (something only a handful of other public policy/political science graduate programs in the the U.S. can boast about), with a full range of courses in public international law and...
