The Supreme Court this week let stand a U.S.Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision reinstating an Alien Tort Statute lawsuit alleging corporate complicity in the use of child slave labor in various African countries from which they purchased cocoa products. The high court left in place a December 2014 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...
The article is forthcoming in the Journal of International Criminal Justice. Here is the abstract: In March 2015, Simone Gbagbo, the former First Lady of Côte d’Ivoire, was convicted of various crimes in an Ivorian court and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Despite her conviction and sentence, however, the Appeals Chamber has held that her case is admissible before the ICC....
When a country is brought to arbitration under a treaty, it often challenges the jurisdiction of that arbitral tribunal in arguments before that tribunal. But in recent years, we've seen several examples of countries that have simply chosen to "boycott" or not participate in the arbitral hearings whatsoever. China adopted this approach in its ongoing United Nations Convention on the Law...
Announcements The Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen and PluriCourts (Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order) are hosting a high-level summer school for PhD students working on international courts in their social and political context. We particularly welcome students who are writing up a PhD thesis...
The Association of American Law Schools is hosting its 110th annual meeting, which starts today and goes through Sunday in New York City. The program is vast, but one item of note takes place Saturday, 9 January, from 10:30am-12:15pm at the New York Hilton Midtown, Gramercy West, Second Floor. At this event, Deborah will be moderating a panel discussion entitled: "National Security Challenges for...
Earlier today, a right-wing militia seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The group, which is led by Ammon Bundy -- the son of Cliven Bundy, who led an armed stand-off with federal agents in 2014 -- is demanding that the federal government release Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, two ranchers who are due to report to a...
Announcements New additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law: The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law website, which provides high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients around the world free of charge. The latest lectures include the Shabtai Rosenne Memorial Lecture...
Scientific American has published an article by John Wendle on how climate change has spurred the conflict in Syria. Wendle writes: Climatologists say Syria is a grim preview of what could be in store for the larger Middle East, the Mediterranean and other parts of the world. The drought, they maintain, was exacerbated by climate change. The Fertile Crescent—the birthplace of...
From CNN: For the first time in its 70-year history, the United Nations has officially recognized a Jewish holiday. U.N. employees who observe the Jewish faith will have the day off and no official meetings will take place on this date from now on, according to the Israeli mission to the organization. Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, considered the most important...
Although anything I post about Israel invariably elicits angry comments, nothing makes Israel's supposed "defenders" more angry than my posts -- see here and here -- about Breaking the Silence, the Israeli organisation that collects testimonies by IDF soldiers about their experiences in combat. I'm obviously not the only one who has noticed the anger toward the organisation; Haggai Mattar recently...
More than 40 senior judges and lawyers from all parts of the world have made an important contribution to efforts to hold judges accountable for involvement in human rights violations and judicial corruption, by participating in the sixth annual ICJ Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers. The Geneva Forum is organized annually by the ICJ's Centre for Independence of Judges &...
[Dr Nadia Bernaz is Senior Lecturer in Law and Dr Elvira Dominguez Redondo is Associate Professor of International Law, both at Middlesex University, London UK.] The 10th of December 2015, International Human Rights Day, was marked by the European Union General Court (EGC) quashing a free trade agreement between the European Union and Morocco, to the extent that it was to...
