Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

...this out because—with the exception of Richard’s kind and detailed approbation of the historical analysis—the commentaries in this symposium understandably engage less with the particulars of the history than with its doctrinal implications for contemporary interpretive practice. So here is a sketch of the case for those implications: First: Every mainstream understanding of treaty interpretation contemplates the use of travaux to resolve ambiguity that remains after the methods described in Article 31 are applied. We argue about the use of travaux in other circumstances. But no one seriously contests that...

[Alex Whiting is the Prosecution Coordinator at the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. The views expressed are his own.] This post is part of the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics Vol. 45, No. 1 symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. I commend Jenia on her thoughtful and balanced analysis of remedies at the ICC for prosecutorial mistakes or misconduct. It is a topic that should be of interest and concern to all actors within the Court,...

[Daniel Halberstam, Eric Stein Collegiate Professor of Law and Director, European Legal Studies Program, University of Michigan Law School. External Professor, College of Europe, Bruges] This post is part of the Leiden Journal of International Law Vol 25-2 symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Nico Krisch’s justly award-winning book thoughtfully elaborates on an approach to global governance that he sometimes calls “radical pluralism.” His basic point is that politics, not law governs the relationship among the different legal systems and regimes. Beyond...

...symposium reflects on the ECCC’s trials, tribulations, and legacy. In this post, Julie Bernath, Somaly Kum, Boravin Tann assess the ways in which victims have participated in the ECCC’s legal process.  [Somaly Kum is a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Humanitarian Law in Cambodia who, since 2010, has worked closely with survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime through outreach programs of the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice (Cambodia program) and ADHOC.  Boravin Tann is a researcher and lecturer at the Center for the...

[Gregory Shaffer is the Melvin C. Steen Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. Joel P. Trachtman is the Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.] This post is part of the Virginia Journal of International Law Symposium, Volume 52, Issues 1 and 2. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. We are grateful to Professor Cho for writing this Article (Beyond Rationality: A Sociological Construction of the World Trade Organization) as a...

[Efrat Arbel holds an SJD form Harvard Law School and is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law.] This post is part of the Harvard International Law Journal Volume 54(1) symposium. Other posts from this series can be found in the related posts below. Moria Paz’s article, “The Failed Promise of Language Rights: A Critique of the International Language Rights Regime,” is an important contribution to the literature on language rights. Paz advances a timely and insightful critique of judicial and scholarly treatments of language...

[Karin Mickelson is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of British Columbia] This post is part of the Leiden Journal of International Law Vol 25-2 symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. It seems a bit dull to kick off an online commentary with a resounding “I agree”, but that is precisely how I am tempted to respond to Mario Prost and Alejandra Torres Camprubi’s “Against Fairness? International Environmental Law, Disciplinary Bias and Pareto Justice.” When invited to comment, I assumed...

I commend Katerina Linos’ book to our readers and echo the many positive comments that others in this book symposium have shared. Her theory of bottom-up democratic diffusion of norms addresses many of the concerns that have been voiced regarding the democracy deficit that occurs when policy elites borrow from abroad. I want to push Katerina a bit on the question of actors involved in the diffusion process. She notes that “many academics, judges and commentators emphasize how references to foreign law reflect elite predilections antithetical to the views of...

[Mark Kersten is a researcher based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, the deputy director of the Wayamo Foundation and creator of the blog Justice in Conflict . This post is part of our Punishing Atrocities Symposium.] Understanding selectivity is something of a holy grail among scholars of observers of international criminal justice. If we could just grasp the reasoning behind why courts go after some people in some places some of the time, we would be able to explain the...

[ Jens David Ohlin is an Associate Professor of Law at Cornell Law School; he blogs at LieberCode .] This post is part of the Targeted Killings Book Symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. In his comments to my chapter “Targeting Co-Belligerents,” Craig Martin asks a very pertinent question: Is the US really in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda? Or, more abstractly, can a state ever be in an armed conflict with a non-state terrorist organization? Martin is correct to assume that...

...a preventative climate case against a corporate actor. Given the ubiquity of tort law, the international press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the New York Times inquired about possible ripple effects of the Shell judgement. A case analogous to the Shell case was filed in France against the oil and gas group Total. This case is of particular interest to this blog symposium since it relies on the first mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation, the French Duty of Vigilance Law, as well as...

[Gabor Rona is Visiting Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Armed Conflict Project at Cardozo Law School. This post is part of our Punishing Atrocities Symposium.] If like me, you have always believed that the arc of the universe does, indeed, to paraphrase the 19th Century Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker, bend toward international justice, this may be a good time to ask, “Really?” What with: the rising planetary tide of xenophobia and authoritarian rule, the seemingly increasing inability of an increasingly anachronistic UN Security Council...