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Search: Syria Insta-Symposium

16 Sep

[Jure Vidmar is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Law and Research Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. Some arguments made in this post are further elaborated on in this article.] The Treaty on European Union (TEU) now gives member states an explicit right to exit the EU and provides for a mechanism that makes this right effective. However, the TEU does not directly regulate the future relationship between the EU and a territory which is seceding from a member state. If Scotland votes for...
16.09.14 | |

16 Sep

[Stephen Tierney is a Professor of Constitutional Theory, University of Edinburgh and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law.] In the Edinburgh Agreement of 2012 the United Kingdom Government committed itself to respect the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum. This suggests that, in the event of a Yes vote, the transition to independence will be relatively straightforward, as will the pathway to Scotland’s international recognition and membership of the United Nations – see here. How then would Scotland’s move to statehood be characterised under international law?...
16.09.14 | |

10 Sep

We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris beginning early next week about the Scottish independence referendum that will be held next Thursday, September 18th. As we have done in the past with other symposiums, we also welcome other academics to submit guests posts for possible publication. We particularly welcome Scottish, British, EU and state succession experts. We will focus on the international legal aspects of the Scottish referendum, not the political or economic implications of the vote. We can’t guarantee we will publish every post...
10.09.14 | |

02 Jun

[We are grateful to continue our discussion on Samantar with a comment from Prof. William Dodge of the UC Hastings College of Law. Please keep following us for more thoughts in future posts and click “Related Posts” to see earlier contributions on this question.] Like my colleague Chimene Keitner, I wrote an amicus brief supporting respondents (co-authored with Mike Ramsey), and I too am happy with the result in Samantar. Although Curt Bradley’s post magnanimously notes that his position lost 9-0 in Samantar, it would be wrong to...
02.06.10 | |

17 Mar

...of Governors that makes the decision on membership is not the collection of the individual votes of IMF’s member states. The member states’ votes are not equal; for instance, the United States’ voting share is approximately 17% while Ukraine’s is approximately 0.6 %. On the other hand, the recent admission of South Sudan as the 193rd member state of the United Nations has left little doubts as to its statehood status. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the country to the “community of nations.” Collective non-recognition impedes a secessionist entity’s...
17.03.14 | |

10 May

...the relevant conduct-regulating rule comes from international law and thus already applied when and where the activity underlying the claim arose. The Court thus had to apply the presumption to what everyone agrees is a jurisdictional statute, and that application does indeed contradict the Court’s explicit refusal to apply the presumption to a jurisdictional statute in Morrison. I’ve decided to include most of these points in a symposium essay here if you are interested: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2246138 Stephanie Mandell Response...YOu may want to follow US v Ross Mandell and Adam Harrington out...
10.05.13 | |

02 Jun

...my view, it is entirely appropriate that the Court read the FSIA as it was written, and left it to the district court to address Samantar’s claim of common law immunity in the first instance. In arguing for immunity, Samantar seemed to take for granted that, if the FSIA applied to individuals, he would enjoy immunity for torture and extrajudicial killing. He argued that, both under the common law and the FSIA, “individual immunity … was coextensive with the law of state immunity and always immunized a foreign official for...
02.06.10 | |

02 Jun

Benjamin Davis The question that is unstated in these instant analyses is whether these general comments refer to civil suits or criminal prosecutions also. I would be grateful if persons would speak to that. Given Noriega, it would seem that these discussions would not reach criminal prosecutions at all. Best, Ben Roger Alford Ben, That's a great question. I would assume that individual immunity from criminal prosecution is governed in part by the VCCR, at least with respect to consular officials. Not sure about other government officials. Roger Alford Richard...
02.06.10 | |

08 May

[Jordan Wells is a third-year law student at New York University School of Law.] The discussion up to this point naturally has centered on the “touch and concern” language of the majority opinion and what that opinion and the concurrences mean for ATS cases involving law of nations violations that occur abroad. Relatively little analysis has focused on the original questions on which the Supreme Court granted certiorari—namely, whether corporations are immune from suit under the ATS and whether that immunity is an issue of subject matter jurisdiction...
08.05.13 | |

02 Jun

[We are pleased to share comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Samantar v. Yousuf from Professor Curtis Bradley , who has written a great deal on the issue considered by the Court yesterday. We hope to share comments from other informed observers on the decision over the next couple of days ]. As I bask in the glow of not having a single Justice in Samantar accept the theory of the FSIA that Jack Goldsmith and I had proposed, the following thoughts occur to...
02.06.10 | |

29 Apr

[Katherine Florey is Professor of Law at UC Davis] I come late to this discussion. Professors Alford and Whytock have adeptly explored the question of whether international human rights litigation might be reframed under state tort law. To their observations, I would add the following: Because state choice-of-law methodology is incredibly diverse, it is difficult to make predictions or generalizations about the overall prospects for human rights cases in state court. Regardless of what the general landscape might hold, however, it is easy to imagine scenarios in which...
29.04.13 | |

25 Mar

Thanks to Marty for his pointer on the decision and his instant analysis (which despite being instant, is also still quite interesting). Throughout the day today and into tomorrow, Opinio Juris will post thoughts and comments on the Medellin decision from leading commentators and scholars, in addition to (of course, our substantial “in-blog” expertise. Stay tuned!...
25.03.08 | |