Weekend Roundup: February 16-22, 2013

This week on Opinio Juris, Julian returned to his old favourite of the Whale Wars, and argued that the US courts can most likely exercise personal jurisdiction over Sea Shepherd, even in relation to its movements in the Southern Ocean.

Julian also covered a more recent favourite: the Philippines’ UNCLOS arbitration against China. He first reported on an article in the Chinese press quoting an unnamed expert advising the Chinese government not to take the Philippines’ claims too lightly. The advice, however, wasn’t followed, and Julian analysed what China’s decision not to walk down the arbitration path meant for UNCLOS arbitration involving major powers and for the discussion on UNCLOS ratification in the US. When the Philippines’ government decided to continue with the arbitration anyway, Julian didn’t consider this to be a futile exercise, or at least not any more futile than when China had decided to participate.

Kevin didn’t share Julian Assange’s optimism that a successful run in the upcoming Australian elections would lead the US to have to drop charges against him. As our regular readers will remember, Kevin argued last week that the ICC’s OTP committed a serious legal error when it argued that even an in absentia trial would mean that Libya’s admissibility challenge of the case against Saif Gaddafi could pass. It is no surprise then that Kevin was happy to see the OTP retract its submission this week. Kevin also recommended Jens Ohlin’s new article on “Targeting and the Concept of Intent“.

Kristen put the spotlight on International Peace Institute’s recent recommendation to give the African Union a bigger role in transitional justice issues in Africa. Kristen also posted the UN’s letter rejecting the Haiti Cholera claims, but thought the letter didn’t explain why the dispute was a public rather a private claim. Ken added to the discussion with an anecdote from his own experience while working in Bosnia.

Michael Lewis provided a guest post questioning how clear the dividing line between API and APII is, and ought to be.

If you’re planning to watch the Oscars this weekend, make sure to have a look at Deborah’s latest post on Zero Dark Thirty in which she discusses another forgotten element of the real story in the movie: the possibility of regret by those involved in the authorization of torture.

If your weekend plans include writing that long neglected paper, don’t make the mistakes listed by Roger when he stepped in the discussion on why academic writing is so bad. Check out our list of events and announcements too, maybe there is conference that is looking for just that paper!

Finally, as always, we provided you with our weekday news wraps.

Have a nice weekend!