Weekend Roundup: May 12, 2019

This past month has been a busy one for Opinio Juris. We have hosted three separate symposia on a variety of timely topics. The first symposium dealt with the UK Supreme Court’s recent decision in Vedanta v. Lungowe, which addressed multinational corporations’ accountability vis-a-vis environmental harm and human rights violations. Important contributions were provided by Carlos Lopez, Robert McCorquodale, Doug Cassel, Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, Gabrielle Holly, Lucas Roorda, and Claire Bright.

The second symposium discussed the rules governing “soldier self-defense” under international law. Elvina Pothelet and Kevin Jon Heller, Hans Boddens Hosang and Terry Gill, Camilla G. Cooper and Sigrid Redse Johansen, Randall Bagwell, Bruce Oswald, Erica Gaston, Adil Haque, Aurel Sari, and Gloria Gaggioli provided invaluable commentaries on the issue.

The third symposium covered William Boothby’s new book, New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace, published by Cambridge University Press, with an introduction by William himself, and reactions by Kobi Leins, Robert McLaughlin, Melissa de Zwart, Alejandro Chehtman, Rain Liivoja, Markus Wagner, Cassandra Steer, and Chris Borgen.William wrapped up the symposium with some concluding thoughts.

In between symposia, Angela Mudukuti discussed the historical ousting of Omar al Bashir in the Sudan. Kevin Jon Heller analyzed the strategies for appealing the Afghanistan decision in the ICC, which were later expounded by Dov Jacobs. Kristen Boon broached the topic of the important role that small states play in the workings of the UN Security Council. Alonso Gurmendi engaged in a thought experiment regarding the owner of the “.amazon” domain identifier. Kevin addressed the scope of the aborted Afghanistan investigation in the ICC, while Priya discussed the role that truth commissions play in investigating colonial atrocities. Nikhil Purohit analyzed India’s recent (successful) testing of its anti-satellite missile system. Yulia Ioffe addressed the ramifications of the termination of the Treaty of Friendship between Russia and Ukraine. Kevin commented on the recent problematic statements made by French Judge at the ICC regarding African member states. Angela discussed the problems associated with delayed prosecution of apartheid-era crimes in South Africa. Craig Martin analyzed the meaning, object, and scope of “lawfare.” And Kevin conducted his own thought experiment on complementarity as it related to the Jordan appeal decision in the ICC.

Like I said, it has been a busy month on Opinio Juris. But stay tuned: there are plenty more symposia and other timely posts planned in the near future which should not be missed!