Michigan State Law School is sponsoring a symposium tomorrow, Feb. 24, on Gender, War and Peace: Women's Status in the Wake of Conflict. MSU Law has lined up a diverse and talented group of scholars and practioners in the areas of women's human rights, international law feminism and post-conflict justice. (I will be offering my take on the role of...
It is a week of transition here at Opinio Juris, as we prepare to migrate to a new and much improved location in the blogosphere. After finishing our first year here on blogger, we will emerge next week fully loaded at www.opiniojuris.org, a new site that will have added functionality and subject matter searchability. If you are signed up for...
I'd like to welcome Professor Bill Dodge as a guest blogger at Opinio Juris. Bill teaches at UC Hastings College of Law and is an expert on international business and economic law, in particular the emerging law of NAFTA Chapter 11 disputes. He is co-author of one of the leading casebooks on transnational business law, and has also written extensively...
London Times correspondent Roger Boyes has posted these interesting observations about the goings on in the Vienna courtroom where Briton David Irving pled guilty this morning to the criminal charge of denying the Holocaust. Irving faces up to ten years in jail for speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he claimed that the Holocaust never happened:It's...
Professor Kevin Heller of the University of Georgia Law School will be guest blogging at Opinio Juris for the next couple of weeks. Kevin is an expert on evidence and criminal law, with a particular interest in international criminal law. His SSRN page is here. Prior to teaching, Kevin spent some time as writer and legal advisor on several television...
Kofi Annan will step down as UN Secretary General this December. The campaign season for his replacement is heating up. By tradition of regional rotation, it's Asia's "turn" to supply the Secretary General (though the region is defined rather broadly to include the Middle East). Richard Holbrooke's op-ed in today's Washington Post reviews the potential candidates:· Surakiart Sathirathai, Thailand's deputy...
I couldn't resist this news item about today's events at the Security Council. Apparently, some Perm Reps believe in the German university "Akademische Viertel" (academic quarter) rule of promptness: so long as you arrive within fifteen minutes of a scheduled meeting, you are on time. US Ambassador John Bolton, perhaps taking the lead from his President who is known for...
My friends at UN Watch have relaunched a completely revamped and upgraded website. It is a great resource for information about NGO activities at the UN human rights organs and UN democratic reform efforts more generally. UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer has even started a blog section. (Click here for his comments on MLK JR day.)If you want to...
Our past guest blogger Professor Seth Weinberger liked blogging so much that he started his own. Security Dilemmas, already a terrific addition to the blogosphere, will focus on "issues of international and national security, international politics, and international law (and anything else I want to write about)." Check out Seth's posts on Hamas and the Palestinian elections here and here....
Today's big news in the narrow category of "celebrities and international law" is that Nicole Kidman has been named a UN goodwill ambassador. The UN Development Fund for Women, to whose work Kidman will be lending her celebrity, issued this press release:As UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador, her efforts will be geared toward raising awareness on the infringement of women's human rights...
This week's news of cost overruns and corruption in the UN Peacekeeping office have a familiar ring. Earlier this week, eight UN officials involved in procurement in the peacekeeping division were placed on administrative leave, and the draft of a forthcoming report on fraud and mismanagement estimates that over $298 million may be lost or unaccounted for as a result...
Ken Anderson has posted Jean-Marie Henckaerts' response to his earlier blog commentary on the International Committee of the Red Cross study on customary international humanitarian law. (See earlier Opinio Juris posts here and here.) Henckaerts, who serves as legal advisor to the ICRC, was one of the co-authors of the study. One of the interesting elements of the response is...
