On November 1, 2012 at 4pm, the Columbia Law School Center for Constitutional Governance and the American Society of International Law are organizing a Panel Discussion on International Law and the South China Sea. Speakers are Henry S. Bensurto, Sir Daniel Bethlehem, KCMG QC, Harold Hongju Koh and Coalter G. Lathrop. Professor Bernard Oxman will moderate. On December 4-5, 2012, Human Rights First will...
This week on Opinio Juris, we hosted a book discussion on Informal International Lawmaking, a new volume edited by Joost Pauwelyn, Ramses Wessel and Jan Wouters, hot of the presses from OUP. In a post on the conceptual approaches adopted by the authors, Joost Pauwelyn explained what they mean by "informal" international lawmaking and what the book hopes to add to the debate on non-traditional forms...
Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, Rwanda and South Korea have been elected for a two year term as UN Security Council members. They will replace Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa from 1 January 2013. North Korea has threatened with violence if activists in South Korea release balloons with propaganda messages into North Korea next week. One day after a drone strike killed eight...
Over the next three days we are bringing you a discussion of a brand new book, edited by Joost Pauwelyn (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva), Ramses Wessel (University of Twente, The Netherlands) and Jan Wouters (University of Leuven, Belgium), on Informal International Lawmaking, published by Oxford University Press. Here is the abstract provided by the publisher: Many international...
This week on Opinio Juris, Eric Posner's Slate article about the legality of US drone strikes in Pakistan attracted the attention of Julian Ku and Kevin Jon Heller. Julian wondered whether Koh's "conversion" on the issue will serve as a shield against international arguments about the illegality of the strikes. Kevin in turn expressed hope that Posner's rejection of the "unwilling or...
Upcoming Events On October 11, 2012, the American Society of International Law is organizing a panel on Developing your Faculty Credentials: An International Law Perspective at Tillar House in Washington DC. More information, and free registration, can be found here. On October 25, 2012, the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics is organizing the eighteenth annual Herbert Rubin And Justice Rose...
This week, there was no escaping the second oral argument in the Kiobel case that kicked off the US Supreme Court's term on Monday. If you are not familiar with this case, it concerns the enigmatic Alien Tort Statute which, as part of the Judiciary Act 1789, holds that "the district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action...
This week on Opinio Juris, one of us was facing a legal challenge of his own. You can read Kevin Jon Heller's account of Chevron's subpoena for 9 years of IP-logs for his gmail-account here. Ken Anderson is back to blogging, and discussed the leading issues at this week's opening of the UN General Assembly in a post that also reflected on whether a...
Upcoming Events Fordham will organize a debate entitled Executive Power and Civil Liberties: Debating Obama’s Targeted Killing Program on September 24, 2012 at 6pm, between Martin S. Flaherty and Jack Goldsmith, and moderated by William M. Treanor. Registration is requested. The Florida Children and Youth Cabinet Human Trafficking Summit will be hosted in Tallahassee, Florida on September 24, 2012. The summit is bringing together...
This week on Opinio Juris, we posted Harold Koh's speech on international law in cyberspace, delivered earlier this week, as part of our efforts to make important international law speeches more readily available. The decision by the Obama administration to requalify the tragic events in Libya on September 11 as a terrorist attack rather than a spontaneous reaction provides a further basis,...
The attacks on US embassies in the Arab world did not escape our bloggers' attention this week. Duncan Hollis posted about host states' duties to protect diplomatic and consular premises, and questioned whether Libya and Egypt could be held responsible for the attacks. Julian Ku asked which responses to the death of ambassador Christopher Stevens would be legal under US...
Upcoming Events The SHARES Research Project on Shared Responsibility in International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam has launched its SHARES Lecture Series on topics related to shared responsibility. The complete schedule of the lectures for 2012-2013 is available here. Fordham will organize a debate entitled Executive Power and Civil Liberties: Debating Obama's Targeted Killing Program...
