[Eugene Kontorovich is a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University Law School and a contributor to the Opinio Juris On-line Symposium] I would like the thank Peggy and the rest of the Opinio Jurists for providing this forum for the discussion of new work. I’m grateful to Andrew Guzman for providing comments, and even more grateful for providing charitable ones. Andrew’s comments...
Abstract This Article explores whether and when rules of customary international law (CIL) can be expected to be efficient. Customary rules are often regarded as desirable because in certain circumstances, they promote the welfare of the group in which they arise. Unless these circumstances apply among states, the efficiency arguments for the legalization of customary norms do not apply. The Article...
Representatives of fifty-eight nations met in Paris to sign a non-binding accord on child soldiers. The signatory states pledge to not use anyone under the age of 18 in hostilities. The statute of the International Criminal Court treats the use of soldiers 15 and under as a war crime. Given the supposedly global international law norm against capital punishment those...
I would like to start out this stint as a guest-blogger (or perhaps academics should say "visiting-blogger") by thanking the regular Opinio Juris crew for having me, and for maintaining a consistently excellent blog that has become an indispensable professional resource for me. The blog has also attracted an audience of extremely well-informed readers, and I look forward to learning...
The United Nations' special envoy for Kosvo proposed last week that Serbia should be partitioned between Serbs and Albanians. The country’s Kosovo region, currently occupied by NATO troops and administered by the U.N. ("UNMIK"), would be severed from Serbia to form a second Albanian state. Serbia naturally opposes this outside interference with what all agree to be its sovereign borders....
