Over at the International Economic Law and Policy Blog, Rob Howse brings daily updates of the Seal hearings at the WTO. The New Zealand government has decided to go ahead with plans to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products, but the enactment of the actual legislation could be postponed depending on the outcome of the WTO and arbitration cases pending against similar Australian...
Bangladesh has amended its war crimes statute to allow the retrial of cases from 1971 amid protests. Human Rights Watch is concerned that the amendments will threaten the legitimacy of the tribunal. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is proposing changes to its rules of procedure in order to strengthen the Inter-American system of human rights. ASIL has posted a new Insight on the International Law Issues in the Department...
Calls for Papers After a successful first edition of Young Researchers Conference on Law, “Hëna e Plotë” Bedër University and University of Tirana are organizing the second edition of the series, Current Issues and Trends in International Law. Several topics will be covered and abstracts are due February 20, 2013. The conference Global Challenges in Public Private Partnerships: Cross-sectoral and Cross-disciplinary Solutions? will be held November...
Legal philosopher and renowned scholar Ronald Dworkin passed away yesterday in London at the age of 81. Kenyan presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta asked the ICC to postpone his trial. A city court in Oslo, Norway convicted a Rwandan man for involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and sentenced him to 21 years in prison. Amid peace talks, seven troops and an unidentified number...
Self-immolations in Tibet, in protest against Chinese rule, have reached the grim milestone of 100. Japan's defense chief claims that Japan could have pre-emptive strike abilities in the future, speaking with respect to the third nuclear test by North Korea. In a phone call to PM Abe following North Korea's nuclear test, President Obama has confirmed the US' commitment to Japanese defense. Iran and the IAEA...
The UN has urged Sudan to strengthen human rights efforts with respect to two recently detained political opposition figures. Rebels have captured Syria's biggest hydro-electric dam and battled army tank units near the center of Damascus. Libya has claimed it is competent to try ex-spy chief under Gaddafi’s regime, Abdullah al-Senussi, though the ICC has called for his extradition to The Hague. The lower house of...
North Korea carried out its third-ever successful nuclear test, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, among others, condemned the act as a violation of several Security Council resolutions. The Sudanese government signed a Qatar-sponsored ceasefire with a splinter Darfur rebel group, in an attempt to revive a stalled peace process to end a decade-long conflict. Rebels have captured Syria's biggest hydro-electric dam and...
Syrian opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib has said he is willing to hold talks with President Bashar al-Assad's representatives in rebel-held areas of northern Syria to try to end the conflict that has killed more than 60,000 people. The UN reports that up to 5,000 people are fleeing Syria per day. The British government intensified its campaign to stop Scotland from leaving the United Kingdom, publishing a...
Calls for Papers The 21st Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (‘ANZSIL’) will take place from Thursday, 4 July 2013 to Saturday, 6 July 2013 at The Australian National University, Canberra with the theme of "Accountability and International Law" The conference will be hosted by the Centre for International and Public Law, ANU College of Law. The Conference Organizing Committee now invites...
This week on Opinio Juris, Duncan started us off by discussing privileges and immunities for diplomats and posed the question of what the public should know in cases like DWIs. His next post offered a discussion of the Native American mutual defense treaty involving the Tar Sands Projects. Kevin weighed in this week on affairs at the ICC, including this post...
Syrian troops are battling rebels around Damascus, trying to halt their advance on the capital. The ICC has demanded the extradition of Libya’s Abdullah al-Senussi to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity under Gaddafi’s regime. A UN survey has found that more than $3.9 billion was paid out in bribes in Afghanistan in 2012, amounting to more than double...
France is seeking UN Peacekeepers for Mali amid the ongoing conflict. Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in order to discuss potential areas of cooperation in the future. The Canadian government is thinking about legislation that would revoke the citizenship of its dual nationals involved in acts of terrorism. Human Rights Watch has issued a report that alleges...
