In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

09 Nov

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Residents of Sierra Leone's capital held a candlelit vigil and celebrations to mark the end of an Ebola epidemic that has killed almost 4,000 people including more than 220 health workers since it began last year. The international community has condemned Burundi's government for inciting violence amid a...

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09 Nov

I'm delighted to announce that two good friends, Leiden's Larissa van den Herik (also one of my PhD supervisors!) and Manchester's Jean d'Aspremont, are the new General Editors for CUP's prestigious Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law book series, which celebrates its 70th birthday next year. Here is Larissa's statement: It is with great enthusiasm that I take on the general editorship of...

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09 Nov

Duncan, unlike David, is not primarily an international law scholar. But Kennedy's work on critical legal studies has had a profound influence on most left-wing international law scholars -- including me. So I wanted to post a link to a fascinating and wonderfully substantive interview with him conducted by Tor Krever, Carl Lisberger, and Max Utzschneider. I had no idea Kennedy worked...

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08 Nov

Call for Papers The Rapoport Center Human Rights Working Paper Series (WPS) is happy to announce a call for papers for the 2015 - 2016 academic year. The WPS seeks innovative papers of the highest quality by both researches and practitioners in the field of human rights. Acceptance to the WPS series provides authors with an opportunity to receive feedback on works in progress and stimulate...

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06 Nov

Professor Burns Weston passed away on October 28, 2015.  His daughter, Rebecca Weston, wrote the following obituary, which she passed on to us to circulate among the international law community.  I never had the privilege of meeting Professor Weston, but was a regular user of his textbooks (on both international law and international environmental law).  I know I speak for...

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06 Nov

In my post on biological and chemical weapons yesterday, I rejected the idea that Art. 8(2)(b)(xviii) "squarely appl[ies]" (Ralf Trapp) or "plainly applies" (Alex Whiting) to chemical and biological weapons by arguing that the drafters of the Rome Statute intended Art. 8(2)(b)(xviii), the war crime of “[e]mploying asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases,” to have precisely the kind of "special meaning" that Art. 31(4) of...

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05 Nov

Simon Lester of Worldtradelaw.net and the Cato Institute offered a very interesting pro-free trade argument against the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in trade agreements like the TransPacific Partnership or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.  I disagree and we discussed and debated the issue today in a lively conversation hosted by Columbia University's Center for Sustainable Investment. ...

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04 Nov

U.S. commentary has largely celebrated the UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal’s award finding it has jurisdiction to consider the merits on many of the Philippines’ South China Sea related claims against China.   Perhaps the most positive note is found in Jill Goldenziel’s essay at the Diplomat entitled, “International Law Is the Real Threat to China in the South China Sea.” But just by...

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02 Nov

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Rebel fighters in South Sudan have released 13 United Nations workers who were held hostage for a week, the UN has said. Al-Shabab fighters in Somalia have struck again - managing to evade security measures to stage an attack in downtown Mogadishu. At least two soldiers and 11 militants...

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02 Nov

Announcements International Organisations and the Rule of Law: Perils and Promise, Victoria University of Wellington Faculty of Law, New Zealand, 7-8 December 2015. This symposium will take a fresh look at the resources that international law possesses to ensure that international organisations (IOs) are held accountable for their errors and excesses, while remaining relevant and effective in the face of ever...

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