Much to many observers’ surprise, the first country to take aggressive action in response to the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea tribunal’s award this week was Taiwan. New Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s government issued a blistering statement stating that the arbitral award was unacceptable and that it has no “legally binding force on the ROC.” It noted...
I have been mildly obsessed with the dispute between the Philippines and China for over three years now. It touches on so many areas of my research interest: international courts, China, and the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. So I am almost sad that the dispute, at least for legal purposes, finally ended today with the arbitral...
The much-anticipated long awaited South China Sea Arbitration award on the merits is here! It is a slam-dunk, complete, utter, massive, total legal victory for the Philippines on all counts (lots of metaphors here, none are quite sufficient). Essentially, the tribunal ruled in favor of almost all of the Philippines' claims in the arbitration. Perhaps the most headline friendly result:...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Violent clashes in South Sudan claimed the lives of two Chinese U.N. peacekeepers, bringing to three the number of troops China has lost in the past two months as it ramps up its engagement in peacekeeping efforts. Al Shabaab Islamist militants rammed a car packed...
In the second installment of episode 1 in this multi-blog series on the updated Commentaries, Professor Sean Murphy responds to Jean-Marie Henckaerts first post on locating the commentaries in the international legal landscape. Sean D. Murphy, Professor of International Law at George Washington University and Member of the U.N. International Law Commission, considers the role of the ICRC commentaries as a...
Did you hear the one about Judge de Gurmendi, the President of the ICC, taking bribes for from 2004 on to ensure Omar al-Bashir's indictment? The president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is facing calls to resign after it emerged that she may have received financial rewards said to be in millions of dollars to ensure the indictment of Sudanese President...
[Dr. Joanna Nicholson is a Researcher at PluriCourts – Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order at the University of Oslo.] For a crime to amount to a crime against humanity, it must be shown to have been part of a bigger picture, namely part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population....
Just a reminder: this summer we will host our Fourth Annual Emerging Voices symposium, where we invite doctoral students and early-career academics or practicing attorneys to tell Opinio Juris readers about a research project or other international law topic of interest. If you are a doctoral student or in the early stages of your career (e.g., post-docs, junior academics or early...
Event On 15-16 December 2016, the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI) at Ghent University will be hosting an international two-day conference entitled ‘International Immunities: Law in a State of Flux?’ The aim of the conference – organized in partnership with the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) – is to take stock of recent evolutions...
William Gibson, repurposing a Gertrude Stein quip, said about cyberspace "there's no there, there" capturing the ethos of the internet as a place beyond the physical world of borders and jurisdiction. Bitcoin melded cryptography and networked processing to attempt to make a currency that was not based in or controlled by any state. But the internet is based on servers and...
[William S. Dodge is Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law and Co-Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law: Jurisdiction. From August 2011 to July 2012, he served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.] In RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community,...
For the first episode in the Multi-blog series on the Updated Geneva Conventions Commentaries, the Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog has published Locating the Geneva Conventions Commentaries in the International Legal Landscape, by Jean-Marie Henckaerts. View of destruction in downtown Homs, Syria. © Jerome Sessini/Magnum Photos for ICRC Jean-Marie is the head of the unit in charge of the update of the...
