In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

19 Apr

In case anyone finds it useful, over at Lawfare I have posted up links all in one place to the leading speeches by the US government’s senior national security lawyers on targeted killing, hypothetical drone programs, covert action, and related national security law issues - Harold Koh (DOS), Jeh Johnson (DOD), Eric Holder (DOJ), Stephen Preston (CIA) – and one by non-lawyer but...

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19 Apr

[Mark Kersten is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of the blog Justice in Conflict. You can find him on Twitter @MarkKersten] It is widely accepted wisdom that social media is radically transforming how we understand the world and share information. In this context, the emergence of Twitter, Facebook, blogging, etc. challenge the very practice...

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19 Apr

UN is examining claims that China broke sanctions against North Korea. South Sudan has become the International Monetary Fund's 188th member. Sudan has threatened war against South Sudan. Spain wants the EU to file a World Trade Organization (WTO) complaint against Argentina for nationalizing 51% of Spain's Repsol's stake in oil company YPF. The US has condemned the nationalization. Colombia has sent a letter to...

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18 Apr

I had the pleasure of attending a terrific conference at Duke this past weekend, hosted by the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. My panel addressed perennial questions about whether the courts should defer to the executive on questions of national security (on which more than you want here), but there were terrific sessions on, among other things, lessons...

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18 Apr

[Sarah Kendzior is an instructor at Washington University in Saint Louis. Follow her on Twitter @sarahkendzior] Kony2012 rose and fell on the power of celebrity. “We want to make Kony famous”, Invisible Children proclaimed, and it did, enlisting the support of twenty “culture-makers” to spread the word that an African child-killer was still at large. Kony2012 is often touted as an example of...

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18 Apr

If last week's post about  ASIL's 2nd Annual Research Forum at the University of Georgia Law School on October 20-21 was too short notice, don't despair. We have been informed that the deadline has been extended until Monday, April 23. The Research Forum, a Society initiative introduced in 2011, aims to provide a setting for the presentation and focused discussion of...

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18 Apr

[Charli Carpenter is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She blogs at Duck of Minerva.] One of the most curious aspects of the Kony2012 campaign is its backing by an important and powerful public servant, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. In publicly endorsing the campaign, Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, has espoused a powerful causal...

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18 Apr

An Italian kidnapped by al-Qaeda insurgents in Algeria and held for 14 months has been freed in northern Mali. Denmark has established a Commission of Inquiry into its role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. EJIL has an in-depth post about it here. The Arab League has urged Syria to implement the ceasefire plan after being briefed by Kofi Annan. The definition of piracy...

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18 Apr

Opinio Juris is pleased to announce an online symposium addressing social activism and international law. As our readers know, Kony 2012 was a YouTube sensation, spreading faster than any video in history. Although the details are airbrushed, the central theme of the video is about international law. The key idea of the video is that the indicted fugitive Joseph Kony...

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17 Apr

I've been following the standoff between the Philippines Navy and Chinese "surveillance" ships in the South China Sea (or West Philippines Sea) with some concern. As I noted here, China has some rather expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea that countries like the Philippines are resisting.  But given the relative sizes of their navies, it is obvious that...

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