For some reason, the U.S. District Court for DC has not yet posted a copy of Judge Hogan's opinion dismissing lawsuits against Donald Rumsfeld and various U.S. military officials for abuse and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks to Paul Stephan, I finally got a copy of the opinion, styled Iraq and Afghanistan Detainees Litigation, which I am posting...
Tomorrow, in the final day of its ongoing session, the UN Human Rights Council will decide between two competing draft resolutions on the human rights situation in Darfur, Sudan. Unfortunately, neither draft goes nearly as far as the recommendations of the report presented to the Council two weeks ago by the Darfur assessment team headed by Nobel Laureate Jody...
Several months back, Opinio Juris put out a call for papers for our inaugural on-line symposium to junior scholars. The theme was described as follows: As long as people have been writing about public international law, commentators have suggested that it is a system in crisis or somehow under stress. After a moment of optimism at the end of the Cold...
Abstract In an effort to elevate the international rule of law, international law scholars, especially since the end of the Cold War, have endeavored to determine how best to induce compliance, that is, how to encourage nations to obey international law. For all its advantages, this focus on compliance obscures the role of noncompliance in the international legal system. In the...
Abstract The breathtaking growth of international criminal law over the past decade has resulted in the prosecution of Balkan and Rwandan mass murderers, the development of a substantial body of atrocity law jurisprudence and the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The growth of international criminal procedure, unfortunately, has not...
Abstract The questions asked by the organizers of this symposium on recent challenges facing public international law—whether international law is “too weak to make a difference” or whether its institutions are “invasive to the point of being undemocratic”— and the specific challenges mentioned by way of example (“terrorism, hegemony, illegitimacy”) all converge in the topic of this paper: an inquiry into...
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...
Abstract This thought piece will focus on the following question: What are the implications of conceptualizing of climate change litigation as pluralist legal dialogue? Part II provides the conceptual framework of the article by introducing and interweaving law and geography, judicial dialogue, and legal pluralism. Part III of the paper uses the example of California’s role in climate change...
On Friday, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer gave a speech at the Human Rights Council sharply criticizing its record of ignoring gross human rights violations worldwide unless they can be blamed on Israel. Read or watch the speech. In an unprecedented reaction, the Council's Chair, Luis Alfonso De Alba of Mexico, refused to thank UN Watch for its statement...
The first day of the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law began with a morning session on the future of arbitration involving states. This "pre-meeting" event is co-sponsored by the ASIL and the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and was chaired by Professor Catherine Rogers and yours truly. Details are available here. It included great...
The Yemeni Parliament ratified the Rome Statute yesterday, following what has been described as the most intense debate in the institution's history. Yemen is the 105th member of the ICC, and the fourth member from the League of Arab States, joining Jordan, Djibouti, and the Comoros. ...
As March draws to a close, I thought it would be helpful to recap some of the great blogging that has been going on at OJ. Some of these represent new directions for the blog, and it would be great to hear from our readership what you like and what you would like to see more of in the future. We...
