[Monica Hakimi is the James V. Campbell Professor of Law at Michigan Law School.] I’m extremely grateful to Opinio Juris for hosting this symposium on my recent article on customary international law (CIL). And I’m honored by the fantastic group of contributors. In the article, I aim to dismantle a common conception of CIL—an idea that shapes how many international lawyers think...
This week, we have the pleasure of hosting a robust discussion on Monica Hakimi's latest article, Making Sense of Customary International Law. Abstract: This Article addresses a longstanding puzzle about customary international law (CIL): How can it be, at once, so central to the practice of international law—routinely invoked and applied in a broad range of settings—and the source of...
[Psymhe Wadud is Lecturer in Law, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP). She specializes in International and Comparative Law.] There have been informed claims that China’s internal suppression of information and bureaucratic as well as governmental policies exacerbated the novel coronavirus crisis and contributed to its transmission beyond Chinese borders, resulting in transboundary harm. There have been scholarly observations on the...
[Rosemary Grey is a University of Sydney (Australia) Postdoctoral Fellow, based in the Sydney Law School & Sydney Centre for International Law. Valerie Oosterveld is a Professor at Western Law (Canada) and a member of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and Rebecca Orsini is a second-year law student at Western Law (Canada) and a graduate of the University of Toronto.] Part 1 of this post discussed...
[Rosemary Grey is a University of Sydney (Australia) Postdoctoral Fellow, based in the Sydney Law School & Sydney Centre for International Law. Valerie Oosterveld is a Professor at Western Law (Canada) and a member of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and Rebecca Orsini is a second-year law student at Western Law (Canada) and a graduate of the University of Toronto.] Recent months have seen an important shift...
[Danilo Ruggero Di Bella is a lawyer at Bottega Di Bella.] Upon overthrowing a dictatorship, the swift recovery of stolen assets hidden abroad by a dictator is a key concern for every newly established government. At times, a newly constituted government may rely on the voluntary cooperation of foreign state authorities in which stolen assets are located. In other instances, the newly established government may face difficulties...
[Alejandra Muñoz is an International Legal Advisor with a Colombian lawyers' collective, ''Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (CAJAR)'] In February this year, the long awaited first voluntary statement rendered by Colombian army general Mario Montoya Uribe before the country’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) sparked a great deal of frustration and disappointment among victims. After refusing to speak entirely on the first day, his declarations on...
[John B. Quigley is Emeritus Professor of Law at Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University.] The annexation, now under consideration by Israel, of land in occupied Palestine is aimed, in part, at bringing many of Israel’s settlements into the territory of Israel. Annexation, however, may bring the unintended consequence of the loss of those very settlements. Much of the land on which the...
Along with 187 other American lawyers and legal scholars, I have signed a statement condemning the Trump administration's Executive Order permitting the US to sanction individuals involved with the ICC's investigation into the situation in Afghanistan. It's quite a list of signatories, including three former US war-crimes ambassadors and a number of former judges and prosecutors at various international criminal...
[Srinivas Burra is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Legal Studies at South Asian University, New Delhi; Haris Jamil is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at University of Delhi, New Delhi.] On 15 June 2020, there was a violent face-off in the Galwan valley, in the western sector of the China-India border. Soldiers from China and India scuffled at the border, which led to...
Luca Ferro is a post-doctoral researcher at the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI). He wrote his doctoral dissertation on International ‘Intervention’ in Theory and in Practice, assessing the legality of third-State involvement in the internal and external affairs of other States. Prematurely calling time of death on ‘negative equality’? On 5 and 6 December 2019, the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (JUFIL) and the...
[Marie Steinbrecher is currently a teaching fellow at UCL’s Department of Political Science while completing her PhD at Royal Holloway’s School of Law.] The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) obliges State Parties to designate a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM). NPMs are mandated to visit all places of deprivation of liberty to prevent torture and ill-treatment. To date, 90 States have ratified OPCAT...