[Chris Jenks is an associate professor of law and directs the criminal justice clinic at the SMU Dedman School of Law in the US.] On April 25th, I had the privilege of attending an ANZAC Day dawn service at Kranji War Memorial Cemetery in Singapore jointly sponsored by the Australian and New Zealand High Commissions. While the significance of ANZAC Day is...
[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] I, too, would like to thank Opinio Juris for our mini-symposium and dialogue on the use of the veto in the face of atrocity crimes. I hope it stimulates further thought, analysis and work on these important issues. For those who missed the debates, I posted attacking the legality of Russia’s veto...
[Dr. Mohamed Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law & Affiliated Faculty at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University.] I would like to start off by thanking Opinio Juris for hosting what has evolved into something of a mini-symposium on the legality of the veto, the powers and purposes of...
[Jean Galbraith is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.] Yesterday, President Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the Iran deal. He is not claiming any major breach by Iran, but rather withdrawing because, in his view, it was a terrible deal from the start. As a matter of domestic and international law, he has...
[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] The background to a series of Opinio Juris posts about proper use of Security Council veto power is: I have posted attacking the legality of Russia’s veto in the face of chemical weapons use in Syria, Dr. Mohamed Helal has defended Russia’s veto use as consistent with the drafting...
[Christiane Ahlborn and Bart Smit Duijzentkunst are Associate Legal Officers at the Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in New York. This post, and its sister post on EJIL:Talk!, mark the start of the seventieth session of the International Law Commission. Under the theme “70 years of the International Law Commission: Drawing a Balance for the Future”,...
[Matt Pollard is a Senior Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva, Switzerland.] The Canadian Parliament is currently considering Bill C-262, “An Act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. The draft legislation is a “private member’s bill” introduced by an individual Member...
[Karolína Babická is a Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurist’s Europe Programme.] European Union (EU) law has in the last two decades shaped and to some extent also harmonized national legislation governing asylum and migration in EU member states. This month, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has once again set out the very strict limits...
I like much of what Jennifer Trahan says in her recent post about the permanent veto. But I would take issue -- unsurprisingly -- with her claim that "there is in fact more past precedent for reliance on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention than is often recognized, including not only NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo, but also African and Arab...
[Bianca Maganza is a PhD candidate in International Law and a Teaching Assistant at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.] Some days ago, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the CAR (hereinafter, MINUSCA) got involved in heavy fire exchange with an armed group known as KM5 in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic...
[Jennifer Tridgell is a Legal Intern at the International Criminal Court. She has previously worked at the Philippines Commission on Human Rights and the High Court of Hong Kong. The views expressed in this article are her own.] On 19 March 2018, President Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the Rome Statute (“Statute”). This decision is disappointing, yet unsurprising. The President has...
You go to war with the President you have, not the President you wish you had. We should keep that basic truth in mind as the US inches ever closer to war with Syria -- and potentially with Russia, a far more terrifying possibility. Donald Trump does not care about civilians in Syria. He does not care about containing the spread...
