In 1973, Hans Blix and Jirina Emerson edited the Treaty Maker’s Handbook to help newly emerging States appreciate, post-decolonization, the intricacies of treaty-making as a matter of both domestic and international law. One of the work’s lasting legacies was the inclusion of sample provisions drawn from existing treaties on various treaty topics such as participation, entry into force, reservations, and...
Speaking at a Federalist Society meeting yesterday at Notre Dame Law School, former Ambassador John Bolton addressed what the Obama Administration should do to curtail the threat of Iran. He offered not a single word of praise for the Obama Administration's foreign policy and not a single word of criticism for the Bush Administration, such as its failure to...
As most readers probably know by now, the Office of the Prosecutor has finally -- after three inexcusable years of inaction -- officially rejected Palestine's attempt to accept the ICC's jurisdiction pursuant to Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute. Politically, I think the OTP has made the right decision; the ICC has enough problems without interjecting itself into one of...
[Harold Hongju Koh is the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State.] Statement Regarding Syria Harold Hongju Koh Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State American Society of International Law Annual Meeting March 30, 2012 It is my honor to speak here again at the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law. A year ago, I spoke before this audience about...
[Dov Jacobs is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Leiden University] This year marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Leiden Journal of International Law. This quarter of a century has seen the development from a student-created, student-run and most certainly student-read publication, to an internationally renowned professional journal in International Law and Legal Theory. As pointed out by...
In a previous post, I noted that Peter Berkowitz defended the legality of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program by invoking U.S. practice -- and only U.S. practice. He now has offered another defense of such an attack in response to an editorial by Bruce Ackerman in the L.A Times. Unfortunately, Berkowitz's second article is...
Opinio Juris is very pleased to host a Roundtable this week on Professor Tai-Heng Cheng’s recent book, When International Law Works: Realistic Idealism After 9/11 and the Global Recession (Oxford University Press). The Roundtable will proceed throughout the week and feature a fascinating and diverse group of discussants. Professor Cheng and I will kick off the discussion today, followed later...
I feel like I have been working on this book forever, and my co-author John Yoo feels the same, which is why we are more than usually delighted to announce that Taming Globalization: International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and the New World Order, has been officially released. It is an attempt to pull together our thinking on U.S. foreign relations...
Kudos to Chris Whytock for a wonderful conference yesterday at UC Irvine addressing the topic of human rights litigation in state courts and under state law. The timing of the conference could not have been better, coming on the heels of the Kiobel oral argument on Tuesday, in which the principal defense of Kathleen Sullivan was that corporations should...
The ABA Journal has a cover story about the threat posed to island states by climate change. This is a topic we have discussed on Opinio Juris at various times. Duncan wrote at length about the Maldives; I had a shorter piece here, and there are various references in the midst of other blog posts. The Journal article is long and...
Here's something you don't see every day: Oxford University is seeking applicants for the Chichele Professorship of Public International Law. Oxford's announcement begins as follows: The Oxford Faculty of Law is a major centre for the study of international law. We aim to build Oxford’s role in the field, as international law becomes increasingly important and complex, and more closely involved with...
