Libya has now brought a formal admissibility challenge under Article 19 of the Rome Statute. The motion, written by Philippe Sands, Payam Akhavan, and Michelle Butler, is a brilliant piece of work and stands a good chance of success. I'll have much to say about the motion in the next few days, but in this post I want to focus...
I am delighted to announce that over the next few days Opinio Juris will be hosting a symposium on what is increasingly called, following Tel Aviv University's Aeyal Gross, the "functional approach" to the law of occupation. Here is the description that was sent to the contributors: Occupation law has undergone significant evolution in modern times, and cases such as Iraq...
The answers to my questions last week were no further away than the latest copy of the AJIL and an important article by Emilie Hafner-Burton, David Victor, and Yonatan Lupu on Political Science Research and International Law: The State of the Field. This is a must-read for anyone interested in IR/IL, past and future. As for the "war on paradigms", it has...
Moreno-Ocampo's inability to avoid allegations of bias has long haunted his tenure as Prosecutor. It's impossible to forget, for example, photos of him standing next to the Ugandan President, Youweri Museveni, as he announced that he was investigating the situation in Northern Uganda -- an act that Ugandans widely perceived, rightly in light of the OTP's failure to seriously investigate...
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...
