This week 170 garment workers in Bangladesh died after the Rana Plaza building collapsed. A few months ago 112 garment workers in Bangladesh died after the Tazreen Fashions garment factory was destroyed by fire. Both tragedies were the result of inadequate fire and safety standards. These tragedies could not have come at a worst time for major...
Yesterday, President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Shunji Yanai, announced the appointment of the final three members of the Annex VII UNCLOS tribunal. International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) President Shunji Yanai on April 24 transmitted a letter to Philippine Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, head of the Philippine legal team on the arbitration...
The Asahi Shimbun is running a couple of interesting features on the International Court of Justice and Japan's relationship with it. One essay features interviews with Japan's current and former members of the ICJ: President Owada and former vice-president Oda. The other explores what might happen if Japan were to somehow send its disputes with China and Korea to the...
Apparently, the answer is yes, according to Professor Jeremi Suri of the University of Texas writing in the New York Times: The Korean crisis has now become a strategic threat to America’s core national interests. The best option is to destroy the North Korean missile on the ground before it is launched. The United States should use a precise airstrike to...
As regular readers of this blog might have noticed, I have become more and more interested China and its engagement with international law issues. Last year, I proposed to the ASIL Planning Committee that we put together a panel of leading U.S. China law scholars. But the ASIL organizers pushed back and put together a much more diverse group than...
I was struck by this line from an editorial in an Australian paper about the latest clashes between Sea Shepherd (e.g. the Ninth Circuit's "pirates") and Japanese whalers: [T]hat the International Court of Justice is expected to hear Australia's case to shut down the Antarctic hunt later this year. Three years after the case began, this hearing can't come soon enough. I agree....
Just in case there was any doubt, the Philippines-China arbitration over the South China Sea will go forward. International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea President Shunji Yanai has appointed a second arbitrator. The [Philippines] Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed on Monday that the Itlos president, Judge Shunji Yanai, appointed Polish Itlos Judge Stanislaw Pawlak to the panel last...
"Three years ago I could never have dreamed that we would be selling our tomatoes directly to the restaurants in Manila," said Johnny Rola. Just a few years ago the poor farmers in this mountain village in northern Philippines had little hope. They would grow a few staple crops and sell it at the local farmers market. They were...
Dan Blumenthal of AEI has a thoughtful piece in Foreign Policy on different tactics the U.S. could take to "win a cyberwar" with China. I think it is more about how the U.S. should "fight" the cyberwar with China and other governments that are going to use cyber-attacks against US companies and government entities. Still, what caught my eye are...
As part of my new research interest in China and its relationship with the international legal system, I opened a Sina Weibo account a couple of weeks ago. And it has been quite an adventure. Weibo is China's version of Twitter and Facebook. Since both Twitter and Facebook are blocked within China, Weibo is the main social media platform for users...
In a tartly worded opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reversed a lower court and granted a group representing Japanese whalers a preliminary injunction against the protest activities of Sea Shepherd. Here is Judge Alex Kozinski's instantly quotable opening to the opinion: You don't need a peg leg or an eye patch. When you ram ships;...
Some leading Chinese scholars and prominent Chinese activists have been circulating a letter on Chinese social media calling for the National People's Congress (China's legislature) to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Here is an excerpt from the letter, which is carefully worded not to challenge the authority or the accomplishments of the current government. 2....
