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....
As this Voice of America report notes, the Philippine government is determined to forge ahead with its UNCLOS arbitration, even though China is refusing to participate in the arbitration. This seems to be a sensible strategy, at least from a legal point of view, because it is plainly within its legal rights to do so. But would a one-party arbitration be...
Breaking news: China has rejected arbitration under Annex VII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea with the Philippines, dealing a heavy blow to the future of dispute settlement under UNCLOS (h/t China Law Prof Blog). According to this China Daily report, "Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Ma Keqing had an appointment with officials from the Philippines' Foreign...
As far as I can tell, the Chinese government continues to pretend as if the Philippines' Law of the Sea arbitration claim doesn't exist. Articles like this one suggest the Philippines government continues to wait for some official or unofficial Chinese response. The February 22 deadline for China to appoint an arbitrator is fast approaching. There are obviously bigger things going...
I used to blog regularly about the Whale Wars, my name for the ongoing struggle between Japanese Whalers and those groups devoted to protecting whales. But I stopped almost three years ago when Australia filed its case against Japan in the ICJ, since nothing important seems to have happened since then. (Did we really need 22 months for written proceedings, when...
