In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Regions

22 Mar

Today's Financial Times has a story on how unhappy U.S. businesses have become about Chinese government restrictions interfering with their access to Chinese markets.  So, one can understand how U.S. exporters would welcome news that the United States and China are getting closer to including a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).  And, let's be clear, this would be the mother-of-all BITs, given...

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22 Mar

Bangladesh has ratified the Rome Statute, making it the 111th member of the International Criminal Court.  Bangladesh was the first country in South Asia to sign the Statute, which it did on July 17, 1998.  I don't know what explains the 12-year gap between signature and ratification; if any readers know, please chime in below. Bangladesh's ratification will have immediate dividends. ...

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18 Mar

Japan triumphs in a big way at the CITES meeting in Doha, as the U.S. proposed ban on bluefin tuna trade goes down 20-68. The rejection of the bluefin proposal was a clear victory for the Japanese government, which had vowed to go all out to stop the measure or else exempt itself from complying with it. Japan, which consumes nearly...

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15 Mar

The general consensus among comments to my post last week on the previously-unacknowledged U.S.-Japanese security agreements was "no big deal."  These pacts reinforce an already well-developed practice of states doing deals--whether legally binding or political commitments--without U.N. registration or public disclosure.  Similarly, they reinforce existing views of Executive authority to conclude sole-executive agreements on defense-related matters for the United States.  So, if everyone's OK with such...

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11 Mar

It is always unpleasant to get lectured by foreign governments about "violating international law", but this is something U.S. government officials should be used to.  Still, it must be galling for the new U.S. administration to be lectured by Brazil's president over U.S. non-compliance with a WTO ruling on cotton subsidies. The United States must comply with a World Trade Organization...

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10 Mar

Yesterday, the Japanese Government (now led by the Democratic Party after nearly five-plus decades of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party) confirmed that in the 1960s Japan and the United States entered into a series of secret defense pacts.  Specifically, a committee of scholars has identified various tacit agreements allowing U.S. warships to carry nuclear weapons into Japanese ports, granting unrestricted use of...

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08 Mar

As I have noted earlier, there is a pitched battle between victims of Pan Am 73 terrorist hijacking over the distribution of treaty funds secured by the United States for American victims in a 2008 diplomatic settlement with Libya. The treaty and Executive Order stipulate that the money shall be distributed solely for the benefit of United States nationals,...

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