The forthcoming issue of the European Journal of International Law will feature an article by Professor Simon Chesterman, the Dean of the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law, entitled Asia’s Ambivalence About International Law and Institutions: Past, Present and Futures. This week, Opinio Juris and EJILTalk will hold a joint symposium on the two blogs on Professor Chesterman’s article. The...
The inestimable Ryan Goodman has a new post at Just Security listing all the times the Saudis denied using cluster munitions in Yemen. As Ryan points out, we now know that those denials were what I like to call "shameless lies" (emphasis in original): On Monday, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told the House of Commons that following the UK’s own analysis,...
As discussed in my previous post, last month I was privileged to organize a conference at Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway on the topic of UK trade and Brexit. I discussed the first session in my previous post, which addressed UK trade negotiations with the EU. [embed]https://youtu.be/V5MYdhzXGAM?list=PLUqez-g-qh0lEWRv2XxnmZ_MmPRPZTzTD[/embed] In our second session, we discussed the topic of UK trade negotiations...
On November 7, 2016 I was privileged to organize a conference at the University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway on the topic of UK trade and Brexit. The conference had three sessions: (1) UK trade negotiations with the EU; (2) UK trade negotiations outside the EU; and (3) UK’s post-Brexit status within the WTO. The participants were...
Urbanization is our present and it is our future. Between the recently completed UN Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, and Iraqi Special Operations entering Mosul, starting what may be a complex urban battle, we face constant reminders that much of the world’s population now lives in cities. How we protect rights, foster development, interact with the environment, organize politically,...
As we face the first U.S. presidential debate tonight (on my home campus of Hofstra University!), the possibility of a President Trump seems more and more real. Although U.S. election analysts all make Hillary Clinton the favorite, most of them continue to give Trump a very realistic chance of winning on November 8. I am not a Trump supporter, but I think...
Buzzfeed's Chris Hamby is out today with the first installment of a promised four-part investigative report into the system of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Like all such reports, it needs a spectacular headline and summary to draw clicks, and this one's a doozy: The Court That Rules the World A parallel legal universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone...
As regular readers know, although I'm opposed to academic BDS, I fully support its economic incarnation. Which is why I find stories like this both depressing and infuriating: “I have no problem with Jewish people or any other religion or different beliefs. But for personal reasons, you can’t ask me to shake the hand of anyone from this state, especially in front...
William Gibson, repurposing a Gertrude Stein quip, said about cyberspace "there's no there, there" capturing the ethos of the internet as a place beyond the physical world of borders and jurisdiction. Bitcoin melded cryptography and networked processing to attempt to make a currency that was not based in or controlled by any state. But the internet is based on servers and...
[Laurence R. Helfer is the Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law at Duke University and a permanent visiting professor at iCourts: Center of Excellence for International Courts at the University of Copenhagen.] As the world reacts to the shock of the Brexit referendum, international lawyers are turning their attention to the mechanics of Britain’s departure from the EU. Article 50 of...
Well, Julian beat me to the punch by a few minutes, but here's my take...
This is big. Huge, even. From the Wall Street Journal: U.S. officials appear poised to make history by approving the first private space mission to go beyond Earth’s orbit, according to people familiar with the details. The government’s endorsement would eliminate the largest regulatory hurdle to plans by Moon Express, a relatively obscure space startup, to land a roughly 20-pound package of...
