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Kill me: Funding will be taken away from any organisation that is "controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism" or is behind the persecution of marginalised groups or systematic violation of human rights. The order has singled out peacekeeping, the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Population Fund. The UNPFA targets violence against women, fights to keeps childbirth and abortion,...

It is early days, and much we don’t know – including, indeed, whether the draft Executive Order the new Administration is contemplating (as reported by the New York Times and Washington Post) is indeed an official document of the new Administration. For the time being, let me offer a few reasons why I’m worried, and reasons why I’m not...

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of my friend and Doughty Street colleague Sir Nigel Rodley. Cribbing from the statement issued by the International Commission of Jurists, of which Nigel was President: Elected President of the ICJ in 2012, he was serving his third term as such. He had been first elected to the Commission in 2003...

Finally, a Republican bill we can all get behind! The American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017: A bill was introduced to the House of Representatives in early January that, among other things, calls for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations. Sponsored by Senator Mike Rogers, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act (aka H.R. 193) had been previously introduced by the...

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...

[Marc Weller is Professor of International Law and International Constitutional Studies in the University of Cambridge. He is the  Principal Investigator of the Legal Tools for Peace-Making Project, drawing on extensive experience in international high-level negotiations in Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Libya, the Darfur crisis, Yemen, Somalia and, most recently, Syria. Tiina Pajuste is a Lecturer in Law at Tallinn University,...

My friend Lianne Boer, who recently finished her PhD at VU Amsterdam, has just published a fantastic article in the Leiden Journal of International Law entitled "'The greater part of jurisconsults’: On Consensus Claims and Their Footnotes in Legal Scholarship." Here is the abstract: This article portrays the use of consensus claims, as well as their substantiation, in the debate on cyber-attacks...

It's a bit overdue, but I want to call readers' attention to a new blog, The Law of Nations. Here is the blog's self-description: Public and private international law play an increasingly important role in the decisions of the English courts. From commercial cases to human rights claims, a huge range of public and private international law principles are now regularly...

For those interested in the policy merits of the Iran Deal, it's important to note the letter sent today by 37 leading American scientists, including multiple Nobelists, nuclear arms designers, former White House science advisers and the chief executive of the world’s largest general society of scientists -- detailing the effects of the deal to date and urging the...

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...