I've been surprised how quiet the Obama Administration has been in terms of treaty actions in its 5 years in office -- you can pretty much count on one hand the number of treaties that have gone through the Senate Advice and Consent process (and nothing at all has happened this Congress). Now, some of the blame for this certainly...
[See update at end of this post] Russia's government has recently been talking up international law, so it will be interesting to see if they follow through with plans to charge Greenpeace activists with piracy. MOSCOW — Russia opened a criminal case Tuesday against Greenpeace activists, accusing them of piracy for attempting to stage a protest on an Arctic oil rig. A Greenpeace spokeswoman...
Things are continuing to gear up here in the United States for the big foreign affairs law case of the year -- U.S. v. Bond, which, among other things may allow the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit one of its most significant foreign affairs law cases ever - Missouri v. Holland. Bond asks two questions: (1) whether the Constitution limits...
Ryan has a fascinating but problematic post today at Just Security in which he takes international-law scholars to task for opportunistically flip-flopping on whether the US is involved in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda. Here is the crux of his argument, taken from the post's introductory paragraph: Those arguments have been inconsistent with regard to one fundamental legal question: whether the...
It's been over five months since the Supreme Court rendered its landmark decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. A quick review of lower court decisions suggests that Kiobel marks the end of the Filartiga revolution in the United States. The most significant lower court ruling to date is Balintulo v. Daimler AG where the Second Circuit rejected...
Just Security is officially up and running. The lineup of contributors is amazing: the Editors-in-Chief are Steve Vladeck and Ryan Goodman; the Executive Editors are Mary deRosa, the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer, Fionnuala Ni Aolian, and Beth Van Schaack; and the Founding Editors are too numerous too mention but all extremely well known. (I won't play favorites by naming some of...
Wow! I kind of assumed all the posturing and tough talk from U.S. and ICC officials would scare off Sudan's President Bashir from visiting NY next week to address the UN General Assembly. But it appears he really is coming. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges, said on Sunday he planned to attend...
Another week has gone by at Opinio Juris with much to say about current events in international law and international relations. In fact, this week, we hosted an online symposium on the recent book by Jeffrey Dunoff and Mark Pollock, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations. In other coverage this week, Julian argued on how the UN Charter does not...
Eric Posner has a new Cassandra column at Slate, this latest one foretelling the doom of the ICC. There isn't much point in disagreeing with his basic thesis; no one knows at this point -- not him, not I -- whether the ICC will succeed. It is possible, however, to take issue with a number of assertions that Posner makes in...
Recent commentary on Bashir’s request for a US visa to attend the 68th General Assembly has focused on US obligations to grant Bashir a visa under Section 11 of the UN – US Headquarters Agreement. See Julian's post here. Pursuant to this agreement, there is little doubt that the US must permit his transit to the UN despite the fact that...
One possible silver lining in Russia and China's invocation of the UN Charter to block U.S. action in Syria is that both nations have bound themselves (at least in part) to the same norm. But at least with respect to China, it is probably not bothered by the UN Charter's limitations on the use of force because any of the...
[Ruti Teitel is Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at New York Law School and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. She is the author of Humanity’s Law (OUP 2012).] Dunoff and Pollack conclude that interdisciplinary engagement between international law and international relations scholars has contributed to the understanding of international law in a number of areas. They mention the rise...
