In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Trade & Economic Law

26 Mar

Last month, the UNEP Governing Council voted to begin negotiation of a treaty on mercury pollution.  The negotiations will start next year and are supposed to conclude in 2013.  Meanwhile, negotiations on the future of the international climate change regime will resume next week in Bonn, aimed at reaching an agreement at the Copenhagen Conference in December. The development of any...

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26 Mar

The IMF is much under discussion these days as the global recession deepens and spreads.  I invited Daniel Bradlow (professor at my school, Washington College of Law, and head of our international legal studies program, as well as long time advisor on Africa to the development banks and institutions, and SARCHI professor of international development law at the University of...

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24 Mar

Thanks to Peggy for her introduction.  It’s a great pleasure to have the opportunity to guest blog on Opinio Juris, which I think has become essential reading for international lawyers.  Just recently I heard an ICC prosecutor remark how much his office had been influenced by Kevin Heller’s post criticizing the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision on the genocide charges in the...

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19 Mar

 Financial crisis getting you down?  You can always move your money to the virtual world of the Planet Calypso: Interstellar banking isn't here yet, but at least you can pretend. The publisher of the online science-fiction game "Entropia Universe," set on the planet Calypso, received a banking license from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority last week and plans to open a...

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06 Mar

Everything you need to know about the majority's dismissive attitude toward the Prosecution's evidence of genocide is contained in this paragraph: 179. In relation to the alleged insufficient resources allocated by the GoS to ensure adequate conditions of life in IDP Camps in Darfur, the Majority considers that the Prosecution's allegation is vague in light of the fact that, in addition...

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15 Feb

In an effort to put its sordid past behind it -- Nisour Square was so 2007 -- Blackwater Worldwide has announced that it shall henceforth be referred to not as "Blackwater," but as "Xe" -- pronounced like the letter "Z." But why stop there?  Why not go full Prince and replace the Blackwater name with a symbol that represents what the...

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09 Feb

I have been meaning to do a post about the Supreme Court's first antidumping decision in decades, but frankly the case is a yawner. The question in United States v. Eurodif is whether the importation of low enriched uranium (LEU) is a good or a service. If it is the latter, then it cannot be subject to antidumping...

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06 Feb

The Wall Street Journal has an article today, February 6, 2009, front page, on the rush by states to enact new trade barriers in all sorts of ways.  The WTO is expressing great concern, indeed saying that it is unable even to keep up with tracking the barriers being erected. The landscape is moving so fast that officials at the WTO,...

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04 Feb

The ICJ has issued a judgment in the case Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea (Romania v. Ukraine). At first glance the issue may seem relatively dry: whether Serpents' Island in the Black Sea is an inhabited island or just a rocky outcropping. But the answer to this question affects maritime delimitation lines, which in turn resolves which country has the right to...

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29 Jan

OK, it only violates international trade law obligations, but that's not nothing!  Specifically, the stimulus package recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives contains a number of "buy American" requirements for the purchase of steel by recipients of the stimulus.  The EU is already getting set to challenge these provisions at the WTO, if they make it into U.S....

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27 Jan

Economics Professor William Easterly of NYU has launched "Aid Watch," a new blog that is "just asking that aid benefit the poor."  Check out Easterly's inaugural post in which he takes on World Bank President Robert Zoelleck's recent request for a stimulus package for the world.  Whether you agree or disagree with Easterly's "tough love" approach to international aid and...

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16 Jan

It’s an absurd question, of course, to ask why the environment is more important than human rights. But it’s actually true: protecting, say, endangered sea turtles is far more important than protecting against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of individuals. At least that is the conclusion if one is examining the question from an international trade perspective. The...

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