In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Trade & Economic Law

01 Dec

Remarkable story in today's Wall Street Journal, front page, December 1, 2008, about a Latvian economist arrested and held for several days - not finally charged - for expressing pessimistic sentiment about the stability of the Latvian financial system: How to Combat a Banking Crisis: First, Round Up the Pessimists   Latvian Agents Detain a Gloomy Economist; 'It Is a Form of Deterrence' I have stuck...

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26 Nov

Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has been criticized by some as being invisible, at least compared with his rock-star predecessor, Kofi Annan.  However, he has emerged as UN frontman for a new campaign from the UN for a plan for a simultaneous global jobs and economic recovery program together with green program.  The SG's program is outlined in op-ed form...

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26 Nov

As a follow-up to Peggy's very interesting post below on the performance of global versus non-global law firms, let me raise an issue that has, for obvious reasons, disappeared in the last year, but which was a topic of discussion in 2007 and might well re-surface at point in the future: law firms going public via an IPO and listing...

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20 Nov

My friend and colleague Daniel Bradlow, professor of law and director of the international legal studies program at Washington College of Law, as well as SARCHI professor of development law and African economic relations at the University of Pretoria, has a new short opinion essay on how Africa should respond to the global financial crisis and the deliberations of the...

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15 Nov

Today is the global financial crisis summit in Washington DC, with attendance by leaders of the G20.  Bloomberg reports that the most likely results are: agreement to a global fiscal stimulus aimed supporting aggregate demand while waiting for monetary stimulus (i.e., interest rate cuts by central banks) to take effect;  reform of the IMF to put it at the center of addressing...

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13 Nov

[caption id="attachment_5503" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Malé, Maldives"][/caption] This week's news out of the Maldives is the sort of story that makes international lawyers salivate. It has something for everyone, bringing together issues of democracy, transitional justice, climate change, the law of the sea, not to mention good, old-fashioned sovereignty.  On Tuesday, Mohamed Nasheed was sworn in as the archipelago's new President, ending...

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12 Nov

Julian has already written a cautionary note about expecting a new Bretton Woods out of the upcoming global economic summit.  I could not agree more, and note that the Washington Post agrees in an editorial yesterday - indeed, the Post takes Sarkozy to the proverbial woodshed for a whuppin': With the global economy in crisis, and his own tenure as temporary...

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10 Nov

As discussions of a(nother) bailout for Detroit automakers continue, one question that intrigues me is whether any Opinio Juris readers drive Detroit-made cars - i.e., cars made by the Big Three US automakers?  Please feel free to indicate in the comments. My wife and I own two Hondas, one of them a 1993 Honda Civic that we bought used from the...

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10 Nov

Two items of Sudan news to report.  First, the Sudanese government has lawyered up, hiring the prominent British firm Eversheds LLP to represent it at the ICC.  I wonder if that means Bashir is expecting the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue the arrest warrant; although Article 19 of the Rome Statute is not the picture of clarity, it seems to allow...

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09 Nov

Something that my international business law students often have trouble grasping is that the Chinese economy remains enormously dependent upon exports to the rest of the world and to the US in particular.  On account of so much attention, often in undergraduate political science classes and elsewhere, I suspect, to the "rise of China and India," my students, and perhaps...

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