In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

04 Jun

[Mohamed S. Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Mortiz College of Law and an Affiliated Faculty with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. This is the first part of a two-part post.] Over the past weeks, tensions have escalated in the Persian Gulf. On May 5, 2019, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that “in response to a number of troubling and...

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02 Jun

At the end May, Opinio Juris hosted a weeklong symposium on Jonathan Hafetz's new book, Punishing Atrocities through a Fair Trial: International Criminal Law from Nuremberg to the Age of Global Terrorism (Cambridge University Press). In addition to Jonathan's own comments, we had the great privilege of posting reactions from such luminaries as Gabor Rona, Mark Kersten, Alexander Greenawalt, and...

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31 May

Cases from across the globe have epitomised the crime of enforced disappearance, the most high-profile recently being the disappearance and killing of journalist Jamal Kashoggi. The abduction of the head of Interpol in China is another dramatic instance. Recently, families of individuals from Kuwait who were disappeared by the Iraqi army have been in the news, and there have been mass...

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26 May

This summer we will host our fifth Emerging Voices symposium, where we invite doctoral students, early-career academics and practicing lawyers to tell Opinio Juris readers about a research project or other international law topic of interest. If you are a doctoral student or in the early stages of your career (e.g., post-docs, junior academics or early-career practitioners within the first five...

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24 May

[Margaret deGuzman is Professor of Law at Temple University's Beasley School of Law. This post is part of our Punishing Atrocities Symposium.] In Punishing Atrocities Through a Fair Trial, Jonathan Hafetz makes important contributions to debates about the legitimacy and effectiveness of international criminal law’s institutions.  In particular, the book highlights the tensions between the global values of fairness and accountability for international crimes.  While Hafetz generally...

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20 May

This week, we are hosting another book symposium on Opinio Juris. This time, we feature a discussion of the new book by Jonathan Hafetz, Punishing Atrocities through a Fair Trial: International Criminal Law from Nuremberg to the Age of Global Terrorism, published by Cambridge University Press. In addition to comments from Jonathan himself, we have the honor to hear from a list of...

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19 May

Kevin kicked off the week by welcoming Angela Mudukuti as the newest permanent member of Opinio Juris. Let me add my voice to the chorus of voices: welcome Angela! Matthew Erie offered a post in which he analyzed the particulars of the procedural mechanisms of the newly founded China International Commercial Court (CICC), as well as the ramifications of the...

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19 May

Featured Announcement Utrecht University Summer Schools This summer, Utrecht University is offering three Summer Schools on international law. Everyone is welcome to register for these Summer Schools. They are coordinated by Otto Spijkers. For more information you can also contact him (o [dot] spijkers [at] uu [dot] nl). Introduction to Public International Law The Public International Law course will look at the role of...

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18 May

There have been few cases emanating from the Middle East at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Referring to the Gulf states (and excluding Iran), the only other contentious case filed at the ICJ has been Qatar v Bahrain in relation to maritime boundaries in 2001. However, the recent case between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is worth keeping...

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13 May

[Matthew S. Erie is an Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Studies and a Fellow at St. Cross College at the University of Oxford.] In 2018, China began setting up the China International Commercial Court (CICC), the first judicial institution in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) specifically designed to adjudicate cross-border commercial disputes touching on matters of foreign law. The CICC is also regarded as...

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13 May

This past month has been a busy one for Opinio Juris. We have hosted three separate symposia on a variety of timely topics. The first symposium dealt with the UK Supreme Court's recent decision in Vedanta v. Lungowe, which addressed multinational corporations' accountability vis-a-vis environmental harm and human rights violations. Important contributions were provided by Carlos Lopez, Robert McCorquodale, Doug...

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10 May

[William Boothby is an Adjunct Professor of Law at La Trobe University, Melbourne. This post is part of our New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace Symposium.] In New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace we recognise the existence of a linkage between the military and consumer uses of a number of pivotal emerging technologies and consider how the...

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