In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

24 Jul

[Greg Fox is Professor of Law and Director of the Program for International Legal Studies, Wayne State University Law School.  He thanks Ashley Deeks and Brad Roth for their comments.] Among the many confusing reports coming out of the Helsinki Summit on July 16 is the news that Presidents Trump and Putin reached a series of “agreements.”   Whatever these agreements may...

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24 May

The International Law Commission, a group of 34 independent experts, charged with codifying and progressively developing international law is currently (and exceptionally) meeting at the UN in New York. Amidst the substantive conversations on subsequent practice of treaties, customary international law, and jus cogens, there are two other themes that are coming up with some frequency. First, the lack of gender diversity...

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08 May

[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] In his Opinio Juris post on May 4, Dr. Mohamed Helal provides a defense of Russia’s veto use related to the situation in Syria, one that he defends as in line with the negotiations of the UN Charter and a vision of veto power of the permanent members of...

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08 May

On Thursday, May 10, the US Supreme Court will decide whether to grant cert in Budha Ismail Jam v.  International Financial Corporation(IFC), a case involving environmental damage arising from a coal fired power plant in India.    Two excellent blogs on the case written by Rishi Gulati in 2017 can be found here. The case turns on the interpretation of a US...

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07 May

[David Hughes and Yahli Shereshevsky are Grotius Research Scholars at Michigan Law School.] Western forces have again attacked Syria following the suspected use of chemical weapons by the al-Assad regime. As in 2013 and 2017, international lawyers largely agree that the recent US, French, and British-led operation is illegal. Yet the recent strikes against chemical weapons facilities in Damascus and Homs are...

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04 May

[Dr. Mohamed Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law & Affiliated Faculty at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University.] On April 10, 2018, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution drafted by the United States that would have created a mechanism to investigate the use of chemical weapons against civilians...

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09 Apr

Many ICC observers have been wondering why the Pre-Trial Chamber is taking so long to decide on the OTP's request to open a formal investigation into the situation in Afghanistan. A little-noticed document filed by the Presidency on March 16 provides at least part of the explanation: because of  the recent judicial elections, the Presidency has dissolved the PTC that...

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27 Mar

[Massimo Frigo is a Senior Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurist's Europe Programme.] It is sometimes cases on obscure administrative processes that become landmark judgments in the ever constant building of our democratic legal systems. In the US Marbury v. Madison was a case that at the time attracted little attention as the subject matter related to respect of...

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19 Mar

The Trump Administration last week released its first “Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States’ Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations.” The report continues a practice initiated at the end of the Obama Administration and subsequently codified into requirement by Congress by which the Administration makes clear (among other things) where and under...

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16 Mar

[James Thuo Gathii is the Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law and Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.] Transplanting International Courts is an important book. It invites us to expand and enrich our studies of international courts to those in the developing world. In doing so, Karen Alter and Laurence Helfer directly address what they call the...

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06 Mar

Dear readers, As part of some exciting changes coming to Opinio Juris in the next month or so, we are completely redesigning our website. To that end, we would greatly appreciate your taking some time -- about 10 minutes -- to fill out our Readers Survey. You can find the survey by clicking here. We will leave the survey open for two...

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