This week on Opinio Juris, our Emerging Voices symposium continued with a post by François Delerue on cyber operations and the prohibition on the threat of force, a comparison by Otto Spijkers of the Nuhanović and Mothers of Srebrenica cases, and Arpita Goswami's analysis of the PCA's recent Bay of Bengal Maritime Arbitration Case between India and Bangladesh. We also welcomed Jens Ohlin...
[Charles Kels is a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. He is writing in his personal capacity and his contribution is not meant to represent the views of the Department of Homeland Security, Air Force or Defense.] Group Captain Henderson and Squadron Leader Cavanagh’s series of posts comparing and contrasting the...
A background paper for a High Level Review of Sanctions currently underway at the UN raises some important and interesting questions about the increasing "jurisdictional overlap" between individuals designated on targeted sanctions lists and international criminal courts. In relevant part, the paper states: Increasingly, the reach of sanctions has gone beyond those responsible for initiating and supporting threats to, or breaches...
In two decisions (here and here) handed down this morning, the European Court of Human Rights has found that Poland violated its obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights for its complicity in the United States' running of a CIA black site and high-value detainees program on Polish territory. One of the cases involved al-Nashiri, who was prosecuted before a U.S. military...
The recent downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, apparently by an anti-aircraft missile fired from within rebel-controlled territory in the Ukraine, has raised the specter that Russia is covertly (or not so covertly) supplying arms and assistance to the pro-Russian separatists operating within eastern Ukraine. Obviously, the facts here are somewhat contested and I have no insider or independent information...
Professor Jens David Ohlin of Cornell Law School will be guest blogging with us over the next two weeks. Many readers may know Jens from his blogging at Lieber Code and from his many articles on international criminal law, the laws of war, cyberwar, and comparative criminal law, among other topics. Jens is also the author or editor of four books,...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Suspected Islamists raided the remote northeast Nigerian town of Damboa over the weekend, shooting dead more than 40 residents and burning down houses in a familiar pattern of killing that has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes this year. South Sudanese rebels and government soldiers clashed...
This week on Opinio Juris, we kicked off the second edition of our Emerging Voices symposium with a post by Zachary Clopton on the horizontal and vertical dimensions of international law in U.S. Courts, followed by Abel Knottnerus' post on rule 134quater. Julian clarified last week's post on Taiwan and argued that "lawfare" will not deter China in the South China Sea. He...
On Wednesday, a Dutch Court handed down a hotly anticipated decision on the Mothers of Srebrenica case, finding the Dutch state responsible for the deaths of 300 people who were sheltering with Dutchbat in July 1995, when the safe haven at Srebrenica fell. The English translation is available here. This ruling means the relatives of those 300 Bosniaks will be entitled...
Jeremiah Heaton was playing with his daughter in their Abingdon, Va., home last winter when she asked whether she could be a real princess. Heaton, a father of three who works in the mining industry, didn’t want to make any false promises to Emily, then 6, who was “big on being a princess.” But he still said yes. “As a parent you sometimes go down paths you never thought you would,” Heaton said. Within months, Heaton was journeying through the desolate southern stretches of Egypt and into an unclaimed 800-square-mile patch of arid desert. There, on June 16 — Emily’s seventh birthday — he planted a blue flag with four stars and a crown on a rocky hill. The area, a sandy expanse sitting along the Sudanese border, morphed from what locals call Bir Tawil into what Heaton and his family call the “Kingdom of North Sudan.” There, Heaton is the self-described king and Emily is his princess.Wow. Heaton just upped the ante for all non-royal dads. The Washington Post also reports:
Heaton says his claim over Bir Tawil is legitimate. He argues that planting the flag — which his children designed — is exactly how several other countries, including what became the United States, were historically claimed. The key difference, Heaton said, is that those historical cases of imperialism were acts of war while his was an act of love. “I founded the nation in love for my daughter,” Heaton said.That’s sweet. Really. But let’s turn to the international legal argument…
Professor Yann-huei Song of the Academia Sinica here in Taipei has notified me of the recent passing of his friend and fellow Law of the Sea scholar William T. Burke of the University of Washington. His Seattle Times obituary is here. Professor Burke's academic publications included The Public Order of the Oceans (coauthored with Myres S. McDougal), published in 1962 and revised...
