France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom have jointly submitted a proposed delimitation of the continental shelf lying beyond the 200 mile limit of their coasts but abutting all four of these countries. This joint submission is made pursuant to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and essentially is a proposed joint settlement. (In contrast to...
I'm currently making preliminary revisions to a forthcoming article in which I try to do new and exciting things with proportionality review under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. While attempting to strengthen my original arguments I've stumbled upon an issue which might be of interest to Opinio readers. Let me first set the stage. There are three basic...
I spent the day yesterday in Lausanne listening to a presentation on the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and visiting the remarkable Olympic Museum. I will spare you the details, as it really is not fair to our readers to describe in any detail the breathtaking beauty of this splendid place in this idyllic town along the placid waters...
The Eleventh Circuit applied the act of state doctrine today (Glen v. Club Med, 05-12648) to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Cubans whose land was expropriated during the 1960 Castro-led revolution. The Cuban government is now going to use that same land to open a Club Med (but of course) and the expropriated Cubans tried to block that deal...
The special investigator assigned to investigate the somewhat mysterious death of Slobodan Milosevic has found that Milosevic died of natural causes. (The full report is here). According the investigation, which was conducted by the ICTY's vice president Kevin Parker, "nothing has been found to support allegations reported in some sections of the media that Mr. Milosevic had been murdered,...
Tony Blair's speech at Georgetown University offers some interesting thoughts on UN reform. It includes proposals for Security Council expansion, perhaps through ex officio permanent members, as well as dramatically enhancing the Secretary General's authority. Details on the speech from Anthony Arend available here. ...
This week I had the privilege to hear a remarkable presentation by Peter van der Auweraert of the International Organization for Migration discussing a little-known quasi-international tribunal. The tribunal, known as the Commission for Resolution of Real Property Disputes (formerly the Iraq Real Property Claims Commission) was designed to resolve claims by Iraqi nationals against the Hussein regime for...
This little gem of a story from a local paper in Annapolis, Maryland is an amusing profile of a guy who cons people by talking, in a self-important way, about international law and international organizations. Here is the opening: At least one thing about Daniel Besser is clear: He's a hell of a storyteller. Ever since the stocky Australian started...
I am procrastinating. Instead of grading exams or providing some substantive post on international law, I’ve been looking at Opinio Juris’ site statistics. Now, it’s no secret that law bloggers, like politicians, are constantly looking for affirmation of their popularity, usually in terms of how many “daily hits” a site receives. My co-blogger Roger Alford has already done some heavy...
Certain events seem to lose impact with time, or are simply not known to younger generations. The massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam war may be one of them. For those of us too young to remember the incident and the subesquent military trial of Lt. William Calley — the officer held repsonsible for the massacre —...
The European Court of Justice today ruled against the European Council and European Commission in a case brought by members of the European Parliament challenging the Council agreement to share airline data with the United States. The Commission had earlier issued a decision declaring the agreement on data-sharing complied with EU retstrictions on dissemination of private data; this decision...
As Kevin has noted, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has annoyed the current government of Rwanda in a variety of cases, most recently from its decision to plea bargain a defendant charged with genocide. This recent commentary from East Africa (HT: War Crimes Prosecution Watch) sums up some of the local frustration with the ICTR, which is planning...
