This week on Opinio Juris, we launched our first Readers’ Survey. Your input is valued so we hope you will find a spare ten minutes to complete yours if you have not yet done so. If you want, you can enter your e-mail address in the draw to win a $100 Amazon gift voucher. In our regular posts this week, Kevin...
[Jeremy Rabkin is Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law.] I entirely accept what James Kraska says about the benefits of the navigation rules in UNCLOS. But when Kraska and others say these rules are favorable, they mean the UNCLOS rules – as American officials would interpret them. Unfortunately, UNCLOS doesn’t leave it up to American officials to interpret...
Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to restart peace talks next week. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has warned about the lack of resources in hunting down Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA. Foreign Policy outlines why the West shouldn't expect Russia to change its position on Syria any time soon. The UK has warned Argentina about acts of "aggression" regarding the...
[John E. Noyes is the Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law at California Western School of Law.] The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is currently holding hearings on U.S. acceptance of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, as modified by the 1994 Part XI Implementation Agreement (the “LOS Convention”). The Committee favorably reported the LOS Convention in 2004...
[Craig H. Allen is the Judson Falknor Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle.] I would like to begin by thanking Opinio Juris for hosting this timely and important debate on the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) and Julian Ku in particular for inviting me to participate. My small contribution begins with two...
The Falkland Islands are set to hold a referendum about sovereignty. IntLawGrrls points to interesting issues arising around citizenship and globalization. The ICC Prosecutor seeks a 30-year sentence for Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, convicted of conscripting child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In other ICC news, a team from the Court has visited the four detained staff members in Libya, accused...
Public Citizen, an anti-free trade group based here in the U.S., sent around an email detailing its objections to a leaked draft text of the ongoing TransPacific Partnership negotiations, which would create a massive Pacific free-trade zone. Its main complaint is not actually to the free-trade portion of the agreement, but to the proposals for a robust investor-state dispute resolution...
I haven't been following this issue at all, but I found this discussion on the possible ramifications of a UK gay marriage law fascinating.The Church of England has put out a paper suggesting (among other things) that any UK law that does not guarantee the right to religious solemnization of gay marriage would violate the ECHR's equality guarantee. I don't...
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has an op-ed in the WSJ announcing his opposition to US ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The op-ed is probably meant to soften the force of an earlier WSJ op-ed by former Republican Secretaries of State calling for US ratification. He is also testifying on Thursday at...
The US is accusing Russia of sending helicopters to Syria, where the UN has now officially categorized the conflict as a civil war. The UN is sending its envoy to Western Myanmar where the state of emergency was declared following unrest. Aung San Suu Kyi has left Myanmar for her trip to Europe where she will accept her Nobel Prize. The Yemeni government has declared that it has driven...
The four staff members of the ICC will remain in a 45-day detention in Libya while investigations into the meetings the staff had with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi are carried out. Al Arabyia reports that Melinda Taylor will be freed if she gives Libyan officials information on the whereabouts of Mohammed Ismail, Gaddafi's former right-hand man. Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has...
The temptation is strong to write about the Supreme Court’s decisions this morning to deny review to the latest set of Guantanamo detainee cases to come before it. The denials of certiorari effectively let stand the decisions of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has yet to find a detainee entitled to relief. But I’ll save the role...
