The International Law Commission (ILC) held its seventy-second session from April 26 to June 4 and from July 5 to August 6, 2021 in Geneva, under the chairmanship of Mahmoud Hmoud (Jordan). This session was originally scheduled for the summer of 2020, but had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic continued in 2021 to present health risks and travel difficulties

On March 5, 2020, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to authorize the prosecutor to commence a proprio motu investigation into the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Afghanistan War since 2003. This decision is the first case where the requirements for the authorization of an investigation under Article 15(4) of the ICC Rome Statute

On June 17, 2021, the United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded a suit filed against Nestlé USA and Cargill under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) for lack of jurisdiction. This case has already garnered attention over the nature of the dispute (child slaves in Africa), the Supreme Court's treatment of jurisdiction under the ATS, and the finding shared by five of the nine Supreme Court justices

On October 6, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its judgment in Commission v. Hungary. It found that Hungary had violated the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), as well as internal European Union law—specifically the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter). The case arose out of Hungary's 2017 amendment to its higher education law. The amendment imposed

On February 6, 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) declared in Lhaka Honhat Association v. Argentina that Argentina violated Indigenous groups’ rights to communal property, a healthy environment, cultural identity, food, and water. For the first time in a contentious case, the Court analyzed these rights autonomously based on Article 26 of the American Convention on Human Rights

On May 23, 2021, Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania to land in Minsk in response to a false bomb threat and then arrested Roman Protasevich, an exiled journalist onboard the flight. The United States joined much of the international community in condemning the flight's diversion and imposing additional sanctions on Belarusian President Alexander

On April 1, 2021, the Biden administration issued an executive order reversing the Trump administration's sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) personnel. The administration rescinded the sanctions placed upon the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and the head of the Office of the Prosecutor's Jurisdiction, Complementarity, and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochoko, and removed the officials

In Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, et al., former child slaves who were trafficked into Côte d'Ivoire to work on cocoa farms filed suit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) against U.S.-based companies that purchase cocoa from and provide other support to the farms, alleging that the companies aided and abetted child slavery. By an 8–1 vote, the Supreme Court held that the case involved an impermissible extraterritorial

Nearly twenty years after the U.S. military began operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan, President Joseph R. Biden reported on August 31, 2021, that the last U.S. combat troops had departed the country. Biden announced on April 14, 2021, that the United States would withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan before the twenty-year anniversary of September 11, 2001, and NATO member states decided

The COVID-19 pandemic generated wide interest in global health law (GHL). The ease of its spread, and its eruption at a time of massive global travel in a city that is a major transport hub, turned it into an unprecedented event in the post-World War II era.

The strained U.S.-China trade relationship poses a frontal challenge to the multilateral trading system and has broad repercussions for international law. This Article addresses three dimensions of this relationship: (1) the economic dimension; (2) the geopolitical/national security dimension; and (3) the normative/social policy dimension. The Article advances a middle ground between those seeking

Privatization of functions that were traditionally considered sovereign has reached new heights. International lawyers have responded mostly by seeking to limit some of the consequences of that phenomenon, by, for example, ensuring accountability of states for outsourcing. International law has sometimes appeared agnostic, however, about the very legality of privatization. This Article explores a more

On May 21, 2020, a Tribunal established under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) rendered an Award regarding the 2012 Enrica Lexie incident, which involved the death of two Indian fishermen at the hands of Italian Marines. The Award is lengthy and wide-ranging, finding that: (1) Italy and India had concurrent jurisdiction over the incident; (2) the Tribunal had

On January 28, 2021, a Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) dismissed all of the respondent's preliminary objections in Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary Between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives). The proceeding arose out of Mauritius's long-running effort to regain sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago,

The Biden administration has undertaken to reset U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, making early moves to break with the Trump administration's policy toward the country on several key fronts. White House officials have shifted the locus of diplomatic contact between the two countries from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who enjoyed a close relationship with the Trump administration, to his

In Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that a country's taking of property from its own nationals does not fall within the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) exception for “rights in property taken in violation of international law.” The case involved a claim that Nazi officials coerced a consortium of three art firms owned by Jewish residents of Germany

On February 1, 2021, the military in Burma overthrew the democratically elected government, declared a one-year state of emergency, and installed Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as the head of government. Since the coup, the military has cracked down on protestors, killing over 800 people and detaining many more. Numerous countries and international organizations, including the United States and the

On February 25, 2021, the United States conducted a strike targeting Iranian-backed militia group facilities in Syria. The strike, which came in response to a February 15, 2021 attack on U.S. interests in Iraq, marked the Biden administration's first known exercise of executive war powers. As domestic authority for the strike, President Joseph Biden, Jr. cited his authority under Article II of the

Based on a comprehensive empirical analysis of maritime disputes during the twentieth century, this Article argues that international courts cast a shadow that markedly changes bargaining by potential litigating states. In particular, the filing of optional declarations under Article 287 of UNCLOS increases states’ use of non-binding methods of dispute settlement, and the Article theorizes that this

Advisory jurisdiction is a ubiquitous feature of international human rights adjudication. Yet the attention of legal scholars is almost entirely devoted to contentious jurisdiction. This Article aims to fill that gap in the literature. By introducing two models of advisory jurisdiction, and analyzing the example of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—the world's most active international advice-giver—the

Economic sanctions, unilateral and multilateral, have a long pedigree in international relations. From South Africa and Israel, to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, such measures have, with varying results, been used in diverse contexts to influence the behavior of states. Some would celebrate the use of economic sanctions as a means of punishing “rogue states” for human rights violations or threats to

The judgment in Houngue Éric Noudehouenou v. Republic of Benin adds to the growing body of human rights jurisprudence on national electoral processes in Africa's international courts. Houngue Noudehouenou's (Houngue) case was sparked by a series of amendments to the 1990 Constitution of the Republic of Benin (Benin), Law No. 2019-40 (Revised Constitution), and changes to Benin's electoral law (para

On January 21, 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) issued its judgment in the interstate case of Georgia v. Russia (II). Georgia complained that Russia committed systemic human rights violations in the course of the 2008 war in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Both of these regions are de jure parts of Georgia, but they have not been effectively governed by central Georgian authorities

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) in Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary is remarkable both on account of its facts and the peculiar legal issues it raised. In 2004, an ax-wielding Azerbaijani army officer (R.S.) beheaded one Armenian officer, and attempted to kill another, while attending a NATO-organized English language course in Budapest, Hungary.

In two nearly identical judgments dated July 14, 2020, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) reviewed a decision taken by the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in a dispute about aviation restrictions imposed on Qatar by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These cases represent the second time that the Court has heard an appeal

After Russia targeted the 2016 presidential election, U.S. government authorities repeatedly warned about the prospects of foreign interference in and influence on the 2020 election. Throughout the fall of 2020, government officials and private companies took a number of actions to address threats to the election, including issuing public warnings, imposing sanctions, and taking down foreign government-linked

On December 10, 2020, President Donald J. Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy by announcing that the United States would recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara as part of a deal in which Morocco would normalize relations with Israel. Despite a 1991 UN truce and continued calls by the UN Security Council for Morocco and the Polisario Front to reach a mutually agreeable solution, neither

The newly inaugurated administration of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. took immediate steps to reengage with a variety of international institutions and agreements from which the Trump administration had withdrawn. On January 20, 2021, the administration deposited with the United Nations a new instrument of acceptance of the Paris Agreement on climate change, and it halted U.S. withdrawal from the

In the final months of his administration, President Donald Trump issued a variety of pardons and commutations, including a number related to foreign relations. His decision to issue full pardons to four former Blackwater contractors, who were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisour Square incident, drew particular condemnation and continued a pattern of clemency grants related to war

In October 2020, the United States arrested former Mexican Defense Secretary General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda on drug conspiracy charges, accusing him of accepting bribes to aid a Mexican cartel in evading law enforcement and transporting drugs into the United States. Cienfuegos's arrest sparked diplomatic protests from Mexico, which negotiated to gain Cienfuegos's release before exonerating him

After taking office, the Biden administration quickly moved to reverse or revoke a number of the Trump administration's immigration-related policies. On inauguration day, President Joseph Biden announced several significant changes, including termination of the national emergency at the southern border, halting border wall construction, and removal of discriminatory travel restrictions imposed primarily

Judges and scholars have interpreted human rights treaties as obligating states to mitigate climate change by limiting their greenhouse gas emissions, an argument instrumental to the development of climate litigation. This Article questions the validity of this interpretation. A state's treaty obligation to protect human rights implies an obligation to cooperate on the mitigation of climate change

Why states comply with international law has long been at the forefront of international law and international relations scholarship. The compliance discussion has largely focused on negative incentives. We argue that there is another, undertheorized mechanism: rewarding. We provide a typology and illustrations of how rewards can be applied. Furthermore, we explore the rationale, potential, and limitations

Recent jurisdictional decisions suggest that sovereign debt will be subject to bilateral investment treaties (BITs) for the foreseeable future. This Article argues that applying BITs to sovereign bonds threatens to undermine the core economic function of those treaties by encouraging inefficient state and creditor behavior and raising the overall cost of sovereign debt. It further argues that this

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Panel Report in Australia – Anti-Dumping Measures on A4 Copy Paper (Australia – A4 Copy Paper) marks a significant development of the multilateral rules on anti-dumping. Under certain circumstances, WTO agreements permit members to impose anti-dumping measures to counteract the injurious effect of dumping on domestic industries, typically through import duties. The

In September and October 2020, Kosovo, Serbia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Sudan normalized relations with Israel in a flurry of agreements brokered by the United States. President Donald Trump suggested that, in addition to being valuable on their own terms, the agreements were part of a broader diplomatic effort to pressure the Palestinians into negotiating a peace deal with Israel

On September 2, 2020, the Trump administration announced that the United States had added the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and the head of the Office of the Prosecutor's Jurisdiction, Complementarity, and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochoko, to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons

The United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on May 8, 2018, and subsequently reimposed a range of unilateral sanctions on Iran. Throughout mid-2020, the Trump administration sought multilateral support for renewed UN sanctions against Iran, but the Security Council rejected those efforts. In response, the administration moved to initiate snapback sanctions under the

Longstanding tensions between Congress and the executive over U.S. support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen have spurred conflict between the branches over arms sales. In May 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo declared an emergency under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) to bypass congressional “freezes” on arms sales and complete $8.1 billion in sales to members of the Saudi-led coalition

Abstract For more than a decade, U.S. courts have struggled to develop a common law immunity regime to govern suits brought against foreign government officials, and they are now divided on a number of issues, including the extent to which they should defer to the executive branch and whether to recognize a jus cogens exception. This Editorial Comment considers a more conceptual division in the courts

Abstract Numerous governments have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by declaring states of emergency and restricting individual liberties protected by international law. However, many more states have adopted emergency measures than have formally derogated from human rights conventions. This Editorial Comment critically evaluates the existing system of human rights treaty derogations. It analyzes

Abstract This Current Development Essay discusses the international legal implications of constitutional amendments adopted in the Russian Federation by an “all-Russian vote,” a quasi-referendum from June 25 to July 1, 2020. The most important of these amendments gives the Russian Constitution priority over decisions made by international courts and treaty bodies. The amendments also address Russia's

The Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Slovenia v. Croatia marks the anticlimax of a long-running territorial dispute. It is also only the sixth time the CJEU has issued a judgment in a case instituted by one European Union member against another. Among these cases, it is the first to consider an arbitral award in a dispute between members, the first to consider a boundary

In Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to dismiss a series of customary international law claims brought by Eritrean refugees against a Canadian mining corporation for grave human rights abuses committed in Eritrea. In doing so, the Supreme Court opened the possibility of a novel front for transnational human rights litigation: common law tort claims based on customary

Rescuing Human Rights: A Radically Moderate Approach (Rescuing) was published shortly before the outbreak in 2020 of the novel coronavirus and its myriad human rights and class issues regarding equality, discrimination, health, and labor rights of people of color. This was also prior to the concurrent public murder of George Floyd as an unarmed Black man by the Minneapolis police in late May 2020,

On June 1, 2020, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention or Convention) does not conflict with domestic equitable estoppel doctrines that permit the enforcement of arbitration agreements by nonsignatories. The Court interpreted the text of the Convention as being silent on the issue of enforcement by nonsignatories

In Opati v. Republic of Sudan, the Supreme Court upheld a $4.3 billion award of punitive damages against Sudan for its support of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Supreme Court held that Congress's 2008 amendments to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) authorized the plaintiffs to recover punitive damages from state sponsors of terrorism for acts committed prior

On November 30, 2018, Canada, Mexico, and the United States signed an agreement renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). By the spring of 2020, all three countries had approved this agreement—known in the United States as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—through their respective domestic ratification processes. The USMCA entered into force on July 1, 2020, amid

In the spring of 2020, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) authorized the ICC's prosecutor to investigate alleged international crimes committed in Afghanistan. The Trump administration strongly condemned this decision. In an escalation of retaliatory measures against the ICC, President Trump signed an executive order authorizing economic sanctions against foreign persons

On May 21, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies. The treaty, which has been ratified by several former Soviet Republics and most North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members, allows states parties to conduct observation flights over each other's territory to build trust and transparency with respect to arms control

Abstract In The Case of the Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943, the International Court of Justice concluded that it cannot decide a dispute in which a third party's legal interests “would form the very subject-matter of the decision.” This Article argues that what has become known as the Monetary Gold principle conflicts with the Court's obligation to decide cases submitted by consenting parties

so skillfully and systematically interlaces national religious and secular law in the Islamic context with important choices states make in the international legal system. Powell is one of the few Western scholars who demonstrates that the label “Islamic law” is about as simplistic as “Western law.” This book successfully connects the legal and especially the constitutional variation within Islamic

The International Law Commission (ILC) was scheduled to hold its seventy-second session from April 27 to June 5 and from July 6 to August 7, 2020 in Geneva. 1 The COVID-19 pandemic, however, precluded the Commission members traveling to and meeting in Geneva. This short essay explains that it became necessary to postpone the session until 2021 and to address various collateral matters, including whether

practice would have been useful, particularly in evaluating how their authority to interpret— and their agenda in applying—treaties differ from states (the authority and agenda of international courts is not, for example, that of a state party, even assuming both operate in good faith). That said, Nolte does recognize actors’ perceptions of treaties can change quickly and that we “may be facing another

sive development over time, both formally with regard to the ICC, and in many local settings where the content of the norm can be defined and applied. Indeed, from a pluralist perspective the limited reach of ICC jurisdiction may actually be beneficial, both because it renders the jurisdictional assertion less subject to immediate backlash and because it provides more room for courts, tribunals, and

At the same time that Justice Robert H. Jackson helped to construct the Nuremberg tribunal at the end of World War II, he also sought to end aggressive war altogether. As he noted in his famous opening statement at the tribunal, the prosecution aimed “to utilize international law tomeet the greatest menace of our times—aggressive war.”1 Nevertheless, although the Nuremberg court tried twenty-two Nazi

Abstract This introduction provides an overview of thirteen essays selected in response to a worldwide call for papers for an Agora on “The International Legal Order and the Global Pandemic.” The essays in the Agora consider some of the most pressing challenges, as well as potential opportunities, that COVID-19 is creating for the international legal order. The specific topics addressed include the

Abstract The responses of states and the WHO to the COVID-19 pandemic reveal the considerable weaknesses of international organizations. Although the Trump administration has misdiagnosed the WHO's ills, the WHO has indeed failed to meet the public health threat posed by the coronavirus. The WHO's responses to the current crisis demonstrate that it shares five disorders common to other UN system expert-driven

Abstract In this Essay, I argue that the World Health Organization (WHO) has not been equipped with the necessary authority to adequately fulfill its mission. The WHO was built on the mistaken assumption that attaining adequate global health is a matter of high-level coordination. However, the challenge of global health governance is, crucially, also one of complex political cooperation. I distinguish

Abstract This Essay examines a series of paradoxes that have rendered the international legal order's mechanisms for collective action powerless precisely when they are needed most to fight COVID-19. The “patriotism paradox” is that disengagement from the international legal order weakens rather than strengthens state sovereignty. The “border paradox” is that securing domestic populations by excluding