Posted on May 30, 2009 by Valentina Azarov
The question of the Palestinian refugees from 1948 onwards is often righteously seen at the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the discussion surrounding this issue is too often politicised to the degree that there is no sight of the actual applicable international legal framework. Professor Mutaz Qafisheh presently a professor of international law at [...]
Filed under: History of International Law, Human Rights, Middle East Crisis, Public International Law, Publications, Relevant Literature, United Nations, international justice | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 29, 2009 by Dominik Zimmermann
International legal scholarship on 27. May lost one of its leading figures: Thomas M Franck passed away after a long struggle against cancer. At his last scholarly position he was Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law Emeritus at NYU. Professor Franck was the author of more than thirty books and numerous articles in the [...]
Filed under: In Memoriam, Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 28, 2009 by Jernej Letnar Černič
Professor John Ruggie, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (hereinafter J. Ruggie), and his team, have recently published 2009 report on ‘Business and human rights: Towards operationalizing the »the protect, respect and remedy« framework« (U.N. Doc. A/HRC/11/13/, 22 April 2009). In his [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, human rights and business, international justice | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 27, 2009 by Dominik Zimmermann
[Thanks to Emilie Hunter, Research and Programmes Coordinator at the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre for drawing our attention to this:] Everybody who has worked with international criminal law and/or the Internetional Criminal Court has probably encountered the so-called Legal Tools of the ICC. The Legal Tools is basically a collection of ‘legal [...]
Filed under: ICC, International Criminal Law, Web contents | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 27, 2009 by Ole W. Pedersen
As noted by Dominik, President Obama yesterday nominated Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacant seat on the US Supreme Court. Over on PrawfsBlwag Paul Howitz has an outstanding post on the, to many Europeans, obscure process which is now starting. Credit to Professor Howitz for bringing out Frankfurt’s work on bullshit – it would seem [...]
Filed under: Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 26, 2009 by Dominik Zimmermann
Today the US President announced that he is nominating federal judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York for the Supreme Court (LA Times report). If confirmed in replacing Justice David Souter, Judge Sotomayor would be the first hispanic Supreme Court Justice (due to her Puerto Rican parents) and the third female justice (following Sandra Day O’Connor [...]
Filed under: Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 22, 2009 by Ole W. Pedersen
To many human rights, environmental and corporate social responsibility scholars the name of Ken Saro-Wiwa is all too familiar. Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian author and environmental campaigner fighting the exploitation of natural resources and alleged human rights violation in his native Ogoniland in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. In 1995, Saro-Wiwa was executed by the [...]
Filed under: Corporations in International Law, Environmental Law, Responsibility to protect, human rights and business | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 20, 2009 by Dominik Zimmermann
Although it was launched already in late February 2009 I only today noticed that Professor Anthony Clark Arend from Georgtown University established a new blog on international law. According to its own description the blog will contain “[c]ommentary and analysis at the intersection of international law and politics.” Check it out, its well worth it. And of [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, International Law Blog, Web contents | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 19, 2009 by innomawire
The African Union has given birth to a new entity, the African Union Commission on International Law (AUCIL). This new advisory organ to the AU is established in terms of Article 2 of the Statute of the African Union Commission on International Law that was adopted by the Assembly of the Union during the 12th [...]
Filed under: African Union, International and national law, Public International Law | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 19, 2009 by Dominik Zimmermann
I. Introduction On April 7, 2009 the third section[1] of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: ECtHR) issued a judgment in the Case of Mendel v. Sweden,[2] which is of significance not because it adds another precedent to the long standing case law delimitating the scope of Art. 6 European Convention on Human Rights [...]
Filed under: Europeam Court of Human Rights, Human Rights, Regional Human Rights, Regional Human Rights Protection | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 18, 2009 by James Harrison
As if it was not already busy enough, the workload of the Commission on the Limits of the Outer Continental Shelf just got much bigger. The deadline for those states who became a party to the Law of the Sea Convention prior to 13 May 1999 to make their submissions to the Commission was on [...]
Filed under: Law of the sea, Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 16, 2009 by Jernej Letnar Černič
The US government published in February 2009 its decision that it will not renew its contract with the private security corporation formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide. Such a decision comes as no surprise given the allegations of killing 17 civilians by Blackwater guards, coupled with the Iraqi government’s refusal to extend Blackwater’s operating license. This [...]
Filed under: Corporations in International Law, human rights and business | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 15, 2009 by Valentina Azarov
The Israeli Supreme Court has recently rejected a petition that was filed by two NGO demanding that a criminal investigation be conducted into the 2004 Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, including, amongst other atrocities, the indiscriminate killings that took place in Rafah and the disproportionate damage incurred by the population of the southern [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, Middle East Crisis, Non Governmental Organizations, Public International Law, Publications, international justice | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 11, 2009 by Ole W. Pedersen
In today’s NY Times, former president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel adds his voice to the chorus criticising the UN’s Human Rights Council. Tomorrow, the General Assembly will elect the 47 Member States of the Council for the coming term. Prominent new Member States include the United States, China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, United Nations | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 10, 2009 by franzebert
According to the Annual Report 2008 of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti continue to have serious human rights problems (see here for the report). The Commission’s Report, which was presented to the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs of the Organization of American States on 8 May of this [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, Public International Law, Regional Human Rights, Regional Human Rights Protection | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 8, 2009 by Jernej Letnar Černič
We are very glad to welcome Fozia Nazir Lone as a new author on International Law Observer. Fozia was recently appointed as an Assistant Professor at the City University of Hong Kong. She successfully completed her PhD without any corrections on ‘Restoration of Historical Title and the Kashmir Question: An International Legal Appraisal’ from the University of [...]
Filed under: Public International Law | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 7, 2009 by Dominik Zimmermann
The Journal of International Criminal Justice has issued an announcement on the new ‘Antonio Cassese Prize for International Criminal Law Studies’. This award will be a biennial prize to the author of the most original and innovative paper published in the JICJ in the two years preceding the award. According to the announcement, the aim [...]
Filed under: International Criminal Law, Publications, Scholarship | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 5, 2009 by Ole W. Pedersen
Over on the ECHR Blog, Antoine Buyse has, as usual, a very good piece on the most recent attempts by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to address the increasing caseload of the European Court of Human Rights. In light of Protocol 14 being stuck, the latest attempt includes the adoption of [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, Human Rights, Regional Human Rights Protection | 1 Comment »
