My paper, Israel/Palestine — The ICC’s Uncharted Territory, has just been published in the Journal of International Criminal Justice. It explains that the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction over the oft-threatened and much-discussed Palestinian referral of Israeli settlements, despite the General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a non-member state. In brief, the relevant […]
Archive | Global Governance/World Government
International Law Imperialism vs. Proceduralism
By Eugene Kontorovich on October 29, 2013 4:46 pm in Global Governance/World Government, International Law
My op-ed on the African Union and the International Criminal Court at the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (also a good takes at EJIL:Talk and Dov Jacobs): Let us distinguish between the broad currents in international legal thought – what I would call international law “proceduralists” versus “imperialists.” International law has traditionally been procedural–what counts […]
African States Not Quitting ICC, Just Undermining From Within
By Eugene Kontorovich on October 22, 2013 11:50 am in Global Governance/World Government, International Human Rights Law, International Law
[This is en excerpt from an op-ed/short essay I’ve written on the AU action, which is available for publication…] African Union leaders met in an extraordinary summit in Adas Ababa last week to discuss their strained relations with the International Criminal Court (ICC), as it begins trying its first sitting head of state, President Uhuru […]
The Multilateralist Blog Interview on How American Conservatives See the UN Today
David Bosco, who authors the outstanding “The Multilateralist” blog at Foreign Policy (where he is a contributing editor and who is also my American University colleague in the School of International Service), conducted an interview a few weeks ago with the Heritage Foundation’s Brett Schaefer and me on the United Nations. The idea was to ask how […]
France’s Kiobel
By Eugene Kontorovich on May 2, 2013 3:19 pm in Alien Tort Statute, Corporations and Corporate Law, Global Governance/World Government, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Israel, Supreme Court
I wrote yesterday about the French Court of Appeals decision holding that French train companies did not violate international law (and particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention) by building a light rail system in Jerusalem, including areas occupied by Jordan before 1967. The case, PLO v. Alstom, is a perfect foreign coda to the Supreme Court’s […]
Defining “High Seas Felonies” in Another Country
By Eugene Kontorovich on March 18, 2013 9:00 am in Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Foreign and Religious Law in American Courts, Global Governance/World Government, International Law, National Security, Uncategorized, War on Drugs
A district court recently ruled that Congress’s power to “Define and Punish… Felonies on the High Seas” extends beyond the high seas, to conduct entirely within a foreign country (on dry land), with no U.S. nexus. The case is U.S. v. Carvajal, 2013 WL 619890 (Feb. 20, 2013). The Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA) […]
Except the Bill of Rights: The Selective-Strong Treaty Position
By Eugene Kontorovich on January 21, 2013 9:19 pm in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Federalism, Global Governance/World Government, Treaties
Generally, the entire Constitution is seen as having equal weight; there are not tiers of authority (unlike in the constitution’s of many other nations, which make certain provisions suspendable). Thus I have always been puzzled by the dominant view, well-articulated by Prof. Pildes, which manages to account for Missouri v. Holland and Reid v. Covert […]
France’s Mali War & International Law
By Eugene Kontorovich on January 18, 2013 4:36 pm in Global Governance/World Government, International Law, National Security, Uncategorized, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
France is fighting a rather serious war in Mali. What does international law say about this go-it-alone incursion into a foreign country? Given the controversy over recent interventions with mixed motives, such as the U.S. war in Iraq, it is worth consider the international legal basis for the assault and its conduct. I. Security Council […]
The Offenses Clause & Universal Jurisdiction Over Terrorists
By Eugene Kontorovich on January 2, 2013 2:53 pm in Alien Tort Statute, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Global Governance/World Government, International Law, National Security, Terrorism, Uncategorized, War and Armed Conflict
A few days before Christmas, the U.S. indicted three men at the Federal District courthouse in Brooklyn for plotting suicide bomb attacks. This is an extraordinary, almost unique case: none of the people or conduct has any connection to the U.S. The defendants are foreign nationals, captured by some African government ont their way to […]
Prisoner Offshoring, or Gaolbalization
By Eugene Kontorovich on November 19, 2012 8:25 am in Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Eighth Amendment, Global Governance/World Government, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Uncategorized
Belgium and the Netherlands have an interesting arrangement, an example of economics and incentives working clearly in the public law field. Belgium has more convicts than it can accomodate in its prisons. Neighboring Netherlands has the opposite problem: not enough prisoners. Several years ago, it was facing having to shutter some facilities. But then the […]
Arms Trade Treaty conference ends without agreement
By David Kopel on July 27, 2012 5:47 pm in Genocide, Global Governance/World Government, Guns, International Human Rights Law, International Law
The weeks-long conference at the United Nations to produce an Arms Trade Treaty is ending without the creation of a treaty. None of the draft treaties which have circulated in the past several days came remotely close to finding consensus support. The impossibility of achieving consensus involved a wide variety of issues and nations, far […]
ObamaCare and the ATS: Can the Feds Regulate the Whole World?
By Eugene Kontorovich on March 26, 2012 8:35 am in Alien Tort Statute, Constitutional Law, Global Governance/World Government, International Human Rights Law, International Law
Today the Supreme Court takes on the scope of the Commerce Clause in the historic healthcare cases. The case raises the question of whether there are any substantive limits to the federal government’s domestic regulatory power. But another case soon to be (re)argued before the Court, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, manages to raise an […]
Debate on Libya and the War Powers Act
By David Kopel on June 9, 2011 12:56 am in Constitutional Law, Global Governance/World Government, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Russia
Featuring British NGO representative Leslie Vinjamuri (pro-intervention, sees no legal problem), American peace activist Robert Naiman (anti-intervention, considers the intervention unconstitutional), and me (pro-intervention, but opposed to Obama doing it in violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Act). On the RT (formerly, “Russia Today”) television program “Crosstalk.” 27 minutes.
Obama Endorses India for Permanent Security Council Seat, and a Note on Disaggregation of the State and the Globalized New Class
By Kenneth Anderson on November 8, 2010 10:44 am in Global Governance/World Government, International Law, New Class
News services report that President Obama, speaking to the Indian Parliament, has endorsed India receiving a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The AP story adds that this was the biggest applause line in the speech, fully consonant with the rise of Indian nationalism within India, and its rapidly increasing sense of importance in […]
Contracting Around the Security Council, and the International Criminal Court Review Conference
By Kenneth Anderson on January 29, 2010 2:02 pm in Global Governance/World Government, International Law
The United States did not join the International Criminal Court, despite Bill Clinton’s 11th hour signature (followed by the Bush administration’s controversial 1st hour “de-signing”). The ICC now reaches the moment, as is usual in treaties of this kind, to convene a ten year review conference, with an eye to making changes and seeing how […]