Category Archives: International Law

The South China Sea Arbitration: Implications for the Senkaku Islands

One of the big takeaways from the South China Sea arbitration is that the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands are mere “rocks” under Article 121(3) of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea because they “cannot sustain … Continue reading

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How Cosmopolitan Are International Law Professors?

Milan Markovic (Texas A&M) and I just posted a new piece about U.S. professors of international law. Here’s the abstract: This Article offers an empirical answer to a question of interest among scholars of comparative international law: why do American views … Continue reading

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New Article on International Legal Education

I recently posted a draft of a new article on international legal education. The article examines the curriculum of virtually every law school in the world in order to identify global trends in the teaching of international law, and then theorizes … Continue reading

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International Law from a Cuban Perspective

Recently I returned from a trip to Cuba, where I had the opportunity to interview Celeste Pino Canales, a highly regarded professor of public international law at the University of Havana. I pursued the interview for a couple of reasons. … Continue reading

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New Article on Customary International Law

I just posted a draft of a new article that studies citations in published judicial opinions to evaluate how federal courts go about ascertaining customary international law. For those interested, it’s forthcoming in the Iowa Law Review and available here.

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The Senkaku Islands and the Problem of Intertemporality

An underappreciated complexity in the dispute over the Senkaku Islands is that the merits of the competing claims don’t hinge exclusively on contemporary international law. One of the most central issues is whether the Senkakus were terra nullius when Japan … Continue reading

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More Responses to the Dudden Op-ed

The New York Times just published a collection of thoughtful (and warranted) responses to Alexis Dudden’s recent op-ed on Japan’s territorial claims. I wrote earlier that Dudden’s piece disregards international law, and I stand by that. The responses contend that it also misinterprets the … Continue reading

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A Short Response to the Dudden Op-Ed

The New York Times published an op-ed today by University of Connecticut history professor Alexis Dudden, who criticizes the Japanese government for starting or at least intensifying territorial disputes with China, Korea, and Russia. Dudden contends that Japan’s territorial claims … Continue reading

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The Senkakus in the ICJ

The Japan Times published an article today reporting that, in Jerome Cohen’s view, Japan should take the dispute over the Senkaku Islands to the International Court of Justice. From Tokyo’s perspective, this could be a win-win: either China consents to jurisdiction, in … Continue reading

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Thoughts on Proposals for a Sino-Japanese Bargain

Commentary on the longstanding contest over the Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands may be entering a new and more conciliatory phase. A lot of early scholarship focused on the zero-sum question of who has proper title under international law, but more recent analyses have … Continue reading

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