International Law Archive

Editor’s note: The following is an unsolicited response to the World Politics Review Briefing, “An Impeccable U.S.-China Incident at Sea.” As both a newsand analysis journal, WPR recognizes that some articles it publisheswill provoke differences of opinion and disagreements ofinterpretation. Our commitment is to airing all sides of acontested issue, so long as they are respectfully expressed.On March 10, 2009, the U.S. Navy surveillance ship Impeccable intruded into Chinese jurisdictional waters, inducing a confrontation with five Chinese ships. The incident raised tension in the South China Sea, which has been the site of international confrontations recently. According to the Chinese […]

Almost as soon as President Barack Obama took office, a chorus of commentators began to demand the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, in the hopes of ushering in a fundamental change in U.S. policy: ending the so called “war on terror” and the preventive detention regime, exemplified by the facility, that it had spawned. If one of President Obama’s first national security decisions was to order the closure of the facility within one year, the president’s decision was more symbolic than substantive. Contrary to the expectations of many Bush critics, nothing in that order would end the […]

The ancient strategist Sun Tzu stated that the acme of military skill consists of defeating one’s enemy without actually engaging him in battle. China’s strategy for advancing its domination of the South China Sea resembles a modern-day attempt to put that advice into practice. With a weak but growing blue-water capability, China is carefully and deliberately promoting a vision that de-legitimizes the forward presence of the U.S. Navy in the region. Last week’s bold and dangerous maneuvers by Chinese government vessels to disrupt a military survey mission 120 km from its coastline is the latest example of that effort. The […]

TOKYO — Japan made it known that it hoped to take advantage of any momentum in reforming the U.N Security Council to secure a seat as a permanent member. The renewed attention to the issue comes in the wake of an announcement by U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann last month that he planned to press forward with reform of the Security Council. Although currently a rotating member until the end of 2010, permanent status has proved elusive for Tokyo. The Japanese government felt it was on to a winning formula during the last major round of reform discussions […]

Remember the age of globalization, if you can. The world was flat. High finance was king. Swelling economic prosperity had lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Capitalism, in a variety of configurations, stretched from one end of the earth to the other. Even individual states were fading in importance, and the threat of a great-power war had all but come to an end. How quickly that utopia has been shattered. In short, the world is very much round again. Investment banking has collapsed. The global financial crisis is elbowing the poor aside. Corruption and rampant irresponsibility have resulted in […]

ADVOCATES CHEER AL-BASHIR WARRANT — Human rights groups from around the world cheered the issue of an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the Intenational Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity. “The ICC represents the best hope for justice for the victims of Darfur,” Dismas Nkunda of the International Refugee Rights Initiative said in a statement released by the Justice for Darfur coalition. “The international community must ensure that Sudan complies with its obligation to cooperate with the ICC, including by handing over anyone subject to an arrest warrant.” Bashir has long been a […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A failure by donors to pay up on financial pledges has pushed the Khmer Rouge tribunal perilously close to the brink of bankruptcy and overshadowed a sensational start to the historic trial of Pol Pot’s surviving lieutenants. Court spokeswoman Helen Jarvis initially told World Politics Review that the tribunal could not make March payroll. This was followed by a hastily arranged press conference where international judges warned earlier this week that corruption remained a key obstacle. “The problems mentioned concerning funding can be resolved once the international community is confident of a corruption-free environment in which […]

Ever since men first put to sea, conflicts have swirled around narrow maritime passages known as choke points. A subset of the broader category of Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs), maritime choke points act as funnels drawing in shipping from surrounding seas. As critical pressure points in naval struggles for “command of the sea,” every navy seeks to secure them while denying their use to the enemy. Homer’s “Iliad” already detailed the epic struggle between Troy — situated on the Dardanelles, the ancient world’s leading choke point — and a coalition of Greek city states whose armies arrived by sea […]

For millennia, the Dead Sea has been fed by the sweet waters of the Jordan River while losing only pure water to relentless evaporation. The collected salts left behind have resulted in an inhospitably briny lake eight times saltier than the sea, topped by a thin layer of the Jordan’s relatively less-dense fresh water. The differing salinity levels between the river and the lake kept the Dead Sea in a perpetually layered state, even while the lake’s overall water level remained fairly constant, since evaporation from the lake’s surface occurs at roughly the rate of the natural flow of the […]

Over the past two years, the Arctic Circle has been the object of both exciting and alarming speculation. The planting of the Russian flag on the North Pole sea floor led to stories of a race to claim its resources. The opening of the fabled Northwest Passage and Russia’s Northern Sea Route led to reports of shortened trade routes — saving thousands of miles and many days at sea — between Europe and the Far East. Government forecasts of large — if as-yet undiscovered — oil and gas reserves have given rise to concerns over sovereignty, security and sustainability throughout […]