International Law Archive

From revelations about illegal arms sales to leaks to the media about military misconduct in Iraq, whistleblowing by both private and public sector employees has increasingly become a powerful, if often controversial, form of dissent. The United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other intergovernmental bodies have recognized that there is indeed a right to expose corruption, wrongdoing by public bodies, serious threats to health, safety or the environment, and breaches of human rights or humanitarian law. Whistleblowing is protected by both the individual’s right to freedom of expression as well as the public’s right to […]

In October, Turkey invoked the principle of hot pursuit to send hundreds of troops across its border with Iraq following an attack by Kurdish militants within Turkey. In an email interview, Geoffrey S. Corn, professor of law at South Texas College of Law, discussed the international norms of hot pursuit. WPR: What are the main international norms governing hot pursuit across international borders? Geoffrey S. Corn: Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter obligates states to respect the territorial integrity of other states and prohibits military interference with the sovereignty of other states. International law condemns violating this obligation as […]

Scarcely was the ink dry on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s interview with Time magazine in which she extolled U.S. global leadership than the Palestinian bid for membership in UNESCO called into question the secretary’s optimistic appraisal of American influence around the world. Despite the claims of some pundits that a cabal of U.N. bureaucrats somehow engineered Palestine’s admission as a full member state of the organization, the ultimate responsibility lies squarely with the governments that cast their votes in Paris on Monday. Given the importance and sensitivity of the Palestinian question, it is highly unlikely that UNESCO ambassadors were […]