The Paris Agreement advances a heterogeneous approach to international climate cooperation. Such an approach may be undermined by carbon leakage—the displacement of emissions from states with more to less stringent climate policy constraints. Border carbon adjustments offer a promising response to leakage, but they also raise concerns about their compatibility with international trade law. This Article provides a comprehensive analysis of border carbon adjustments and proposes a way to design them that balances legal, administrative, and environmental considerations.

This Article argues that international investment agreements (IIAs) serve a dual economic function—to discipline host country policies that impose international externalities on foreign investors, and to curtail inefficient risks associated with agency costs, risk aversion, asymmetric information, and time inconsistency problems that uneconomically increase the cost of imported capital in host countries. It draws on the economic analysis to explain central features of IIAs and their evolution over time, and to address various controversial issues in international investment litigation.

In 1822, the Russian czar resolved a dispute over compensation for slaves fleeing to British lines during the War of 1812. American observers have long asserted that this canonical decision favored the United States. But new debate has recently arisen among historians. Uncovering evidence from diplomatic archives, this Article concludes that the czar did indeed side with the United States. Moreover, the case demonstrates how nineteenth-century American statesmen pressed international law into service in support of slavery.

On May 30, 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) ordered Peru to review the presidential pardon granted to former president and dictator Alberto Fujimori, who had been convicted and imprisoned for his role in serious human rights violations. The Peruvian Supreme Court obliged and, after examining the merits of the presidential pardon through a special procedure set up to assess the pardon's conformity with international human rights law, invalidated the pardon, effectively reinstating Fujimori's imprisonment for crimes against humanity.

In Cortec v. Kenya, an investor-state arbitral tribunal established under a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) held it lacked jurisdiction to hear a dispute concerning a mining project that the tribunal found did not comply with domestic environmental law. The award raises significant issues of public international law, including how questions of investor compliance are considered in investor-state dispute settlement and the legal implications of investor noncompliance. The issues resonate with wider debates about balancing investor rights and obligations in the international investment regime.

In Georgia v. Russia (I) (Just Satisfaction), the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) ordered the Russian Federation to pay Georgia EUR 10 million as reparation for Russia's “coordinated policy of arresting, detaining and expelling Georgian nationals” in the autumn of 2006 (paras. 51, 80). In so doing, the Court reaffirmed its position from Cyprus v. Turkey (IV) (Just Satisfaction) that financial compensation for non-pecuniary damage can be awarded in interstate cases. Although Georgia v. Russia (I) (Just Satisfaction) marks the development of a new line of ECtHR jurisprudence, it is unlikely that the decision will effectively prevent further mass violations of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR or Convention) by the states parties or offer fair compensation to the victims of such violations.

The ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court in Judgment No. 1263/2018, recognizing, for the first time, the binding character of the Views of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), augmented the normative authority of the Views of the human rights treaty monitoring body, not only at the domestic level, but also within the international legal sphere. In the Judgment, the Spanish highest court held that the government must comply with the Views of the CEDAW Committee as a matter of the state's constitutional mandate as well as its international obligations. The Court's interpretation in this case meets the expectation of human rights treaty monitoring bodies that states are obligated to respond to their Views concerning individual communications, despite some states parties’ claims to the contrary.

On October 30, 2018, the South Korean Supreme Court, in an 11–2 decision, upheld the judgment of the lower court, which ordered New Nippon Steel Corporation, a Japanese company, to provide KRW 100 million (approximately USD 84,000) in compensation to each of the four plaintiffs, who were forced to work at Japanese steel mills during World War II. In an earlier 2012 decision, the Supreme Court remanded the case after holding that the claims were not precluded by the Agreement on the Settlement of Problems Concerning Property and Claims and the Economic Cooperation Between the Republic of Korea and Japan (Claims Agreement). The Supreme Court held that the Claims Agreement was not a result of negotiation about compensation for Japanese colonization, but rather was a political agreement the purpose of which was to resolve the financial and civil debt/credit relationship between Korea and Japan. On the final appeal, the Supreme Court concluded that plaintiffs’ claims were directly related to the illegality of Japan's colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula and that the rights of the victims of forced labor to make a compensation claim did not fall within the scope of the Claims Agreement.

The Trump administration formally recognized Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela on January 23, 2019, making the United States the first nation to officially accept the legitimacy of Guaidó’s government and reject incumbent President Nicolás Maduro's claim to the presidency. In a campaign designed to oust Maduro from power, the United States has encouraged foreign governments and intergovernmental organizations to recognize Guaidó and has imposed a series of targeted economic sanctions to weaken Maduro's regime. As of June 2019, however, Maduro remained in power within Venezuela.

On April 8, 2019, President Trump announced that his administration would designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This is the first time the United States has designated an arm of another government, rather than a non-state actor, as an FTO. In his announcement, Trump asserted that the Iranian government has used the IRGC to engage in a campaign of global terrorism. The measure, which officially took effect on April 15, expands on previous terrorism-related sanctions imposed on the IRGC and Iran.

In a reversal of decades of U.S. foreign policy, on March 25, 2019, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic piece of territory captured by Israel from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967. This move, which generated international criticism, is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration that advance the interests of the Israeli government.

On February 1, 2019, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted a motion for default judgment and entered a $302,511,836.00 award against the Syrian Arab Republic (“Syria”). The court found the Syrian government liable for the death of Marie Colvin, who died in an artillery shelling on February 22, 2012, at a media center in the city of Homs. Colvin was a heralded war correspondent who had previously “cover[ed] conflict zones in Iraq, Chechnya, the Balkans, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, and Libya.” Colvin's heirs brought suit, claiming that because Syria had been designated a “state sponsor of terrorism,” it could be held liable for an extrajudicial killing of a U.S. national under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Judge Amy Berman Jackson concluded that the plaintiffs met the evidentiary burden required to support their claim after finding personal and subject matter jurisdiction.

On April 4, 2019, the United States revoked the visa of Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This action occurred less than a month after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that, except to the extent otherwise required by the UN Headquarters Agreement, the United States would impose visa restrictions on “those individuals directly responsible for any ICC investigation of U.S. personnel.” In her preliminary investigation into the situation in Afghanistan, Bensouda had specifically listed war crimes by U.S. military and intelligence agencies as one of several categories of crimes that her office found reason to believe had occurred. Approximately one week after Bensouda's visa revocation, the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) denied her request to move forward with an investigation of the situation in Afghanistan.

On February 2, 2019, the United States formally notified Russia that it would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in six months and that, effective immediately, it was suspending its performance under the treaty in light of Russia's material breach. This decision came more than three months after the Trump administration indicated that the United States was planning to withdraw from the treaty.

Since entering office, President Trump has taken steps to restructure the U.S. military to raise the profile of both its cybersecurity and space capabilities. The administration has elevated U.S. Cyber Command to a Unified Combatant Command and has implemented policies signaling a shift toward a more offensive cybersecurity mindset. The administration has also begun the process of establishing a U.S. Space Command, as well as pursuing a plan to create a new branch of the military centered around space-related operations. Although this restructuring does not by itself implicate international law, it might do so if it results in operational changes.

On April 9, 2019, the United States and Peru reached a resolution regarding concerns about Peru's forest sector obligations under the 2007 United States–Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA). At issue was Peru's relocation of the Agency for the Supervision of Forest Resources and Wildlife (OSINFOR) to a “subordinate position” in its Ministry of Environment in December 2018. The United States requested consultations under the PTPA on the ground that this relocation conflicted with a provision in the Environment Chapter's “Annex on Forest Sector Governance” (Forest Annex), which states that “OSINFOR shall be an independent and separate agency.” Following the consultations, Peru agreed to restore OSINFOR to its original location within the Peruvian government.