China’s Trap in the Waters Around Guam

The beginning of August 2017 saw the United States and the Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK) trading rhetoric that appeared to threaten nuclear war. It is possible, however, that the entire situation was an international legal trap laid for the United States. What at first instance appears to be two irrational state actors threatening … Read more

Schengen Fails Under Weight of Migrant Influx as Sovereignty Trumps

  The migrant crisis is forcing tensions between the free-movement created by the Schengen Agreement and notions of state sovereignty.  The crisis has brought into questions of European solidarity as countries force migrants from one country to the next.  In practice the EU’s Dublin Regulation, which requires that a migrant’s asylum claim be processed in the European country … Read more

Intervention: Altruistic Benevolence or International Tyranny?

John Donne famously declared, “[n]o man is an island.” Similarly, “no state is an island,” as states are inevitably impacted by the actions of others. But does this mean that any connection, however attenuated, justifies one state’s interference with another? Is this kind of interference ever justified? Is there ever an obligation on states to … Read more

Where Does Outer Space Begin?

Liftoff

A state’s jurisdiction once went from the depths of Hell to the heights of Heaven.  Airplanes challenged this tradition, and satellites ended it.  Since then, the upper limit of a state’s sovereignty has been long debated.  Today, there is a distinction between airspace—where a state is sovereign—and outer space—which is res communis.  Despite the distinction, there is … Read more

Chinese Perspectives Part 3: Sovereignty

The Great Wall of China

“In the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the principle of sovereignty ranks first.  It is the main principle to which the other four principles are related.  It is linked to territorial integrity and supplemented by the principles of non-intervention and non-aggression.  Equality and mutual benefit is the concrete expression of the sovereignty of a State, … Read more