As a disciplinarian of international organizations, reputation has serious shortcomings. Even though international organizations have strong incentives to maintain a good reputation, reputational concerns will sometimes fail to spur preventive or corrective action. Organizations have multiple audiences, so efforts to preserve a “good” reputation may pull organizations in many different directions, and steps taken to preserve a good reputation will not always be salutary. Recent incidents of sexual violence by UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic illustrate these points.

This Article challenges the conventional wisdom that states are always free to choose whether to participate in multilateral regimes. International law often mandates multilateralism to ensure that state laws and practices are compatible with sovereign equality and joint stewardship. The Article maps mandatory multilateralism's domain, defines its requirements, and examines its application to three controversies: the South China Sea dispute, the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and Bolivia's case against Chile in the International Court of Justice.

More than thirteen decades after Chile annexed Bolivia's coastal regions, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) denied Bolivia's longstanding claim that Chile had undertaken a legal obligation to negotiate granting it sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

On June 8, 2018, in a surprising turn, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) reversed the conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo and acquitted him of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The four separate opinions, raising questions about Pre-Trial and Trial Chamber procedures, the standard of Appellate Chamber review, and the scope of command responsibility, have revealed sharp disagreements between ICC judges and created considerable confusion over the state of ICC law and procedure.

In Yesh Din v. Chief of General Staff, IDF, the Israeli Supreme Court (Court) unanimously dismissed two petitions by six human rights NGOs who challenged the rules of engagement (RoE) governing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) activities in clashes near the fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel between March and May 2018. The decision discusses several controversial international law issues relating to the use of force in response to cross-border mass demonstrations. In addition, it provides a closer look at the application of international law by a domestic court that is conscious of a potential International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation.

On September 6, 2018, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) ruled by a majority—Judge Perrin de Brichambaut dissenting—that it has jurisdiction to hear cases concerning crimes that occurred only in part within the territory of a state party to the Rome Statute. In so ruling, the Court granted the ICC prosecutor's request to rule on jurisdiction and confirmed its territorial jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of Rohingya people from the territory of Myanmar (a state not party to the Rome Statute) to Bangladesh (a state party). The Court also affirmed unequivocally its objective international legal personality vis-à-vis non-party states and hinted strongly that the prosecutor should consider the possible prosecution of at least two additional crimes in connection with this situation.

The Trump administration undertook a variety of actions related to the southern U.S. border in late 2018 and early 2019. Pointing to the progress of thousands of migrants traveling together from Central America to the U.S. border, President Trump deployed troops to the border and issued a proclamation providing that access to asylum would only be available at the southern border to those who entered through an authorized port of entry. Legal challenges to this proclamation and its implementation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immediately followed, and a federal district court issued a temporary restraining order on November 19 and a preliminary injunction on December 19 against its enforcement. In addition, after ongoing negotiations with Mexico, the Trump administration announced that it would implement an arrangement under which asylum seekers would await their court date in Mexico rather than the United States. These ongoing developments are part of broader attempts by the Trump administration to erect barriers to migration across the southern border.

In late 2018, the American Law Institute released a volume of the Restatement Fourth of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. Initiated in October 2012 under the direction of Coordinating Reporters Sarah Cleveland and Paul Stephan, this volume covers three areas of U.S. foreign relations law: treaties, jurisdiction, and sovereign immunity. It remains to be seen whether the American Law Institute will revisit other portions of the Restatement Third, which was published in 1987. “[I]n the meantime, the provisions of the Third Restatement remain the position of The American Law Institute except where superseded by provisions in this Fourth Restatement.”

On December 1, 2018, Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom manufacturer Huawei, in Vancouver as she was going from Hong Kong to Mexico. Meng, who has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with crimes relating to violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran, is currently awaiting an extradition hearing in Canada. Her arrest has complicated efforts to reach a resolution to the ongoing U.S-China trade dispute while straining relations between China and Canada, which is seeking the release of several Canadians detained by China in apparent retaliation for Meng's arrest.

Begun over seven years ago, the conflict in Syria became and remains a humanitarian crisis. The United States entered the conflict in 2014 and has since been involved through its use of airstrikes and deployment of ground forces. On December 19, 2018, President Trump announced his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. In the months subsequent to this announcement, unsettled questions have lingered regarding a timeline for withdrawal, the fate of the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria, and how the decision to withdraw will affect U.S. interactions with other Middle Eastern countries.

On January 4, 2019, the United States requested consultations with Peru with respect to its forest governance obligations under the 2007 United States – Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA). The PTPA has an environmental chapter with robust terms that were included largely at the insistence of members of Congress, reflecting concerns that a free trade agreement with Peru could increase the country's export of illegally logged wood to the United States. The request for consultations focused on Peru's decision to relocate its Agency for the Supervision of Forest Resources and Wildlife (OSINFOR) to within Peru's Ministry of Environment—a change that, in the view of the United States, “appears to conflict” with a PTPA obligation that “‘OSINFOR shall be an independent and separate agency.’”

On December 28, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held in Simon v. Republic of Hungary that fourteen Hungarian Jewish survivors of the Holocaust could continue to pursue their claims against Hungary and its state-owned railway. In a 2–1 decision authored by Judge Millett, the D.C. Circuit reversed the district court decision that had dismissed the case on two alternative grounds—the principle of international comity and the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The D.C. Circuit thus remanded the long-running case for further proceedings.