Since the conclusion of the Paris Agreement, climate litigation has become a global phenomenon, casting courts as important players in multilevel climate governance. However, most climate litigation scholarship focuses on court actions in the Global North. This Article is the first to shine a light on the Global South's contribution to transnational climate litigation. Analysis of this experience is essential if transnational climate jurisprudence is to contribute meaningfully to global climate governance, and to ensuring just outcomes for the most climate-vulnerable.

The scope of international criminal jurisdiction poses a fundamental challenge for criminal law theory. Prevailing justifications for the state's authority to punish crime assume the existence of connections between the state and either the criminal or the crime that are not always present in the international criminal context. Recognizing this gap, this Article introduces a new theory of what distinguishes international crimes from domestic crimes and justifies the unusual scope of international criminal jurisdiction. As this Article explains, international crimes are unique in the way they undermine international society's structure as a system of sovereign states.

Decolonization and its quite valid discontents lay at the center of this advisory opinion regarding the territory and populations of islands located in the Indian Ocean. Answering questions posed by the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) concluded that because the Chagos Archipelago was detached from Mauritius as a condition of independence, the decolonization of Mauritius had not been completed in accordance with international law. The Court further ruled unlawful the United Kingdom's continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago and called upon all UN member states to aid completion of the decolonization process. Nearly unanimous—the sole dissenter on the merits was Judge Joan E. Donoghue of the United States—the advisory opinion contained significant pronouncements on decolonization, on the right of all peoples to self-determination, and on the formation of customary rules respecting both. It did so in a manner that implicated the ICJ's role as the judicial organ of the United Nations, in whose General Assembly and other political bodies the next episodes in the Chagos controversy seem destined to unfold.

On April 8, 2016, the Egyptian government announced the signing of a “Convention of Demarcation of the Maritime Border” with Saudi Arabia (Convention). Under the Convention, the Red Sea Islands of Tiran and Sanafir lay in Saudi territory. The move was perceived by foreign and domestic observers as the abandonment by Egypt of a long-held territorial and maritime claim in exchange for a loan from Saudi Arabia, and it was challenged before the Egyptian courts. On January 16, 2017, the Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court rendered a judgment annulling the act of cession of the islands on the basis of the Egyptian people's entitlement over them (Judgment). The Judgment triggered a domestic judicial saga, which only ended in 2018. Aside from the intriguing political dimensions of this incident, the Judgment, while interpreting the Egyptian Constitution of 2014, sheds light on some fundamental aspects of international law, namely: the identity of the “holder” of sovereignty and its relations with the “delegatee,” i.e., the government; the contribution of human rights as an analytical frame for this issue; and the validity of a treaty concluded in violation of a state's treaty-making powers, a question for which there is limited practice.

The CJEU held that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) is allowed to unilaterally revoke the notification of its intention to withdraw from the European Union (EU) as long as the revocation is submitted in writing to the European Council before the UK's withdrawal takes effect, and as long as the revocation is “unequivocal and unconditional, that is to say that the purpose of that revocation is to confirm the EU membership of the member state concerned under terms that are unchanged as regards its status as a member state, and that revocation brings the withdrawal procedure to an end” (para. 74).

In Jam v. International Finance Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court held that the International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945 (IOIA) affords international organizations (IOs) the same immunity from suit in U.S. courts that foreign governments currently enjoy under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), which codifies the restrictive theory of foreign sovereign immunity. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) had argued that the IOIA, which grants international organizations the “‘same immunity’ from suit … ‘as is enjoyed by foreign governments’” (p. 15), should be understood to provide international organizations with absolute immunity, which it argued foreign governments enjoyed prior to the United States’ explicit adoption of the restrictive theory in 1952. Under the restrictive theory, a foreign state is immune from suit for its sovereign acts (acta jure imperii), but not for its commercial acts (acta jure gestionis). By interpreting language in the IOIA as granting the “same immunity” to international organizations as foreign governments enjoy at the time the suit is filed, the Supreme Court aligned the regime for IO immunity with that of foreign state immunity, except in cases where the IO's founding charter provides a different rule or where the executive branch has explicitly limited immunity. It remains to be seen what IO activities are deemed “commercial” under this regime and what types of transactions are found to have a sufficient nexus to the United States to fall within the FSIA's commercial-activity exception.

In a speech before the National Rifle Association (NRA) on April 26, 2019, President Trump announced that he was requesting the return of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) from the Senate and that the United States would unsign this treaty. Shortly thereafter, Trump issued a formal letter to the Senate requesting the ATT's return. As of late September, the Senate had not formally approved Trump's request. Nonetheless, on July 18, 2019, the Trump administration communicated to the secretary-general of the United Nations that the United States does not intend to become a party to the ATT and thus has no future legal obligations stemming from signature.

In July of 2019, the U.S. Senate gave advice and consent to protocols updating tax treaties with Spain, Switzerland, Japan, and Luxembourg, after a nearly decade-long period during which no tax treaties were approved by the Senate. This drought was primarily due to the privacy concerns of a single senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, who deployed the Senate's procedural rules to increase the difficulty of the advice and consent process. Tax treaties with Hungary, Chile, and Poland, as well as a protocol to a multilateral tax convention, remained pending in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as of mid-August of 2019.

With only three remaining members of what is supposed to be a seven-member body, the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Appellate Body may soon cease to function. Since 2016, the United States has blocked the reappointment of Appellate Body members and rejected over a dozen proposals to launch selection processes that could fill the remaining vacancies. As a lead reason for these blocks, the United States has cited concerns about the practice whereby members whose terms have expired continue to serve on appeals to which they were previously appointed. On December 10, 2019, the terms of two Appellate Body members will expire, leaving only one member remaining. Because the WTO's dispute settlement process requires three Appellate Body members for each appeal, WTO members will be unable to make any new appeals by this year's end unless a solution emerges to the current impasse.

The Arctic Council convened for the eleventh time in early May 2019 in Rovaniemi, Finland, for a two-day conference. On May 7, the Arctic Council released a Joint Ministerial Statement that affirmed the desire of the eight member states to work together to face upcoming challenges but made no substantive commitments and no mention of climate change. In remarks to the Council, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed wariness about collective decision making and warned against potential effects of Chinese activity in the Arctic.

The Trump administration has continued its efforts to restrict immigration through a series of measures designed to limit the availability of asylum in the United States and to promote increased immigration enforcement in Mexico. In July of 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) promulgated an interim final rule disqualifying asylum applicants who transited through third countries without seeking protection in those countries. This rule immediately became the subject of ongoing litigation, and, in September of 2019, the Supreme Court stayed an injunction that had been issued against its enforcement, with two justices dissenting. At the international level, over the summer and early fall of 2019, threats of economic sanctions led Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico to make agreements with the United States aimed at curbing unauthorized migration into the United States. Guatemala signed an agreement with the United States under which asylum applicants in the United States who had transited through Guatemala on the way could be returned to Guatemala to pursue their asylum claims. El Salvador and Honduras also reached agreements with the United States relating to migration. Mexico committed to increasing its efforts to stem the flow of unauthorized immigration through its borders and assented to the U.S. expansion of its Migrant Protection Protocols. The Trump administration has continued pursuing other tactics to limit immigration and the availability of asylum, including through the issuance of legal decisions by Attorney General William Barr and continued litigation surrounding the construction of a border wall.

On July 8, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo established a Commission on Unalienable Rights. The Commission will “provide the Secretary of State advice and recommendations concerning international human rights matters … [and] provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights.” The Commission has an initial two-year mandate. Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that the Commission will circumvent existing structures and challenge LGBTQ+ protections and reproductive rights.

In the face of rising tensions between Iran and the United States, some members of Congress have urged the Trump administration to clarify whether it believes it has congressional authorization to use force against Iran. In June of 2019, the U.S. State Department issued a letter stating that it had not “to date” interpreted either the 2001 or the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001 AUMF and 2002 AUMF, respectively) “as authorizing military force against Iran, except as may be necessary to defend U.S. or partner forces engaged in counterterrorism operations or operations to establish a stable, democratic Iraq.”

On June 10, 2019, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in a case in which the D.C. Circuit held that the United States could continue to detain an individual at Guantánamo Bay until the cessation of the hostilities that justified his initial detention, notwithstanding the extraordinary length of the hostilities to date. The case, Al-Alwi v. Trump, arises from petitioner Moath Hamza Ahmed Al-Alwi's petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the legality of his continued detention at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay. The Supreme Court's denial of certiorari was accompanied by a statement by Justice Breyer observing that “it is past time to confront the difficult question” of how long a detention grounded in the U.S. response to the September 11 attacks can be justified.