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.

As the conflict in Yemen continues, congressional concern over U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in the region has grown. The objects of these concerns include thousands of civilian casualties, a cholera epidemic, and a country on the brink of famine. In October 2018, relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia became further complicated by the brutal death of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent journalist and outspoken critic of the Saudi government.

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.

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 September 10, 2018, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton delivered an address fiercely criticizing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Bolton challenged the legitimacy of the ICC and expressed particular concern over its inquiry into potential war crimes committed by members of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies in Afghanistan. He identified retaliatory measures the United States would undertake if the ICC “comes after us, Israel or other U.S. allies.”

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.

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 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.

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 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 wake of President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reimpose sanctions, Iran instituted proceedings against the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In its application, filed on July 16, 2018, Iran alleged that the re-imposition of sanctions constituted a violation of the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights (Treaty of Amity) between Iran and the United States. In order to prevent “irreparable damages” to the Iranian economy, Iran simultaneously filed a request for provisional measures. After the ICJ issued an order unanimously granting limited provisional measures on October 3, 2018, the United States announced its intention to terminate the Treaty of Amity. The United States issued its first phase of sanctions on August 7, 2018, and the remaining sanctions took effect on November 5, 2018.

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 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.

This review essay examines three intellectual histories focused on fundamental transformations of international law in the early twentieth century. Juan Pablo Scarfi's Hidden History of International Law in the Americas is most interested in debates about a Pan-American international law, meaning the idea that international law might work differently in different regions, which was debated but eventually gave way to the change that Arnulf Becker Lorca, a Lecturer in Public International Law at Georgetown Law, discusses. Becker Lorca's Mestizo International Law is most interested in how the conception that international law applied only to civilized nations transformed into the modern conception that presumes sovereign equality. The Internationalists, by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, respectively the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law and the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School, and seeks to understand how the normal (and legal) recourse to force in international relations was replaced by an international law that bans the use of force, except in self-defense. Ideas regarding these issues started to evolve in the late 1800s, but the transformative debates occurred at roughly the same time because the Hague Peace Conferences and the League of Nations allowed contestations over old versus updated understandings of international law to flourish.

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 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.