After a series of airborne incursions last week, the latest news coming from Russia is the threat issued on March 20th, 2015, to Denmark. In quite an unsavoury piece published in a prominent Danish newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten, the Russian Ambassador to Denmark warned that the Scandinavian country would expose its warships to nuclear strikes if it accepted to host part …
Read More »Robert Mugabe, new head of the African Union, the latest pun from Africa
On January 30th, 2015, Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe was elected as the new annual chairman of the African Union. The 90-year-old, seven times elected President of the former British colony seems an outrageous choice given that any other head of state from the Southern region of the African Union could have been elected in his stead, a region that …
Read More »Why Nationality is a Contentious Principle of Public International Law. Part 1: The Nottebohm Case.
Nationality seems to be the most simple and uncontentious notion of Public International Law, and even one of the pillars of State sovereignty. Legally defined as the judicial link between a State – which is allowed by international custom to choose how and to whom it will grant nationality – and a person, nationality concedes rights and duties in both …
Read More »A New Architecture For The European Commission: Will “Project Teams” Improve Leadership In The EU?
President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker announced earlier this month that he would give EU leadership a new architecture through the building of the so-called “Project teams” around his 6 Vice-Presidents. Meant to allow a more inclusive and dynamic interaction between European Commissioners, this new structure at the top level of the European Commission is the technical tool chosen by Mr. Juncker to …
Read More »Why do the oil prices are so weak?
Since June 2014, in spite of the recent major geopolitical events, the oil prices are falling under the symbolic 100 US dollars per barrel. Four factors explain this unexpected drop. Firstly, two current geopolitical crisis (in Iraq and Libya) were supposed to impact the oil markets, but they didn’t. Indeed, in Iraq, the large part of the oil resources is …
Read More »Scottish Independence: An International Law Perspective
On Thursday 18th September 2014, a referendum will take place in Scotland on whether what has been a part of the United Kingdom (UK) since the Act of Union 1707 “should be an independent country”. Scotland had already been granted huge autonomy by London with the Scotland Act 1998 and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. However, the …
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