Chagos Islands

On December 7, Philippe Sands, lawyer, author and professor of international law, delivered the Fourth Annual Seamus Heaney Lecture at the Institute of Irish Studies of the University of Liverpool. The lecture told the story of Sands' latest book, The Last Colony. The book describes Britain's colonial legacy in the Chagos Islands and Sands' efforts, in a series of jurisdictions, to make it possible for Chagossians to return to the islands where they had been forcibly removed. 1h40 min., no transcript but really excellent subtitles you can activate.

Law in Action Is Back

The BBC's Law in Action  begins the new series with a programme which examines, among other topics, the legal questions concerning the war in Ukraine. Presenter Joshua Rozenberg interviews international lawyer Philippe Sands. 29 min., no transcript.

Harvard Law School Celebrates Its 200 Years

Harvard Law School, founded in 1817, is celebrating its 200th birthday this year.  It organized an October summit for exploring big ideas, “HLS in the World” with videos of many of the events posted on YouTube. You can find them here. There are so many that it's hard to offer a selection on this blog, but one of the most popular is an interview with Harold Koh and Samantha Power about their careers as academics and government officials in the area of international law. Another one is a discussion with three federal appellate judges about how they work. Part of the celebration even included a re-argument of the landmark Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison. The videos posted are usually about 1h 30 min, no transcript, but often good subtitles.
The law school appears to be adding more videos in addition to the 30 already posted.

Raising the Bar

Raising the Bar, on BBC Radio 5, has started a new series of programmes about the law.The first, available for another three weeks, has interviews with judges about their profession. The second, available later today for one month, talks about international law. The third, which will air August 7, is about terrorism law in the UK. 60 min, no transcript.

Michael Sandel - Global Philosopher

Harvard professor Michael Sandel has started a new series on BBC Radio 4 - The Global Philosopher. He examines the question of the treatment of refugees and immigrants with a group of people from many countries. You can find « Should Borders Matter? » here. 30 min, no transcript. There should be more to come.

Climate Change and the Rule of Law

 A symposium held in London (King’s College London Dickson Poon School of Law and the Supreme Court) 17-19 September examined climate change and the rule of law. Professor Philippe Sands QC gave a public lecture on the role of international law and judges in addressing legal issues relating to climate change. Professor Sands' talk was followed by comments from Professor James Crawford, Judge of the International Court of Justice, and Professor Lavanya Rajamani of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. 1 h, 31 min, transcript available for Professor Sands’ talk here. The UKL website for the symposium has short interviews (7 - 12 min) with some symposium speakers, no transcripts available for these interviews.

Two Special Sites for International Law 

The U.N. has created an Audiovisual Library of International Law. You can find a list of the available lectures here. A good start for exploring the series might be Ruth Wedgwood’s lecture "Human Rights Bodies - Introduction" (37 minutes, no transcript)
In addition to lectures from the last few years, the site also has historic archives -- for instance discussion on the Draft Convention on Genocide at Paris, 9 December 1948 (10 min 44 sec, no transcript).

The webside of The European Journal of International Law (EJIL) has something they call EJIL: Live! The latest addition is an extended "Fireside Chat" between the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, Professor Joseph Weiler and Professor Jan Klabbers of the University of Helsinki, whose article "The Transformation of International Organizations Law", appears in Volume 26, Issue 1 of the review. 37 min, no transcript.

Borders and Copyright on Public Radio International

PRI’s program, The Takeaway, of July 30, has two stories of potential interest to readers of this blog. One is about a border dispute between Canada and the United States, and the other is about copyright to the Happy Birthday song. 6 min 11 sec for the border story and 1 min 08 sec for the song. For a longer story about the song, see this post.

Klimt's The Lady in Gold and the Battle over the Painting's Ownership

Maria Altman had to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to recover the painting of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, 'lost' in Hitler's Third Reich. You can read the decision which held that Austria could not benefit from the doctrine of sovereign immunity and so could be sued by Altman here.
The story has just been made into a movie Woman in Gold. You can hear Nina Totenberg, NPR’s legal correspondent, tell Altman’s story and talk about Totenberg’s interview with her a decade ago here. A book by journalist Anne-Marie O’Connor, The Lady in Gold, also tells the tale. 7 min 25 sec, transcript available.

The Effectiveness of International Law

The University of Chicago Law School has posted video and audio recordings of a November 2014 talk in their "Chicago's Best Ideas" lecture series. Adam Chilton speaks about "Why We Know Very Little About the Effectiveness of International Law, and How Experiments Might Help to Change That". Chilton gives an interesting presentation of how to construct research experiments in social sciences. 38 min. of Chilton then 20 min. of questions, no transcript, but a short article about the talk is available. Very interesting.

Update on Julian Assange

NPR has a story here about Julian Assange's plans to leave the Ecuadorial embassy in London after two years. 3 min 53 sec.

Civilians in War

Philosophy Bites of July 19 presents Seth Lazar, professor of philosophy at the Australian National University discussing what the fate of civilians in war should be. 15 min 56 sec, no transcript but you will find a link to Lazar's articles on the subject.

War, Protection and the Law

The Legal Directorate of the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office's 2nd Annual International Law Lecture was delivered by Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who spoke on "War, Protection and the Law" 41 min, no transcript. The lecture was followed by almost 30 minutes of Q and A. When speaking, Maurer uses the abbreviation IHL (i-chel) to refer to International Humanitarian Law.

Morality and the Law

The BBC Radio 4 program "Michael Sandel: The Public Philosopher" began a series of three lectures on May 13, recorded with an audience at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands, entitled "Morality and the State". Mr Sandel, a Harvard professor, teaches a famous course there called Justice. The lectures are : Morality and the State ; Why Vote? and National Guilt.
Audio only, downloadable, 42 min, no transcript.

Goldstone on the Politics of International Justice

Legally Speaking produced by the University of California Television has an interview with South Africa's Judge Richard Goldstone - The Politics of International Justice. 58 min, video and audio, no transcript, but an article with edited excerpts of the interview is available here.

Climate change refugees?

Can climate change enable someone to acquire refugee status? Public Radio International (PRI) had a story on November 8 about the case of a man from Kiribati seeking refugee status before the High Court of New Zealand. Susan Martin, director of the Center for International Migration at Georgetown University, says New Zealand will probably not give the man refugee status, but she underlines the need to address the problem of migration in the context of global warming.
7min48sec

A New 'World Court'?

The Rt Hon The Lord Goldsmith QC, Former Attorney General, gave the 2013 annual Gray's Inn Reading on June 27. The lecture, presented by Gresham College in London, was entitled 'The Privatisation of Law: Has a World Court finally been created by modern international arbitration?' audio and video, 60 min, transcript available.

Recent Audio Lectures at London School of Economics

States and their Territories: To the Center of the Earth by Professor A. John Simmons 12 March

States and their Territories: Boundaries of Authority by Professor A. John Simmons 11 March

The End of Impunity for Violence against Women? The Istanbul Convention in Europe by Louise de Sousa, Elda Moreno, Pragna Patel 11 March

Why I Am a Euro-optimist by Alain Juppé 04 March

Rethinking Investment Treaty Law: An Investor's Perspective - Repsol / YPF in Argentina by Pablo Fernandez, Carlos Lopez, Miguel Klingenberg 04 March

Islamic Finance and Shari`a Compliance: reality and expectations by Tan Sri Dato' Azman bin Hj. Mokhtar, Dr Frank Vogel 27 February

The Crisis, the New Eurozone Governance and the Legitimacy of the EU Institutions by Professor Stefano Bartolini 19 February

Freedom of Expression and Hate Speech: What International Human Rights Law Says by Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 15 February

In Conversation with Jean-Paul Costa former president of the European Court of Human Rights 14 February
about 90 min., audio, no transcripts

Law in Action Is Back

BBC Radio 4's Law in Action, with Joshua Rozenberg, began an new series of programmes on 19 February. The first is "Whistleblowing, forgotten children and the legal future of Wales"; the second "Drones, street art and more immigration law". The third will be about the U.K. Supreme Court, with an interview with its President Lord Neuberger.

Seastead - start a new country

NPR's All Things Considered of Dec. 17 has a story entitled Don't Like The Government? Make Your Own, On International Waters — the concept is called seasteading (based on the word 'homestead'). 5 min 36 sec, transcript available