MJIL Blog

By Michael Duchesne On May 19, 1988, Guatemala signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (“the Covenant”)[1] and thereby undertook the duty to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights guaranteed by the treaty.[2] Article 11 of the Covenant recognizes the right of all citizens to “adequate food” and to be “free from […]

By Ryan Miao Investor-State Dispute Settlement (“ISDS”) has always been a controversial issue in international law discussions. This is partially due to a fundamental feature of ISDS is that it only applies to foreign entities and not domestic investors. ISDS represents a notion of “foreign privilege” – the essential characteristic and premise of the law

These are terrifying times for the people of Ukraine and horrifying for the rest of the world, witnessing a superpower invade its European neighbor for the first time since World War Two. On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, claiming there was a constant threat to Russia and announcing his

By Joo Hee Park Several reports have shown polar bears ending up in towns in Russia seeking food. In June 2019, Officials in Norilsk have alerted its residents of a polar bear that appeared in the city center, digging through trash and lying down on the ground.[1] Just a few months back, local reports located

By Maria Saracino-Lowe The world as we know it is, basically, ending. And it’s our fault. Anthropogenic climate change is triggering weather extremes throughout the world, with increasingly frequent “hot extremes, marine heatwaves, heavy precipitation, and, in some regions, agricultural and ecological droughts.”[1] Many of these changes cannot be reversed in our lifetime.[2] While there

By Olivia Dai Among the world’s top ten economies (2018), only China mainland, Brazil, and China’s Macao region used to not have personal bankruptcy systems.[1] But Shenzhen, a Special Economic Zone of China mainland first provides legal rescue for honest but unfortunate individual bankrupts by enacting the Personal Bankruptcy Regulation of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone

By Maleah L. Riley-Brown After nearly 8 years of conflict, it has been alleged by American forces that Vladimir Putin has mounted troops along the Russian-Ukrainian border and is preparing to invade Ukraine at a moment’s notice.[1] The potential issues that would result should Russia make good on the globe’s fear will not only trigger

By Lexie Robinson The Migrant Protection Protocols (known as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ protocol) “authorizes the Government to return certain third-country nationals arriving in the United States to Mexico or Canada for the duration of their removal proceedings.”[1] This means that asylum seekers traveling through Mexico from other countries can be sent to border cities

By Min Ji Kim Over a span of 100 days in 1994, an estimated 800,000 to one million people were slaughtered during the Rwandan Genocide.[1] The genocide arose from hundreds of years of conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis, two ethnic groups of Rwanda, exacerbated by Belgian and German colonial rule.[2] The killings ceased

By Hattie Van Metre Merging companies are facing higher scrutiny from the European Union’s competition regulatory body, creating uncertainty for transactions that might have otherwise escaped review. In September 2020, Commissioner Margrethe Vestager of the European Commission (“EC”)[1] announced that the EC would begin evaluating mergers “worth reviewing at the EU level” based on referrals