The Red Velvet Lawyer

An Expat's Life:  Appetite for the New and Novel As I plan my retirement abroad, I'm reading a ton of books about expat life and living overseas. One book in particular has a passage that seems to sum up very well traits that successful expats share. Here is the quote, Being an expat requires a true appetite for new and novel situations - or at least a hefty tolerance for them - because it's unlikely you'll ever clear up an unfamiliar situation by saying, "This isn't the way we do it back home." Successful expats thrive on novelty and unfamiliar situations. They relish the challenge of figuring out how to get things done, often in new - and possibly better -ways. You will never really know if you are cut out to be an expat until you try it.  Suzan Haskins and Prescher Dan. Guide to Retiring Overseas on a Budget (2014). Thought it was worth sharing.  I was born ready for the expat life.

Passionate Voices  Seeking an End to the Suffering Last week, I attended a somewhat chaotic event that showcases the intractability of the conflicts that exist in the Arab Gulf region. The event focused on the Yemeni war.  While some of the speakers briefly mentioned international parties, including the US, in their remarks, the focus remained on the interests of Yemenis.  Speakers also mentioned the intervention of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran in the conflict  Their focus may have changed if  Qatar University had hosted the event, just a few days later, after the drone attacks on the Saudi Arabian petroleum facilities on September 14, 2019. The information about the event appears below.  My summary appears after that information.  In summarizing the comments of the speakers and attendees, I suffer from several disabilities.  First, I must rely on the translators because I do not speak Arabic. Second, I have not done any in...

Annual Meeting of the International Association of Law Schools,  Al Mukhtasar Ballroom,  The Ritz Carlton, Doha  November 11, 2018  Panel 3: Emerging Voices in Law & Legal Education  * * *  Summary of Decolonising the Law Movement in Africa:  Emerging Voices in Law and Legal Education  * * *  Lethokwa Mpedi  Executive Dean, University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Law, South Africa  From colonization (the laws, rules and regulations; its cultures, customs and values) to decolonization (independence, apartheid, and reconolonization), Mpedi reflected on what people are teaching and its relevance to Africa’s location and social context. The key players are academics, students, judiciary, legislature, and civil society. Academics must ask who is teaching, what is being taught, why/how is it taught, and how is it assessed? Academics must also ask if they know/understand their students, ...

First Inter-State Communications Ever to be Submitted to a United Nations Treaty Body On August 29, 2019, The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued the following press release : Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination closes ninety-ninth session, adopts decisions on inter-State communications by Qatar against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 29 August 2019  * * * The Committee had continued to deal with inter-State communications submitted by Qatar on 8 March 2018 against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the inter-State communication submitted on 23 April 2018 by the State of Palestine against Israel. Those were the first inter-State communications ever to be submitted to a United Nations treaty body, stressed Ms. Izsák-Ndiaye. The Committee had decided that it had jurisdiction on the communications submitted by Qatar and had declared them adm...

Filing the TM30 and TM28 Forms; Reporting Week-end Travel So, after spending the summer reading about Ecuador, I had decided to continue to explore Thailand as a retirement destination. Ecuador looks perfectly fine, but I am not ready to leave Asia. Even so, I may need to explore other destinations. Glad I have a year to figure it out. In the past few months, Thai Immigration has begun strictly enforcing a 1970s-era law allowing them to closely track the movement of "foreigners." The law was passed at a time when Thailand saw an influx of 600,000 refugees. One news article explained: When the 1979 law was enacted, Thailand had well under 2 million tourist arrivals annually, but was experiencing major influxes of refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. This followed the fall of Indochina to communist forces in mid-1975, and the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam at the end of 1978. Today, immigration control is a much changed proposition. Forecasts for leg...

High-Quality Scholarship  about Qatar In May 2019, Nova Science Publishers published Qatar: Political, Economic, and Social Issues (Haitham M. Alkhateeb ed.).  The book covers political, economic, and social issues as the name suggests. Chapters 2 to 6 feature my analysis of the Qatari response to the blockade by four neighboring countries - Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt. The book is available from Amazon in hard copy and from libraries in digital format. The Table of Contents, set out below, shows its broad coverage. Preface Chapter 1. Qatar's Nation Brand: Facing the Regional Challenges (Nawaf Al-Tamimi, PhD, and Azzam Amin, PhD, Journalism Program, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Doha, Qatar, and others) Chapter 2. Bustards, Bullies, Billions, and the Blockade: Applying Dispute Resolution Theory to the First Nine Months of the Siege of Qatar (Paula Marie Young, College of Law, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar) Chapter 3. Po...

Tit-for-Tat Legal Strategy As noted below, Qatar brought a complaint before the World Trade Organization alleging that the UAE had violated various international trade treaties by imposing a land, sea, and air blockade on Qatar along with neighboring countries Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt beginning in June 2017. UAE then brought its own complaint .  It alleged Qatar had banned the sale of products imported from the UAE and struck UAE companies from a list of approved participants in infrastructure projects.  This past week saw developments in the second proceeding.  For the complete story from The Peninsula  Qatar , see here .  The following excerpt provides a summary of the developments.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ statement underlined that the UAE’s decision to withdraw its complaint so soon after initiating this dispute confirms that Qatar has, and continues to, uphold and comply with its obligations unde...