In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, Justice Scalia took aim once again at the use of foreign law to interpret the Constitution. While freely admitting that 18th Century English law is relevant to that exercise, he denied that modern foreign legal materials ever are. And in response to a question from Professor Julian Ku, he extended...
Spain's Public Prosecutor has urged the Spanish Supreme Court to quash the conviction of Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, sentenced last year by a lower court to 15 years in prison for "conspiracy to commit terrorist murder" in connection with the September 11. The lower court concluded that sufficient evidence exists to prove that Yarkas helped an al Qaida cell...
Justice Scalia was the keynote speaker yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute on the subject of the role of international law in American courts. The agenda for the full program, which included Julian Ku and guest blogger Bill Dodge, is available here. The speech is available on C-Span here (via How Appealing).Here is an abstract of his speech:Foreign law is...
When I wrote last week about the EU’s threat to suspend membership talks with Serbia if it does not find General Ratko Mladic and turn him over to the ICTY -- which it looks like it is about to -- I noted that the EU had successfully pursued a similar strategy to prod Croatia to arrest General Ante Gotovina, accused...
It is a week of transition here at Opinio Juris, as we prepare to migrate to a new and much improved location in the blogosphere. After finishing our first year here on blogger, we will emerge next week fully loaded at www.opiniojuris.org, a new site that will have added functionality and subject matter searchability. If you are signed up for...
The Supreme Court today rendered an important decision in Gonzalez v. O Centro Espirita concerning religious practices that are in violation of statutory and treaty obligations relating to controlled substances. The discussion of the treaty obligation is quite short: Before the District Court, the Government also asserted an interest in compliance with the 1971 United...
Brandt Goldstein at the Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today addressing the current debate in the legal academy regarding the relative merits and demerits of law reviews and academic blogs. But in an interesting twist, he challenges the legitimacy of law reviews as much as engaging the current debate about the role of academic blogging. Here is an...
A few days ago I mentioned a report that prosecutors had produced written orders by Saddam ordering the execution of 140 Shiites in Dujail in 1982 -- the proverbial "smoking gun." As it turns out, the documents are not so damning after all. According to the AP, the prosecution produced two documents at trial Feb. 13-14: one that...
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has published an excellent article on the Administration’s attempts to thwart critics of its use of what can only be called torture on detainees in the War on Terrorism. It focuses in part on the experiences of Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora in trying to end such practices. The article is long and it...
A New York federal court has dismissed the complaint by a Canadian who alleged he had been "rendered" to Syria by U.S. government officials in order to be tortured. Maher Arar had sued former U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft as well as a number of other U.S. officials alleging he has a right to damages under the Torture Victim Protection Act...
I'd like to welcome Professor Bill Dodge as a guest blogger at Opinio Juris. Bill teaches at UC Hastings College of Law and is an expert on international business and economic law, in particular the emerging law of NAFTA Chapter 11 disputes. He is co-author of one of the leading casebooks on transnational business law, and has also written extensively...
To follow up on Peggy's post about David Irving, it's worth noting that Article 6 of the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime contains the following controversial provision:1. Each Party shall adopt such legislative measures as may be necessary to establish the following conduct as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally and without...
