The company that makes and sells this t-shirt — to which I refuse to link out of principle — sponsors such high-profile conservative blogs as Instapundit, Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, Captain's Quarters, and Michelle Malkin. No additional commentary necessary. Sad tip-of-the-hat: Digby. ...
The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1672 yesterday, imposing sanctions yesterday on four Sudanese considered responsible for the the atrocities in Darfur. The Resolution passed 12-0, with China, Russia and Qatar abstaining on the ground that sanctions would disrupt the reconciliation process. The sanctioned individuals are Major General Gaffar Mohamed Elhassan, commander of the Western Military Region for the Sudanese...
Fiona de Londras of Mental Meanderings, who is a Ph.D. student at the University of Dublin Cork, has a nice post on the struggles of being a young and budding scholar. "The anxiety connected with the notion of having something in print for ever and ever that might be wrong is too much. I have never published anything internationally before....
Posada's latest bid for freedom — applying for U.S. citizenship. His interview is set for next week. ...
UVA Law School announced today that one of its graduates, Najwa Nabti, has won the inaugural Orrick International Law Fellowship to serve as a law clerk to the International Court of Justice. The Orrick International Law Fellowship is sponsored by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, an international law firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Japan, and is...
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. This day brings my thoughts back to the Holocaust restitution movement, which I have followed closely for ten years. Some have questioned the propriety of Holocaust restitution as the final chapter in the history of the Holocaust. But I have little qualms in concluding that Holocaust restitution has been a good and noble...
A fascinating and extremely important trial began yesterday at the Hague. The defendant, Gus Kouwenhoven, is charged with committing various war crimes against Liberians and violating a UN arms embargo. Kouwenhoven, who is Dutch, was the general manager of the Oriental Timber Company, Liberia's largest timber company while Charles Taylor was in power. While in that...
Frequent contributor Patrick O’Donnell has given me a heads-up that Brian Urquhart, the former Under-Secretary General of the U.N., has a review essay in the current New York Review of Books on recent books related to international law. He discusses two different editions of Philippe Sands’ Lawless World, Michael Byers’ new book on the law of the use of force...
Japan is at it again. As I've noted before, Japan has devoted lots of attention to Okinotorishima, a bunch of rocks about the size of a king-sized bed. If it is an island, Japan has a much, much larger exclusive economic zone (where it can assert certain fishing and undersea development rights). China is not buying this view, and for...
The push to finalize the Doha Round of Negotiations for the World Trade Organization has hit another roadblock. Following on earlier reports that negotiators would miss an end-of-April deadline to produce texts setting forth an agreed framework for agricultural and industrial tariff reductions, this week witnessed the cancellation of Ministerial-level meetings. In its place, U.S. and E.U. negotiators have opted...
The recent visit of Hu Jintao to the U.S. highlights an interesting game of mirrors being played by the U.S., China, the EU and others concerning the norms of good behavior of members of the international community. A few months ago, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick called on China to be a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. Commentators...
Last week, the D.C. Circuit issued an important opinion applying the always controversial "political question" doctrine to dismiss a case challenging U.S. foreign policy actions as a violation of international law. The D.C. Circuit's development (and revival even) of the political question doctrine signals serious obstacles to attempts by litigants to challenge foreign policy actions of the U.S. government in...
