The Eleventh Circuit applied the act of state doctrine today (Glen v. Club Med, 05-12648) to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Cubans whose land was expropriated during the 1960 Castro-led revolution. The Cuban government is now going to use that same land to open a Club Med (but of course) and the expropriated Cubans tried to block that deal...
The special investigator assigned to investigate the somewhat mysterious death of Slobodan Milosevic has found that Milosevic died of natural causes. (The full report is here). According the investigation, which was conducted by the ICTY's vice president Kevin Parker, "nothing has been found to support allegations reported in some sections of the media that Mr. Milosevic had been murdered,...
Tony Blair's speech at Georgetown University offers some interesting thoughts on UN reform. It includes proposals for Security Council expansion, perhaps through ex officio permanent members, as well as dramatically enhancing the Secretary General's authority. Details on the speech from Anthony Arend available here. ...
This week I had the privilege to hear a remarkable presentation by Peter van der Auweraert of the International Organization for Migration discussing a little-known quasi-international tribunal. The tribunal, known as the Commission for Resolution of Real Property Disputes (formerly the Iraq Real Property Claims Commission) was designed to resolve claims by Iraqi nationals against the Hussein regime for...
This little gem of a story from a local paper in Annapolis, Maryland is an amusing profile of a guy who cons people by talking, in a self-important way, about international law and international organizations. Here is the opening: At least one thing about Daniel Besser is clear: He's a hell of a storyteller. Ever since the stocky Australian started...
I am procrastinating. Instead of grading exams or providing some substantive post on international law, I’ve been looking at Opinio Juris’ site statistics. Now, it’s no secret that law bloggers, like politicians, are constantly looking for affirmation of their popularity, usually in terms of how many “daily hits” a site receives. My co-blogger Roger Alford has already done some heavy...
Certain events seem to lose impact with time, or are simply not known to younger generations. The massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam war may be one of them. For those of us too young to remember the incident and the subesquent military trial of Lt. William Calley — the officer held repsonsible for the massacre —...
The European Court of Justice today ruled against the European Council and European Commission in a case brought by members of the European Parliament challenging the Council agreement to share airline data with the United States. The Commission had earlier issued a decision declaring the agreement on data-sharing complied with EU retstrictions on dissemination of private data; this decision...
As Kevin has noted, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has annoyed the current government of Rwanda in a variety of cases, most recently from its decision to plea bargain a defendant charged with genocide. This recent commentary from East Africa (HT: War Crimes Prosecution Watch) sums up some of the local frustration with the ICTR, which is planning...
The American Society of International Law has named Betsy Andersen as their new Executive Director to replace Charlotte Ku. Kudos to Betsy, who will ably serve one of the most important international law societies in the world. Details here. ...
Today I had the good fortune to have a private tour of the Alabama Room at the Hôtel de Ville in Geneva, Switzerland, one of the most famous rooms in the history of international law. Two parts of the room were particularly interesting. One was the prominent display of a sculpture of a plowshare made from swords. The other were...
The Washington Post has just launched a new law blog called Bench Conference by Andrew Cohen of CBS News. The Washington Post now has over twenty blogs that it sponsors, and they even include comments. Kudos to the Washington Post for embracing the blogosphere in such a serious way. Here is an excerpt from his first post entitled...
