Last week, the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. allowed some of the claims in a lawsuit brought by U.S. citizens alleging injuries caused by the Saddam-era Iraqi government during the 1991 Gulf War to continue. The ruling in Vine v. Iraq is mostly a win for the new Iraqi government, which has been diligently defending these and other...
Amnesty International has just released a report concluding that Hezbollah is guilty of war crimes for its indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. The report is available here. Here is an excerpt from the press release: "The scale of Hizbullah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, and statements from the leadership confirming...
See Akhil Amar's column yesterday for Findlaw's Writ, complete with an oceanic theory of the Constitution. ...
One of the crucial weapons used by the U.S. government in the war on terrorism has been the freezing of financial assets linked to or believed to be related to Al Qaeda. This is one U.S. anti-terrorism policy that has generally received wide support within the U.S. (unlike some other policies) as well as broad support from the U.N....
Former State Department Legal Adviser William H. Taft IV has this essay on the US and IL in the current issue of the Yale Journal of International Law. It’s pretty tough talk, perhaps not surprising from someone who was on the losing end of internal executive branch deliberations regarding detainee treatment issues (this as Colin Powell more prominently parts...
Perhaps one of our intrepid readers could explain to me why this is a good idea: The US ambassador to Nicaragua has issued a vigorous warning to this small Central American country's electors against supporting Daniel Ortega, the veteran leftwing Sandinista leader and the frontrunner in November's presidential election. [snip] "It's one thing to be truly democratic. It's another thing to do what...
Students at the law school at the University of California at Hastings Law School have started a new blog called Transnational Law Blog. Inspired by Professor Jessup's concept of transnational law, the blog is "is only constrained by its pursuit to address all law transcending national frontiers." They already have some great posts on the Japanese war crimes litigation...
I haven't won my bet with Julian quite yet, but the winds seem to be blowing my direction:President Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations appears increasingly endangered in the Senate, prompting the administration to explore other ways to keep him in the job after his temporary appointment expires in January, officials said yesterday. The situation...
I want to add my thoughts on Britain's decision to jettison its double jeopardy rule. I couldn't agree more with Julian — Dunlop's conviction illustrates the importance of having a Bill of Rights that is not subject to revision every time politicians decide that obtaining a conviction is more important than 800 years of tradition. You can...
Pope Benedict XVI's message this week condemning violence and holy war as against the natural order of things was quite interesting. The full text is not yet available in English (here it is in German), but reportedly the Pope quoted from a 14th- and 15th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus in his speech. "The emperor comes to speak about the...
What limits, if any, exist for the President’s ability to issue “signing statements” concurrently with his signature of a congressional bill? For example, can the President indicate that he’ll construe a statute to apply only where consistent with his view of his constitutional authorities? President Bush did just that with respect to the McCain Amendment; indicating he would...
Here's a cautionary tale for all you constitutional comparativists out there. Yesterday the United Kingdom convicted its first individual after the reform of its "double jeopardy" rule, which prohibits individuals from being tried twice for the same crime (thanks to my current colleague Professor Paul Marcus of William & Mary Law for the heads up). The same double...
