A few days ago I had a very lively discussion with a senior disarmament specialist, someone involved for quite a long time with efforts to stop nuclear proliferation. Of course, the North Korean nuclear test was the spark. It was the classical discussion where one sees the glass half-full and the other half-empty. He claimed that the North Korean blast...
Today is the deadline for the Bush administration to respond to a federal magistrate judge's recommendation that Luis Posada Carriles be freed. Amazingly enough, a mainstream media outlet — the Washington Post — has actually bothered to publish an article about Posada's case. The article is something of a mixed bag; although it discusses Posada's CIA training,...
The much-ballyhooed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718 against North Korea continues to amount to pretty much nothing. This article , for instance, suggests that Japan is not sure that it has the legal authority under the U.N. Resolution to stop and inspect North Korean vessels suspected of carrying illicit weapons or materials. It is a bit murky, I have...
I will abuse of the posting privileges I was given on Opinio Juris for two weeks to make sure everyone has a chance to see this comment that was posted by Peter Prows to my posting "Shallow International Law can't Protect the Deep Sea" For the record, I never quite bought the disctinction between academia and activism. We are all...
The cold war ended fifteen years ago. However, in the case of international human rights law it looks like it never did. The International Bill of Human Rights still bears allover the marks of the struggle between liberalism and communism. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, in many regards, an extraordinary document. It was the first, and unfortunately the...
The D.C. Circuit this week rendered an interesting decision defining what constitutes a foreign terrorist organization. The case is Chai v. Department of State, and involved the State Department's designation of three Israeli right-wing extremist groups--Kahane Chai, Kach, and Kahane.org--as foreign terrorist organizations. If you want to get a sense of the organization, you can check out their...
Elaine Cassel has an excellent editorial in FindLaw today about the Bush administration's war on attorneys who have the temerity to defend alleged terrorists. In addition to Lynne Stewart and Lt. Commander Swift, she also discusses the government's investigation of Clive Stafford Smith, who defended the three GITMO prisoners who committed suicide last June -- an act described by...
Back in July, I wrote about U.S. treaty-making trends, noting that the Bush Administration was lagging when compared to previous administrations in terms of concluding treaties. Well, they’ve obviously been reading Opinio Juris, and now appear to be making up for lost time. In September 2006 alone, the President submitted 8 treaty packages to the Senate for advice...
With the MCA’s enactment, there seems to be a general sense of despair (or elation, depending on where you sit) that we are now in a world in which anything goes. As Jack Balkin writes, whether or not the MCA actually continues to constrain the President from engaging in certain conduct he characterizes as “torture lite” is an academic...
The U.N. General Assembly next week will likely vote to approve a resolution proposing an Arms Trade Treaty designed to regulate and limit the international trade in small arms. David Kopel of the Volokh Conspiracy has some very tough words for Control Arms, the leading NGO lobbying for the Arms Trade Treaty. But whether or not Control Arms is a...
There is a fascinating article in the Guardian (UK) today discussing a number of UK criminal cases in which defendants charged with destroying or vandalizing military property were able to use the illegality of the Iraq war to argue the defense of necessity. An Irish case is particularly striking: Last year, five peace campaigners were acquitted after using an...
There is always a topic du jour in international law, a subject that defines a season of international law. Between the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, it was the law of the sea. Between the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, it was international environmental law. Between the mid-1990s to present, it has been international criminal law. Every season is brought about by a major international...
