Speaking of the several states, this map gives a neat perspective on just how large, economically speaking, the individual states of the United States would be if they were independent countries. For instance, as economic entities, California would be as large as France, Texas would be as large as Canada (many Texans would be shocked to hear that they...
The WSJ($) reports on Page One today about various state legislatures (14 so far) passing or considering the passage of legislation requiring their public pension funds to divest from companies doing business with Iran. U.S. companies are already barred from doing business with Iran, but many foreign companies still do. Although this sounds like small peanuts, the article suggests...
The Vatican is calling on Catholics to stop supporting Amnesty International due to that group's apparent shift to support for abortion rights. Whether the Vatican is right to do this is a question for another day (AI's position on abortion seems unclear), but what I'm interested in is the ability of one NGO (the Vatican) to pressure another (Amnesty...
The recent G-8 summit has highlighted some of the policy differences among the US, Russia, and the states of the EU. Robert Kagan has written about certain disparities in US and European views in a much-quoted essay and subsequent book that spawned the bon mot that “Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus.” But beyond missile shields...
The ICTY sentenced Milan Martic, the former leader of a breakaway Serb enclave in Croatia, to 35 years in prison for his "ethnic cleansing" of non-Serbs as part of a broader plan to create a Greater Serbia. A summary of the judgment is here. Interestingly, the bulk of Martic's convictions stem from a finding that he participated in former...
The indefagitable pair of David Rivkin and Lee Casey have an op-ed in the WSJ today decrying an ACLU lawsuit against private company involved in providing flight planning services to the CIA, allegedly for extraordinary renditions (See Mohamed et. al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan). Rivkin and Casey aren't happy with this and other lawsuits' effect on the ability of private...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled today that an alien resident of the U.S. alleged to be affiliated with Al Qaeda cannot be detained as an "enemy combatant." (al-Marri v. Wright). Al-Marri is a citizen of Qatar who is alleged to have trained at Al Qaeda training camps prior to September 11 and who was...
I have posted a new essay on SSRN entitled "Mistakes of Legal Element, the Common Law, and Article 32 of the Rome Statute: A Critical Analysis." Here is the abstract:Article 32(2) of the Rome Statute provides that "[a] mistake of law may… be a ground for excluding criminal responsibility if it negates the mental element required by such a...
The Los Angeles Times has a must-read article today about how the CIA has been using Sudanese nationals to spy on insurgents — including al-Qaida — in Iraq:The relationship underscores the complex realities of the post-Sept. 11 world, in which the United States has relied heavily on intelligence and military cooperation from countries, including Sudan and Uzbekistan, that are considered...
I somehow doubt this will go very far, but who knows? Russian President Vladimir Putin called Sunday for creating an alternative to the World Trade Organization that would favor developing economies and suggested giving a greater role to regional currencies. Speaking at an economic forum in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg, Putin lamented that today's international economic organizations ''look archaic, undemocratic...
The Inter American Court of Human Rights has ruled that Colombia must pay $7.8 million in damages to the relatives of 12 judicial workers killed in a 1989 massacre by Colombian-army backed paramilitary groups. According to news reports, the ruling seems to establish a standard for assigning state liability for paramilitary groups, an important and complicated issue. The judgment was...
From the "oy gevalt" file:A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting. Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the...
