In association with the International Commission of Jurists

September 2007

11 Sep

I wanted to briefly comment on John's most recent post, and his very interesting essay, since it suggests an emerging consensus among legal conservatives about the Bush Administration's war on terror legal strategies (see also Ken Anderson's writings here). As both John and Jack Goldsmith seem to be arguing, the Administration's problems were mostly a failure of political strategy...

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11 Sep

Today, the anniversary of September 11 terrorist attacks, I read with great interest the recent message of Osama Bin Laden. (Full transcript here). There has been plenty of news coverage about the timing, appearance, and tone of the speech. But there has been insufficient analysis of one key component of the speech: its central message. So on September...

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11 Sep

I was very interested to read the New York Times essay on Jack Goldsmith, recently referenced on this blog by Roger Alford. Oddly enough, a week ago, I posted a draft essay, Losing the Law Wars: The Bush Administration’s Strategic Errors, that made some criticisms of the Bush administration’s policies from the outside similar to his from the inside. The...

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10 Sep

I want to thank Julian Ku and his colleagues at Opinio Juris for the invitation to blog. This is my initial effort in cyberspace. I begin with some interesting information that I recently learned on a trip to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry at an exhibition of a captured German submarine: the United States once decided, consciously and at...

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10 Sep

Thank you for the opportunity to guest blog on Opinio Juris these past two weeks. One final message for those who are following the issue of interrogation: Seton Hall School of Law is partnering with Second Life on September 17 to provide an afternoon Constitution Day program on “Interrogation and Intelligence Gathering.” Speakers will address FBI methods of...

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10 Sep

Opinio Juris is very pleased to welcome Professor John McGinnis of Northwestern University School of Law as a guest-blogger for the next few days. Professor McGinnis is a well-known scholar of constitutional and international law. Among his recent publications is this Stanford Law Review (with Ilya Somin) article examining the democratic legitimacy of international lawmaking. In...

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09 Sep

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting notes that there is an emerging political consensus against supporting ICC efforts in Darfur.Escalating violence in Darfur and efforts by the international community to restore peace has dominated the news headlines this month. Particularly prominent has been coverage of the first visit by the new UN secretary-general to the region and his thoughts on...

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08 Sep

A federal judge yesterday lifted a stay he had placed earlier in the week on Noriega's extradition to France. In his brief written opinion, Judge Hoeveler held that France's agreement to give Noriega the same treatment as a POW that was provided by the U.S. is enough to satisfy any Geneva Convention concerns. In other words, France does...

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07 Sep

I recently came across this wonderful website called the Online Library of Liberty. It includes, among many other writers, the works of some of international law's founding fathers, such as Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, and Emer de Vattel. There also is a library on the Hague Peace Conferences, and topical sections on law generally, and subtopics like...

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07 Sep

Last week I linked to a report from Human Rights Watch on Hezbollah's targeting of civilians. Yesterday Human Rights Watch released another report on the conflict, this one focusing on Israeli attacks on civilians in Lebanon. The press release is here and the full report is here. Here is a taste: Israel’s indiscriminate airstrikes, not Hezbollah’s shielding as...

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07 Sep

Guess what this is. It's modern day international democracy at work, in this case Microsoft's winning effort to have the US vote "yes" to extending ISO approval to its OOXML file format as open-source software. Sounds arcane, but apparently tens of millions of dollars in government contracts are at stake with the question. Alas, Microsoft failed to...

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