The death penalty, I think it's safe to say, has been a disaster in Iraq. The Iraqi government's early and unwavering insistence on permitting the Iraqi High Tribunal to impose the death penalty effectively ended international involvement with the Tribunal. Then the IHT executed Saddam before his conviction became final — and turned him into a martyr in...
One of the marks of what Harold Koh calls "bad" American exceptionalism is the way in which the US maintains different — frequently more punitive — standards of criminal procedural justice than the rest of the world. Last month, Adam Liptak kicked off what looks to be an interesting series of articles on just this question with this piece in...
Matt Armstrong, who blogs at MountainRunner, has a thought-provoking guest-post over at Small Wars Journal on the Smith-Mundt Act, which is commonly understood as having intended to prevent blowback of propaganda intended for foreign audiences back into the U.S. Here’s an example from the act concerning the Voice of America (VOA). Section 501(a) of the Act provides thatinformation produced...
Professor Kenneth Anderson announced yesterday that he's taking a break from blogging over at his Law of War and Just War Theory Blog. Although he says he'll continue to post occasionally, the tenor of the message certainly sounds like a good-bye. I'm saddened by that news. I've never met Professor Anderson, but his was one of the...
Bruce Ackerman has this piece in today's LA Times on whether Congress needs to participate in the approval of an agreement with Iraq to govern relations after a US withdrawal. You won't be surprised to hear that he thinks congressional action to be constitutionally required. The Administration is apparently pushing the line that the president can go it...
These are the facts in a recent parental child abduction case applying the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction: • Parents and two twins live in Texas for over 12 months (5/97 to 6/98) • Parents and twins travel the U.S. for over 6 months (6/98 to 12/98) • Entire family moves to France and live there for 7 months (12/98 to...
SCOTUSblog has the details on the pending cert. petition to be filed by corporate defendants in the South African apartheid case of Khulumani v. Barclay Bank. It is worth a read. ...
The WTO Appellate Body has four new members: Ms Lilia R. Bautista of the Philippines and Ms Jennifer Hillman of the United States for four years commencing on 11 December 2007; and Mr Shotaro Oshima of Japan and Ms Yuejiao Zhang of China for four years commencing on 1 June 2008. The most interesting part of the appointment process was...
[Mason Alford is an eighth-grader at Viewpoint School in California. The Baja building project was sponsored by Malibu Presbyterian Church, which lost its building to fire five weeks ago, on October 21, 2007. More than two dozen photos of the construction are available here.] It was November 10, 2007, and a dirty little car rumbled over a dirt...
As has been widely reported, new Australian PM Kevin Rudd has promised to sign the Kyoto Protocol and remove the country's 550 troops from Iraq. Good news on both fronts — as is a third promise that has received less media attention: a formal apology to Australia's aboriginal population for the many historic injustices they have suffered:Mr Rudd's pledge...
Today's WaPo has this lengthy feature on Bono and his humanitarian politicking. It's a Style section piece, tending to puffery. But there's some interesting information here which (even for those of us who mostly missed him as a musician) makes clear that he has to be taken seriously. Like the fact that he has 75 full-time staffers...
The United Nations Committee Against Torture has issued a statement condemning some uses of tasers as a form of torture that violates the U.N. Convention Against Torture. I don't have a link to their report, and I would be curious to see their analysis. Which kinds of taser use constitutes torture? Or is tasering something that automatically violates...
