In association with the International Commission of Jurists

May 2008

08 May

Next week we'll be hosting a discussion of our own Peter Spiro's Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization (Oxford University Press). As readers of this blog know, Peter has many wonderful insights into the way that citizenship and national identity interact in a globalizing environment. (His latest post on Pamela Anderson is just the latest lighthearted example of his much...

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07 May

As Roger noted recently, John Ruggie, the United Nations secretary-general’s special representative for business and human rights, has released his third report on human rights and business. In this article, Ruggie offers a sensible and persuasive argument against codifying his principles of business conduct into a human rights treaty. I have three main reservations about recommending to...

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07 May

Oxford University Press has just published my friend Nils Melzer's book Targeted Killing in International Law. Here is the description from the Oxford website:A comprehensive analysis into the lawfulness of state-sponsored targeted killings under international human rights and humanitarian law, this book examines treaties, custom and general principles of law to determine the normative paradigms which govern the intentional...

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06 May

I'm sorry, I just can't let this one go:Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad's International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers. Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage...

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05 May

Stories like this cause barely a ripple of controversy:Girls may be given free access to the emergency contraceptive pill at their local Auckland pharmacies in a bid to reduce teen pregnancies and abortions. The medicine can already be sold by many pharmacists without a doctor's prescription, including to girls without parental consent. An Auckland District Health Board committee will tomorrow consider a...

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05 May

How desperate is the ICTR to fulfill its completion strategy by dumping cases on Rwanda? Enough to disavow the NGO on which it has relied on for nearly 14 years:The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) when presenting last week his motion in favour of transfer of genocide accused Yusuf Munyakazi to Rwanda, clearly distanced himself...

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05 May

Jose Ernesto Medellin is scheduled for execution by the state of Texas on August 5, 2008. If one assumes that Executive Branch officials have an interest in trying to find new ways to comply with the Avena decision (an open question I know), that does not leave them much time. From my perspective, the Executive Branch has two,...

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05 May

One of the more intriguing questions from the oral argument in the child rape death penalty case of Kennedy v. Louisiana is whether evolving standards of decency are a one-way ratchet. Here is Justice Stevens' question from the oral argument last month: [O]ne question that interests me but is a little divorced from the terms of the arguments so far....

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04 May

I didn't notice until recently (and thanks to one of my Hofstra colleagues) that Pope Benedict's recent address to the United Nations included a rather learned disquisition on international law theory. The Pope has a pretty traditional liberal internationalist conception of things but it is certainly smart and sophisticated. Here is an interesting snippet, which might be...

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