Slaughter to Direct Policy Planning Staff; Lederman to OLC; More on Nossel and Smart Power

The Cable has a short post on Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter taking a leave from Princeton to become the head of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (a post previously held by George Kennan, Paul Nitze and, more recently, by Tony Lake, Dennis Ross, Richard Haass, and Stephen Krasner). Anne-Marie, as many readers of this blog would know, is a prominent international lawyer and former president of the American Society of International Law.  It will be interesting to see whether her expertise in international law and in cross-border regulatory networks will open up new approaches to thinking about foreign policy at State.  For those who want to take a look at some of her recent work, the post at the Cable also links to her new article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

I was also very happy to see that frequent Opinio Juris commentor and guest blogger (and regular blogger at Balkinization) Marty Lederman has become Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Undoing the handiwork of John Yoo, I assume.

Finally, in a follow-up to my earlier post on Suzanne Nossel’s formulation of “smart power,” I note this piece by Hendrik Hertzberg in the new issue of the New Yorker.