The Obama Administration selected Friday afternoon (go figure) to release its whammy of a brief on the standard it believes should govern the President’s authority to hold the current Guantanamo detainees. Here’s the key paragraph: The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and...
I am happy to report -- though some readers will no doubt be unhappy to hear -- that the OTP has requested leave to appeal the Pre-Trial Chamber's decision on the genocide charges. The appeal cites my recent post on the majority's misunderstanding of the "reasonable grounds" standard, which is both a tremendous honor and a testament to the ever-increasing...
Last month, I wrote a post about the upcoming Eurovision song competition and European politics. I wanted to point out that the competition will be hosted by (and televised from) Moscow and that the Georgian entry was going to sing a disco song that teases Vladimir Putin called, ahem, "We Don't Wanna Put In." See it performed here. Anyway, in the final paragraph I...
I pass along the following call for panels from the co-chairs of American Branch of the International Law Association's International Law Weekend 2009. The theme, "Challenges to Transnational Governance," is quite timely. I encourage OJ readers to submit proposals and to attend what promises to be a great event. On October 22-24, 2009, the American Branch of the International Law Association...
When we think of prosecuting perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide I would suspect that the work of the ICTR immediately comes to mind. That is unfortunate, because fewer than one percent of all Rwandan genocide trials are conducted by the ICTR. It is the local “gacaca” courts where almost all the prosecutions are held, with the ICTR and...
I want to follow up briefly on Kevin's post earlier re Darfur and responsibility to protect. Being located in Washington and having a think tank connection - Hoover - as well as a law professor job, I serve on various task forces on international law and foreign policy issues. I was one of the experts on the Gingrich-Mitchell task force...
Today is the fifth anniversary of the Madrid bombing of the Atocha rail station, March 11, 2004. My family and I were living in Spain at the time, and also I'm the political sciences editor of the Madrid Revista de Libros, so I followed events and the subsequent trials closely and wrote about the verdicts that finally came down in...
Speaking of what Obama should do about Darfur, The New Republic is currently hosting a fascinating roundtable discussion on precisely that question. Contributors include Alex de Waal, Eric Reeves, my former professor Alan Wolfe, Elizabeth Rubin, and Andrew Natsios. Not surprisingly, I agree with Eric Reeves, who both justifiably calls Darfur a genocide and defends the ICC arrest warrant. Sadly, though,...
I was amused to read about the kerfuffle in the UK over the supposedly rude treatment UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife received during his recent White House visit. London newspapers are howling over a string of alleged snubs by Obama to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit to Washington last week — including a squabble over presidential...
Although Julian and I continue to disagree about the merits of the arrest warrant against Bashir, we agree on one thing: Obama's response to the expulsion of the humanitarian-aid groups has been appallingly weak. I'm not surprised -- I never bought into the cult of Obama, particularly its naive belief that his foreign policy and national-security policy would be fundamentally...
Longtime readers know that I have been pretty skeptical of the usefulness of the ICC's actions against Sudan. Indeed, Professor Jide Nzelibe and I have argued in prior work that international criminal tribunals can worsen humanitarian atrocities rather than deter or prevent them, especially when they are aimed at leaders who have the power to commit greater atrocities to stay...
(Welcome Instapundit readers, and thanks Glenn for the Instalanche! Since you are likely already aware of the Freeman email, the discussion of a 'new liberal realism' is in the second half of the post.) OJ readers being very alert to the latest happenings in international politics, I imagine that folks are aware that Chas Freeman has withdrawn from consideration for a...
