As Ken noted, Eric Posner has responded to my question on whether 1Ls should take international law with an emphatic "No!" In fact (and perhaps not surprisingly given his scholarly positions) Eric's not very keen on law students taking international law courses at all; he advises them to take statistics instead. Eric does concede that international law belongs in the...
I blogged last week about new JD/JD and JD/LLM programs that Melbourne has established with NYU Law School. I now want to mention another exciting new joint degree program, this time with Oxford University's Faculty of Law. Melbourne Law School students who enroll in the program will be able to earn both a JD from Melbourne and a BCL --...
The Perils of Global Legalism (University of Chicago 2009) is just out, I see, and my copy just arrived via the magic of Amazon one-click. I read an early ms. draft, but am looking forward to reading the final version. This is yet another book from Eric that promises to provoke lots of people in the international law community, but...
Cross-posted at Balkinization I was all set to zone out this vacation when we happened to stroll past an SUV featuring one bumper sticker (among others) announcing: “Waterboarding: Keep it safe, legal and rare.” Nothing like a little vacation motivation to make me peruse (at an admittedly slower pace) the wave of old OLC memos that came along with the...
David Bernstein and I agree about one thing: Pat Buchanan is a very stupid man. But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start...
The blog Making Sense of Darfur has been hosting a symposium on Adam M. Smith's book After Genocide: Bringing the Devil to Justice, in which the author argues -- oversimplifying only slightly -- that international criminal trials are always inferior to domestic trials and non-punitive accountability mechanisms. I have neither the time nor the inclination to address the book's claims...
Dear Mr. Prime Minister: I noted with interest your recent statement that you believe an international criminal court should be created to prosecute individuals whom you believe have committed crimes against Iraqis. As reported by Xinhua: The Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday demanded again for the United Nations to form a criminal court to prosecute those involved in the killing...
Following-up on my recent post, I see that the Wall Street Journal reports that President Qaddafi no longer plans to stay in a large tent on the grounds of a home owned by the Libyan government in Englewood, NJ, during the opening of the UN General Assembly this fall. No specific reason is being given for the change, although diplomatic negotiations...
I normally wouldn't post on a document supplement to a casebook, but the publication of Selected International Human Rights Instruments and Bibliography for Research on International Human Rights Law, by David Weissbrodt, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Mary Rumsey, Marci Hoffman and Joan Fitzpatrick (4th Ed. 2009 Lexis/Nexis 2009) is worth a shout out. It is by far the most up-to-date course...
Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins SAIS asked if I would post this job announcement flyer for a visiting professor in international law at JHU Nanjing University Center in China. Ruth adds that the salary offered might not be what DC law schools normally pay but might work well with a sabbatical or grant arrangements, also that the position has not...
My favorite part of the Wall Street Journal's article on ATS litigation, discussed by Ken below, has to be this comment by the lawyer who defends such lawsuits: In assessing liability, a key question can be whether companies assisted a foreign government that was known to violate human rights, says Joe Cyr, a New York lawyer who defends companies against alien...
The WSJ has a news story (Nathan Koppel, "Arcane Law Brings Conflicts From Overseas to U.S. Courts," Thursday, August 27, 2009) on the rise of ATS suits against corporate defendants. It quotes Curt Bradley, but interestingly (I thought, for an area traditionally dominated by academics), it has more quotes from practicing lawyers, including John Bellinger, Center for Constitutional Rights's Katherine Gallagher,...
