The organization whose board meeting I'm attending in Prague is the Media Development Loan Fund, and you can see its newly revamped website at mdlf.org. It is a media assistance organization, one that focuses on helping media companies - newspapers, radio, TV, internet - in the emerging market and developing world that provide a sizable amount of quality newsreporting. Unlike...
A quick update on the OTP's efforts to include genocide charges in Bashir's arrest warrant. Pre-Trial Chamber I has now granted leave to appeal the issue I've discussed before -- whether it misunderstood Article 58's "reasonable grounds" requirement when it rejected the genocide charges. It's a very defensive decision, almost certainly written by Judge Steiner, who is the only holdover from...
Omri Casspi has become the first Israeli basketball player to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft. Casspi was drafted #23 by the Sacramento Kings, which also feature players from Spain (Sergio Rodriguez), Argentina (Andres Nocioni), and Slovenia (Beno Udrih). Basketball fans know that Casspi's Israeli team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, is one of the world's best. The team...
It seems likely that Spain is about drastically curtail its universal jurisdiction law--the law that had been used by Magistrate Baltasar Garzon to go after Augusto Pinochet--such that it really won't be universal jurisdiction at all. While some (many?) of my international law colleagues may view this as a step backwards, I welcome this adjustment as a prudent move that will foster...
Frequent Opinio Juris commentor Patrick O'Donnell has an informative post at Ratio Juris about shari'ah and jurisprudence in Islam. It begins: Having recently introduced the subjects of constitutionalism and democracy vis-à-vis Islam, I thought it would help to say a few basic things about Sharī‘ah and fiqh, in particular as they have bearing upon our concerns about human rights and democracy, concerns of...
So, it looks like Britney Spears may be back on the silver screen in the near future -- in a Holocaust movie: Spears...
The Senate vote was 62-35. Here's the story at Foreign Policy.com....
Eric Posner is putting up two posts on the Koh debates, over at Volokh Conspiracy (first one is here, second is linked to it). I'll be lite-blogging the next little bit, as I have board meetings for a nonprofit private equity fund for the next few days in Europe. I want to start discussing more finance and development finance topics...
Congrats to new Legal Advisor (or almost-Legal Advisor) Harold Koh! And it looks like he will have plenty of stuff to do. Among other things that will be on his agenda: Submitting the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the Senate. According to US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, this is going to happen. At least she...
Foreign Policy.com reports: "Cloture passed on a 65-31 vote," a Congressional source relays at 11:30am. "There was applause in the Senate gallery after the vote was announced. Republicans are threatening to exercise their right to use all 30 hours of floor debate before permitting a final vote, so Koh may not be formally confirmed until tomorrow." See also IntLawGrrls. Yesterday, by the...
I have remained largely silent on Harold Koh's confirmation battle, which is probably about the end this week with a vote in the Senate. I assume that Koh will be confirmed (because I don't think the Senate Democrats would hold a vote if they didn't have the votes). And part of me is glad because, as many of this blog's...
Former Bush Sudan envoy and USAID chief Andrew Natsios has a clearheaded, wise, and knowledgeable op-ed today on the prospects for peace in Sudan. He makes a couple of points that lawyers who only think of Sudan as a proving ground for the ICC should keep in mind: 1) Sudan is a tragedy, but it is probably not an ongoing genocide: First,...
