A couple of years ago, I blogged about how Salim Hamdan was prosecuted in a military commission for conspiring to commit the non-existent war crime "murder in violation of the law of war." Hamdan was acquitted on that count, but the crime is starring again in the unconscionable prosecution of child-soldier Omar Khadr. That's unfortunate in itself -- but what...
I have always thought the Ottawa Convention banning landmines was a nice idea, but somewhat unrealistic. Case in point: the U.S. and South Korea rely on landmines to prevent a North Korean attack on South Korea. It is hard to imagine a cheaper more effective deterrent than landmines, as David Rivkin and Lee Casey argue in today's WSJ. As a...
At the recent Northwestern Law School conference on the Israeli-Arab Dispute and International Law I had the good fortune to address one of the few bright spots in current Arab-Israeli relations. Most international law scholars of the Arab-Israeli conflict seem to know little about international trade, and focus almost exclusively on the laws of war in their discussion of Middle East...
[caption id="attachment_12532" align="alignright" width="120" caption="Professor Gabriel Wilner"][/caption] Sad news from the University of Georgia: Gabriel Michael Wilner, a University law professor and executive director of International, Comparative and Graduate Legal Studies, died unexpectedly at his home Friday. A native of Beirut, Lebanon, Wilner has been with UGA since 1973 and has served in several capacities since coming to the University. He has taught...
The Washington Times has an editorial that seems to argue that because Elena Kagan supports the teaching of international and comparative law, she actually believes that "foreign law trumps the Constitution." It was under Ms. Kagan's leadership while dean of Harvard Law School, for instance, that Harvard dropped constitutional law as a required course for graduation, while adding a requirement for...
Actress Mia Farrow has a scathing op-ed in the WSJ today denouncing Obama's Sudan policy. The crus of her critique is that Obama is not pushing hard to send Bashir to the ICC. Last week U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that although he remains supportive of "international efforts" to bring Sudanese President Omar...
So, Alan Dershowitz has decided that international law needs to be "delegitimized," because it is unfair to Israel. It is reasonable to consider, therefore, what Dershowitz believes a "fair" international law would allow Israel to do. Here is one of his suggestions, from a 2002 Jerusalem Post editorial entitled "New Response to Palestinian Terrorism" (emphasis mine): In light of the...
The Jerusalem Post reports on a recent discussion between Alan Dershowitz, Aharon Barak, and Amnon Rubinstein on Israel's proper attitude toward international law. Each represented a different perspective. Barak (former Israeli Supreme Court chief) suggests that Israel must follow international law as it is, while Rubinstein argued that Israel should engage to make sure international law is interpreted fairly and...
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia has just held that JCE III, otherwise known as "extended" joint criminal enterprise, did not exist under customary international law during 1975-1979, the period over which the ECCC has temporal jurisdiction. The decision is a stunning rebuke to the ICTY, which invented -- literally out of thin air -- that form of...
David Kopel, Theodore Bromund, and Ray Walser offer this Heritage Foundation essay analyzing (and attacking) the Inter-American Convention on the Illicit Sale of Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA). Although critical, the essay doesn't actually focus on the constitutional problems, since those are fairly unclear. In fact, the First Amendment problems seem larger than the Second Amendment...
Cross-posted at Balkinization Following my co-blogger Ken Anderson’s lead, I wanted to add a few additional notes on the D.C. Circuit’s holding today that a group of detainees held at the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan, do not have a constitutional right to seek a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. federal court. While acknowledging that at least two...
