Particularly since the European sovereign debt crisis put the question of sovereign debt ratings squarely on the table, and even more in the last few days since the rating agencies have downgraded Greek debt to junk status, I have to wonder what insulates Moody’s, Standard & Poors, and Fitch against pressures direct and indirect, subtle and not so subtle, by...
In conversation with someone who, as a senior NGO executive in international development and food aid, is well situated to respond on the question of rising commodity prices for food globally. I asked specifically about the Wall Street Journal news story a few days ago on this topic, which reported: Prices of corn and soybeans leapt 4% Wednesday and wheat gained 1%,...
As the U.S. government continues to try to shut down WikiLeaks -- preferably, it seems, without having to actually charge Assange or the website with an actual crime -- it's important not to forget how much we've learned through WikiLeaks' efforts. Here is a (partial) list created by Greg Mitchell, who has been keeping a daily log of all things...
I received this notice from my friend Gary Born and thought it worth sharing. Sounds like a wonderful opportunity for any academic interested in international arbitration. My Pepperdine colleague Tom Stipanowich was the resident scholar last semester, and he could not say enough about the experience. Here's the formal announcement: The International Arbitration Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering...
Last week I noted the remarkable spectacle of the Guardian publishing an editorial that blamed WikiLeaks for releasing a State Department cable that had, in fact, been initially released by the Guardian itself. At the time, my evidence of that fact was circumstantial, based on the time-dates provided by the Guardian and WikiLeaks websites. But no longer -- eight days...
If as expected Southern Sudan votes to secede in this weekend's referendum, territorial boundaries should be drawn neatly enough. Boundaries of human community may be more difficult. At issue is the status of southerners resident in the north and vice versa. The risk is that these individuals won't end up with citizenship in their place of residence, making them vulnerable to...
As of early 2009, it's officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia. (Okay, news travels slowly to Philadelphia; perhaps to your town, too?) That may seem like a technical change, but Stanford geographer Martin W. Lewis makes the case that it gives the lie to the very concept of nationhood as we conventionally understand it: The idea of the nation-state has become...
What will daily life in Jerusalem be like a century from now? This is the theme of the Jerusalem 2111 International Animation Competition, organized by the Association of Planning and Conservation- Jerusalem (Beit Hamodel). The blog io9 has a post with links to some of the submissions, which include visions of a depopulated Jerusalem under UN control, what looks like a...
The Guardian published an editorial by a Republican political operative today blaming WikiLeaks for releasing a State Department cable concerning a meeting between Tsvangirai and Susan Rice in which Tsvangirai discussed the possibility of peacefully removing Mugabe from power: Now, in the wake of the WikiLeaks' release, one of the men targeted by US and EU travel and asset freezes, Mugabe's...
Julia Preston's lead story in yesterday's NYT Times highlighted the shift to state governments as immigration battlegrounds. Several are looking to be SB 1070 copycats. I don't think those will go anywhere in the face of quiet but intense opposition from the business community, who want the cheap labor and who don't want to be in the cross-hairs of the...
