Three quick updates from the "robots and warfare" side of things (largely culled from recent Danger Room posts that caught my eye and I wanted to point out to Opinio Juris readers). I have previously posted about Big Dog, the four-legged beast of burden being developed for use by the U.S. military. DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is now...
Wired's Danger Room has a new piece about law enforcement reform and efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. In particular, it focuses on the work of U.S. and Romanian Special Operations Forces in training Afghan law enforcement. Behind the scenes across the embattled country, a special breed of U.S. soldier is working closely with a new style of Afghan police to enforce law and order in...
Chevron strikes back, and the pro-Ecuador NGOs are not happy about it. WASHINGTON, Feb. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- An "order" issued Thursday from a private investor arbitration panel purporting to freeze a nine-year environmental litigation against Chevron in Ecuador violates international law and will have little or no impact on any potential enforcement action against the oil giant in...
[Vince Vitowsky has asked me to post this announcement from Joe D. Whitley about an upcoming ABA two-day event that might interest readers.] Thursday, March 22, 2012-Friday, March 23, 2012 Capital Hilton 1001 16th Street NW Washington, District of Columbia, United States 20036 As Program Chair and Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, I would like to invite you to...
[The good folks at VJIL asked that I pass the following announcement along] Now in its fifty-second year, the Virginia Journal of International Law is the oldest continuously published, student-edited law journal in the United States. The Journal addresses issues such as international commercial transactions, trade law, international litigation and arbitration, international organizations, international human rights law, and comparative law. The...
Cross-posted at LieberCode. I have written before about the Government’s new position in the Hamdan case. As you will recall, Hamdan was convicted by a military commission for providing material support, sentenced to five and a half years, and released for time served. He is now appealing his conviction. The latest government brief before the D.C. Circuit represents a significant...
One issue I don't understand in the Greece-Eurozone crisis is the legal basis on which Greece can either be forced out of the Eurozone, or else can leave it voluntarily. I'd be grateful if someone knowledgeable could explain in the comments, and give the relevant treaty references, for how the process works. One reason I ask is that I thought...
The ICJ has asked us to post the following job announcement for law clerks at the ICJ -- which are, needless to say, among the very best positions available to a young international lawyer. Vacancy announcement Date of issuance: 8 February 2012 Deadline for applications: 10 April 2012 Post title: Law Clerk to Judges of the Court (Associate Legal Officer) (2 positions) Grade: P-2 Vacancy Announcement...
Cross-posted at LieberCode. David Rieff has an interesting – and somewhat polemical – article in the latest Foreign Policy. Rieff, you will recall, was an early supporter of intervention, a policy position no doubt influenced by his time spent in Bosnia which culminated in Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. Although initially hawkish on intervention, and willing to support liberal...
For those of you no longer getting the New York Times in print, this was the lead story in today's paper. (Somewhat weirdly, it shows up on the webpage as a blog post.) Apple's signing on to Fair Labor Association standards and auditing is probably the biggest thing ever to happen in the world of private, rights-related codes of conduct....
If you are around Washington DC this week on Wednesday and Thursday, you might want to (advance) register and attend a major human rights conference at my school, Washington College of Law, American University, "Forensic Evidence in the Fight Against Torture." My law school's dean, Claudio Grossman, is a major figure in UN and regional human rights bodies, and is...
[The following is a guest post by Dan Joyner, Professor of Law at the University of Alabama. Our thanks to him for contributing it.] So, as you probably guessed from the title of this post, it’s going to be a bit of a rant. But this has been festering inside me for the past five years and I want to get...
