In association with the International Commission of Jurists

September 2012

07 Sep

James Phillips and John Yoo have just published a thoughtful analysis critiquing Brian Leiter's approach to ranking faculty relevance. They suggest that what we should be looking at is all-stars, not superstars. If you measure a school based on their all-star line-up rather than their superstars, the results are dramatically different. Here's how they put it: Faculty can...

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07 Sep

The International Economic Law and Policy Blog is reporting on a case filed against the WTO in a US District Court seeking a declaration that the "ruling of the Appellate Body of the WTO concerning the Country of Origin Labeling Act is null and void in the United States and throughout the world" on the basis that US law prevails over the WTO...

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06 Sep

President's Obama's speech this evening to the Democratic Convention spun citizenship as a central theme: We believe in something called citizenship – a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations. . . . Because we...

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06 Sep

Having followed the terrorism litigation against Iran for years, I was fascinated to read of the recent legislation—Section 502 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights--that creates a legislative fix for victims of one particular group of terrorist victims but not thousands of others. The law in question grants plaintiffs/judgment creditors in one and only one case—Peterson...

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06 Sep

Just when you thought you've seen everything -- you haven't: According to a statement posted on the website of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Judge El Hadji Malik Sow, a Senegalese jurist who served as alternate judge for Trial Chamber II, has agreed to testify in the wake of the defense appeal. A guilty verdict was handed down against Taylor last...

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06 Sep

The Liberian Daily Observer has reported that Judge Sow of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has been called by the defense team of Charles Taylor and will testify in his appeal. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has accused both the government and the rebel forces in Syria of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader...

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05 Sep

 I had a good day yesterday. I received a package in the mail from Oxford containing copies of my book -- The Oxford Guide to Treaties. It represents the culmination of a three year effort on my part to compile a comprehensive and current guide to treaty law and practice.  To do this, I started with a fairly simple premise...

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05 Sep

What I said last month, about Mauritania refusing to extradite al-Senussi to Libya?  Never mind: The man accused of having helped orchestrate some of the worst crimes committed by the regime of ex-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has been extradited back to Libya, according to a Mauritanian government statement. The communique carried by national radio and on Mauritania's official news agency said Abdullah...

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05 Sep

According to state media, Mauritania has extradited Ex-Libyan spy chief Al-Senussi to the Libyan authorities instead of to the International Criminal Court. A court in London found Britain responsible for the 1948 killing of 24 unarmed Malayan civilians who were shot dead by British troops during a campaign against Communist insurgents. In the next nine months, Scotland will introduce a bill to...

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04 Sep

Thanks to a couple of kind retweets by Peter, our twitter guru, some readers might have noticed that I have joined the twitterverse -- @kevinjonheller.  I don't know how often I will be tweeting; I much prefer blogging as a medium of communication.  But feel free to follow me, if you are so inclined. That said, two caveats.  First, I don't...

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04 Sep

The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah has said that Iran can strike US bases in the Middle East if Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. In other Hezbollah news, the group ponders an uncertain future if one of its two closest allies, President Assad of Syria, is defeated in the current uprising. Syrian refugees fleeing the country's turmoil have started arriving in European...

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