French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's north. Britain has given logistical support to the French operation to stop al-Qaeda affiliates in Mali. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said that its military operation...
Calls for Papers Applications are due this week on January 15 for a workshop on European and transnational rulemaking in Amsterdam between July 1-5, 2013. More information can be found here. The Committee of Non-State Actors of the International Law Association (ILA), The Institute for Transborder Studies (ITS) at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, Oxford Brookes University, in collaboration with the...
This week on Opinio Juris, Kevin responded to Eugene Kontorovitch's post over at The Volokh Conspiracy on the comparability of Israel's settlement of the West Bank to Turkey's settlement of Northern Cyprus, by arguing that both settlements are not comparable. Eugene rebutted by advancing five reasons why Turkey's settlement is the graver violation of international law. Reflecting on Zero Dark Thirty, Deborah wrote about the responsibility of film makers for...
“The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense,” begins Shawcross, “but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon.” He cites a Lehigh University study that calculated that a Death Star would cost a deficit-exploding $852,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s $852 quadrillion), notes that “the Administration does not support blowing up planets,” and rightly points out that it would be foolhardy to build a space station “with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship.” Shawcross then goes on to tout the many space endeavors, both public and private, that are currently underway. (“Even though the United States doesn’t have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we’ve got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we’re building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun.”) He concludes by encouraging the diligent soul(s) who created the petition to pursue a career in a science, technology, or math-related field, declaring that anyone who does so embraces the power of the Force: “Remember, the Death Star’s power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”I've put the full text of the Obama administration response below the fold (and check out the many interesting links at the White House site, which I haven't included). It is more substantive than one might have anticipated - it discusses private space flight initiatives, the International Space Station and - naturally! - robots. Update: Response from the Air Force General Counsel's Twitter feed (and I recommend both the Twitter feed (@AirForceGC) and blog:
Still smarting from Death Star decision, but must admit weapons review would have been a bear.Referring to US legal requirements for a review of the legality of all weapons systems, meeting the terms of Article 36 of 1977 Additional Protocol I.
Jennifer Daskal (who, I'm delighted to say, has just accepted an offer to join the faculty at my school, Washington College of Law) has an important op-ed in the New York Times today titled, simply, "Don't Close Guantanamo." Many of us know Jen Daskal from her earlier positions in the Obama administration Justice Department and, before that, Human Rights Watch...
More than 100 people were killed in bombings in Pakistan yesterday, and Pakistan Human Rights Watch is sounding alarm bells about increasing Sunni-Shia violence. Tensions in Kashmir are rising with Pakistan now claiming that India has killed another of its soldiers. Three women, including a founding member of the PKK, were assassinated at the Kurdish Information Centre were they worked in Paris. The...
[Başak Çalı is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Human Rights at the University College London] This post is the first in a series of three. The relationship between the highest domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights has been subject to much debate in the past ten years in Europe. Some of this debate focuses on the backlash against the...
I'm in Tokyo for the Spring semester teaching in Temple Law's semester abroad program. But that hasn't stopped me from watching the Supreme Court, particularly its decision on whether or not to revisit Missouri v Holland via the case of Carol Anne Bond and the question of the scope of Congress's power to implement U.S. treaty obligations (SCOTUS blog has many,...
[Jennifer Trahan is associate clinical professor at the Center for Global Affairs at the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS). She is also chair of the American Branch of the International Law Association International Criminal Court Committee and was a member of the American Bar Association’s 2010 International Criminal Court Task Force.] Congress recently approved a bill expanding the...
Another day, another drone strike? Pakistani officials are reporting a second drone strike in as many days in North Waziristan, killing at least four. Ethnic violence has claimed almost twenty lives in South-East Kenya. A lavish ceremony has welcomed back the ARA Libertad to Argentina, after ITLOS ordered its release from seizure in Ghana. Syrian rebels have released 48 Iranian hostages in a...
Perhaps my favorite scene in the film Zero Dark Thirty comes relatively early on, when the two CIA interrogators around whom the early film revolves arrive at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan to interrogate their next detainees. The soldiers on the base have been keeping a cage of small monkeys (for unexplained reasons), and the scene opens with...
India has accused Pakistan of killing two of Indian soldiers in the disputed region of Kashmir, but Pakistan has denied any involvement and its media are playing down the incident. Hugo Chavez is too ill to be sworn in for his new term as President of Venezuela, raising a whole raft of constitutional questions. A military judge hearing the case against Bradley Manning in the Wikileaks affair...
Air Force GC