The knotty situation with Venezuela is getting knottier. Besides the commencement of arms purchases from Russia, there is the more convoluted issue of oil politics. President Hugo Chavez has announced that he will seek to keep the world price of oil at about $50 per barrel, in contrast to the 1990’s level which was at about $20 per barrel....
The cover story of today’s NY Times Magazine by Elizabeth Rubin is entitled “If Not Peace, then Justice.” The text on the cover reads: The U.N is not going to stop the genocide in Darfur. The African Union is not going to stop the genocide in Darfur. The U.S. is not going to stop the genocide in Darfur. NATO is not going to stop...
This morning at the ASIL Annual Meeting Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins and Philippe Sands of the University of London debated the legality of the War in Iraq. They gave 25 minute presentations before a bench of “judges” comprised of (real life) Judge Diane Wood of the Seventh Circuit, Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics, and Yoram Dinstein...
In anticipation of its 100th Annual Meeting, the ASIL has debuted an interactive project on its website called International Law: 100 Ways it Shapes Our Lives. I think it’s a great idea. We often get so caught up in the cynicism around hot political issues that we forget that international law is like an iceberg, we simply don’t see the...
We would like to welcome the newest member of the Opinio Juris team, Professor Duncan Hollis of Temple University School of Law. As many of you may remember, Duncan guest blogged with us in December. Duncan is a specialist in treaty law and has edited a new book, National Treaty Law and Practice. Other examples of his scholarship can...
Regarding the upcoming oral argument in Hamdan, the Guantanamo detainee case before the Supreme Court, the following is from CNN (citing to Newsweek): U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed the idea that Guantanamo detainees have constitutional rights and called European concerns over the issue hypocritical, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday. The comments, which Newsweek said were recorded at a private appearance...
According to the BBC, the government of Nigeria has agreed to hand over former Liberian President Charles Taylor for trial. The Nigerian Government statement said: "President Olusegun Obasanjo has today, 25 March, informed President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that the government of Liberia is free to take former President Charles Taylor into custody." The BBC further reports that: Mr Taylor is accused of selling...
For those of you who will be at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (or just in DC), Opinio Juris and the ASIL will sponsor a reception on Thursday evening, March 30th, from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm in the Longworth Room of the Fairmont Hotel, 2401 M Street, NW (the location of the Annual Meeting). Besides...
Justice Ginsburg revealed in a speech that she and Justice O’Connor were the targets of death threats over their citation to foreign and international law. As reported by Tony Mauro of the Legal Times, Ginsburg said: “Although I doubt the current measures will garner sufficient votes to pass, it is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support… And one not-so-small concern...
David Kaye, a State Department lawyer who is on leave as director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at Whittier Law School, wrote to tell me that Edward R. Cummings, a long-time lawyer at the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser has passed away. Ed was not the type of guy who is often mentioned on blogs....
Arnaud de Borchgrave, one of the deans of international journalism and now an editor-at-large for UPI, has filed an essay based on a recent meeting of foreign leaders from the government, media, and international organizations. The worst geopolitical blunder in 229 years of American history? That was how participants at a recent off-the-record conference held in Monaco viewed the U.S. decision...
With all the recent talk of electronic surveillance, the NSA, and FISA, I want to point out a sidebar to the history of surveillance and cryptography. Three encoded Nazi messages—products of the famed Enigma encryption system—that had gone unbroken since WWII are being deciphered by a group of amateurs using networked computers via the Internet. The first message...
