In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Chris Borgen

28 Feb

This Friday, March 3, 2006, St. John’s Law School will host a conference entitled Federalism Past, Federalism Future: A Constitutional Law Symposium. The full brochure is available here and the symposium papers will be published this spring in a 20th anniversary issue of the St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary.The Conference will have well-known Constitutional Law luminaries, such as Akhil...

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20 Feb

Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has published an excellent article on the Administration’s attempts to thwart critics of its use of what can only be called torture on detainees in the War on Terrorism. It focuses in part on the experiences of Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora in trying to end such practices. The article is long and it...

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17 Feb

Thad Anderson of outragedmoderates.org (and a St John’s Law student) has posted documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request he had made which include notes of DoD staffer Steven Cambone from meetings with Donald Rumsfeld on the afternoon and evening of September 11, 2001. Cambone’s notes were cited by the 9/11 Commission and by CBS.Anderson explains:The released notes...

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10 Feb

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has spun up a tiff with Tony Blair in which the words “international law” are getting flung around a lot. To little effect. According to the BBC:On Wednesday in the House of Commons, Mr Blair was asked by Colin Burgon, an MP from his Labour party, whether Britain should follow "a really right-wing US republican agenda"...

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09 Feb

There’s a relatively new blog out there that I think Opinio Juris readers will find interesting and full of insight: The Transitional Justice Forum. The bloggers at TJF cover all sorts of topics on democratic transitions, post-conflict management, international criminal law, and other related areas. TJF’s bloggers are an impressive group including, among others, Mark Drumbl, Christopher Le...

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28 Jan

Fortune Magazine reports about a session at the Davos World Economic Forum on scenarios for possible oil crises in the near future. Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital and George Soros led the session. Soros was particulalry concerned that U.S. over-reach in Iraq would further embolden countries such as Iran that want to overturn the current order. While...

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18 Jan

Joel Trachtman of the Fletcher School and Petros Mavroidis of Columbia Law School have started the International Economc Law and Policy Blog. The opening salvo of posts have touched on topics ranging from the trade in caviar and the protection of endangered species, to the governance of cyberspace, to World Bank conditionality and sovereignty, to the judgeing style of the...

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13 Jan

The U.S. has seemingly blocked two sales of military planes to Venezuela: one from Spain, and another from Brazil. In each case—turboprop trainers in the Brazilian case, and patrol planes in the Spanish case—the planes in question had U.S. military technology. As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez complained this week:We couldn't sign the document. The contract is ready for Brazil to...

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