CNN reports that several former hostages of the 444-day US embassy hostage crisis in Iran believe that Iranian president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as one of their captors. Other reports stated that he was believed to have acted in a capacity akin to chief of security for the hostage-takers. The aides of the president-elect have denied the allegations and former...
Just in time for beach reading season, I have just posted to SSRN my newest article, Resolving Treaty Conflicts, which is coming out in the George Washington International Law Review. I grapple with the question of what States should do when they are signatories to multiple treaties (such as, say, a trade agreement and an environmental agreement) that frustrate each...
The reference library at the UN has sent out an announcement stating:Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN Headquarters in New York is announcing the creation of a new blog called “UN Pulse: Connecting to UN Information.”The blog focuses on just-released UN system-wide online information, major reports, publications and documents and we have included a category called “International Law.” Created and...
David Bosco, the Senior Editor of Foreign Policy Magazine and an international lawyer, has a thoughtful piece on John Bolton in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. I think it is worth reading by Bolton apologists and critics alike because it gets away from the heated rhetoric from both sides and uses the Bolton nomination to ask some tough questions...
Maybe April is the cruellest month, but May and June haven’t been so great for the European Union, either. First there was the collapse of the EU Constitutional process at the hands of the French and the Dutch. And now there is a budgetary debacle that redoubles the perception that the “European project” is in crisis.In short, negotiations over the...
On behalf of the three of us, I wanted to thank Roger for his stint--hopefully the first of many--guest blogging at Opinio Juris. We will have other guest bloggers in the weeks and months (and years?) to come. I doubt many will be blogging while travelling around India, though.Thanks again, Roger, and we hope you blog again with...
In a response to my earlier post on Ikenberry’s views on progressive versus conservative foreign policy thinking, an anonymous commenter wrote:I don't buy either Ikenberry's superficial presentation in this post, or the underlying superiority of the liberal order as defined as "commitment to multilateralism and rules-based relations," which again is simplistic in the extreme. Clinton wanted to build "liberal" order?...
John Ikenberry has a great post over at America Abroad entitled “Democratic Enlargement versus Liberal Order.” I think it neatly contrasts the world views of conservatives and liberal internationalists (and by “liberal” I don’t mean “left wing”). I'll write on this more in the coming days. For now, here’s a few excerpts from Ikenberry's post (but the...
There have been numerous posts on Opinio Juris concerning how it may be time to reconsider the role of the ICJ. One recent comment to the blog and another “out in the real world” provide a good counterpoint to this whole discussion.Dr. Cesare Romano of NYU has posted an insightful comment to an earlier post on whether the ICJ needs...
Welcome Roger and thanks for starting us off this week with a great topic.IJM’s strategy is very interesting. While I don’t know of other groups applying litigation strategy exactly like IJM, I do note that U.S. civil rights groups have looked into ways in which human rights norms can affect U.S. litigation, even if you are not suing under...
... on the EU Constitution, check out the discussion over at Transatlantic Assembly on the French vote and the state of the EU.UPDATELe Monde reports a 63% "No" vote by the Dutch. The number will likely be adjusted slightly in the next hour or two as all the results are counted....
What will the French “Non” to the EU Constitution mean for EU-hopefuls?I have just returned from a week and a half in Moldova and Romania. Romania is supposed to accede to the EU in 2007 or soon thereafter. What strikes me, though, is how many Romanians seems skeptical of European integration. There was, of course, the famous quip by Chirac...
