It's official: the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Mohammed Yunnus and Grameen Bank for work promoting microfinance as a tool for economic development. Yunnus and Grameen join an impressive list of past laureates. Online betting odds had favored Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (at 3-1 odds), according to one site, and Finnish ex-President Martti Ahtisaari (at...
The ICTR began last month the trial of Simon Bikindi, (indictment), who is accused of six counts of genocide, for writing and recording popular songs that, according to his indictment, incited and encouraged genocide. (Articles by Guardian, Reuters, BBC, and VoA.) Bikindi had earned himself the nickname "Rwanda's Michael Jackson" (presumably for the popularity of his songs). The Prosecutor...
The announcement of a successful test of a nuclear weapon by North Korea (update: articles by NYT, WaPo, Guardian, and the text of the North Korean announcement) raises the question: did such a test render North Korea in violation of international law? As is often the case, the briefest questions can be the most challenging to answer convincingly. ...
The Associated Press has just reported a North Korean announcement that the country successfully performed its first test of a nuclear weapon yesterday evening EDT. Neither the United States, South Korea, nor Japan have officially confirmed that the test did indeed occur. However, statements by South Korean intelligence officials and an official South Korean seismic monitoring center that...
As the only candidate to receive the approval of all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon seems certain to become the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. The pre-voting procedure of the Security Council involves a series of "straw polls" to indicate whether Security Council members encourage, discourage, or have no...
I’d like to thank Chris, Peggy, Julian, Roger, Kevin, Duncan, and Peter for asking me to join Opinio Juris for the next two weeks as a guest blogger. Currently, I’m in Arusha, Tanzania, spending a month seconded to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). (Standard disclaimers apply: the views expressed...
