I spent last week on a beach in Florida (because everyone from Philly vacations in Florida in August). I had left all my work at home, and was settling into a crime novel, David Hewson's The Sacred Cut, about a serial killer loose in my favorite city--Rome. It was a light read, so I was willing to go along with...
Well, that's exactly what the Obama Administration did this past Wednesday. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed the 1976 ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) on behalf of the United States with the intention that her signature serve as the requisite act of accession, bringing the treaty immediately into force for the United States. Now, the treaty does not commit the United States...
Readers may have noticed we didn't have much to say about last week's ICJ judgment in Costa Rica v. Nicaragua, which involved disputed water rights in the San Juan river (the full judgment is here; for those interested in a short version, the ICJ Registry's summary is here). Well, Marko Milanovic of EJIL: Talk! (and a former OJ guest blogger)...
Over the last year, Julian and I both participated in a task force on treaties, jointly convened by the American Bar Association and the American Society of International Law. Along with the task force's other members including former guest bloggers like Ed Swaine and Curt Bradley (see the full list here), we've now produced a consensus report. Medellin served as the...
As widely reported, in Moscow yesterday President Obama and Russian President Medvedev signed a Joint Understanding for the Start Follow-on Treaty. Here's how the White House fact sheet describes it: On April 1, Presidents Obama and Medvedev agreed in London that America and Russian negotiators would begin work on a new, comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive...
The National Research Council of the National Academies has just about finalized a lengthy report on cyberattacks--Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition and Use of Cyberattack Capabilities. William A. Owens, Kenneth W. Dam, and Herbert S. Lin edited the study on behalf of a 14 member committee and a 5 member staff. It should be available in hard...
Most Court-watchers spent the day examining the Ricci case (a.k.a. the New Haven Firefighters' case), given its racial dimensions and the fact that Judge Sotomayor participated in the Second Circuit opinion that the Court overturned. I, however, was more interested to see that the Court granted certiorari today in another Sotomayor-related case, Abbott v. Abbott. This is the Fifth Circuit case I mentioned...
The New York Times (along with much of the mainstream media) has "rediscovered" cyberwar of late (see here, here, here, and here). Today's story revives longstanding differences between Russian government proposals to regulate cyberwarfare by treaty versus existing U.S. preferences to place the issue in more informal law enforcement cooperation networks: Russia favors an international treaty along the lines of those negotiated for...
Thanks to my research assistant Heather Bourne, I've been reading a few of Judge Sotomayor's cases involving treaties. And although Julian suggested a few weeks ago that Sotomayor might be a closet sovereigntist, at least one case -- her dissent in Croll v. Croll, 229 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2000) -- suggests that she has internationalist leanings as well (subject...
Maybe it's too soon after finals for some of you, but for those still willing to undergo examination, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has a short on-line quiz on international humanitarian law (IHL). You can access it here. It's issued in concert with a major conference the Center is hosting later this week on Hamas, the Gaza War, and Accountability...
Last month, the Obama Administration informed the Senate of its treaty priorities via a letter from the State Department (you can access it here). The letter lists 17 treaties for which the Administration seeks Senate advice and consent "at this time," including (as predicted here and here) CTBT, CEDAW, and UNCLOS. It also lists 12 treaties "on which...
Today's New York Times leads with the story of Pentagon plans to form a new cybercommand: The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare. The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on...
