The press is loving the Defense Department’s recent disclosure of a decaying U.S. spy satellite that’s falling out of orbit, and U.S. plans to shoot it down before the school-bus-sized object crashes to earth. The latest news suggests that the U.S. Navy will take its first shot at the satellite this Thursday. Most of the ensuing discussion has...
Eighty-eight years ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes authored one of his most famous opinions in the case of Missouri v. Holland, purporting to settle the question of whether states' rights limited the treaty power. His rejection of any such "invisible radiation" from the Tenth Amendment has engendered dedicated defenders and passionate critics ever since, from Senator Bricker, up through more...
The latest law blogging trend — self-citation studies. Volokh, Concurring Opinions, Conglomerate, and Balkinization all seem to be moving us to a new status symbol for academic blogs: How many times have you been cited? Although most bloggers watch their sitemeter stats to get a sense of how the blog is doing, we all know that a...
For much of the last year, I've been thinking about whether existing international humanitarian law rules are up to the task of dealing with issues of cyberwar and cyberterror, or, to use the U.S. military terminology--information operations (IO). In addition to an Op-Ed and a short piece for a military audience, I've now posted on SSRN a more detailed...
I've posted on SSRN my recent book review for the American Journal of International Law of Malgosia Fitzmaurice and Olufemi Elias' Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing, 2005). Here's the abstract: On the surface, CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN THE LAW OF TREATIES, by Malgosia Fitzmaurice and Olufemi Elias, makes no overt claims regarding the debate over the...
Notwithstanding its recent efforts to avoid recess appointments with 12 second sessions, the Senate will return in full next Monday. For international lawyers, the big question is whether UNCLOS finally gets a vote for the Senate's advice and consent. As I noted here and here, the SFRC voted UNCLOS out of Committee last fall largely along party lines....
José Padilla—who this past August was convicted of terrorism conspiracy—and John Yoo, one of, if not the, legal architect of the U.S. response to 9/11—have become near-household names in the fights over U.S. detention policies in the so-called "Global War on Terror." Today, that fight took on a much more personal character, as Padilla (and his mother) sued John...
It’s a happy new year (of sorts) for U.S. Human Rights Groups concerned about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur. For the last several years, groups such as the Save Darfur Coalition have pushed state and local governments to divest from companies that invest or do business with Sudan. Their efforts have produced some impressive results --since 2005,...
For those looking for a more detailed breakdown of the Bali talks on Climate Change, check out this day-by-day record of the events. It's part of the International Institute for Sustainable Development's reporting service. IISD monitors and reports on developments in international environmental law, including virtually all the MEAs (multilateral environmental agreements). Indeed,...
Those of you who follow our linkroll may already have noted that the American Society of International Law (ASIL) has launched a great new website for the U.S. Presidential Campaign. Dubbed “International Law 2008” ASIL’s project has three components: (1) a collection of the candidates' policy statements and speeches on topics related to international law; (2) candidate responses to...
State Department Legal Adviser (& former OJ Guest Blogger) John Bellinger gave a major speech at Oxford University yesterday, entitled "Prisoners in War: Contemporary Challenges to the Geneva Conventions." If you care about U.S. detention policies, it's a must-read. For starters, it serves as a great encapsulation of U.S. legal arguments in defense of past and present detention...
There'll be much discussion this week in conjunction with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on Wednesday in the cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States. Most of the conversation will likely (and rightly) focus on the question of the U.S. Constitution's reach as a matter of U.S. law to detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...
