As a regular contributor here at Opinio Juris, it’s been great having John Bellinger guest blogging with us this week and seeing the exchange of ideas prompted by his posts. In addition, I appreciate having additional guest posters such as Eric Posner and Charles Garraway take the time to engage with these complicated issues. In particular, like Peggy...
On Sunday, U.S. forces attacked what the Defense Department is characterizing as “’principal Al Qaeda leadership’ operating in the southern part of Somalia." DOD’s information on the attack is pretty sketchy, but the official Defense Department news story indicates that the targets were “terrorists who may have struck the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.” [Update: The New...
In 1965, as part of the Restatement Second, the American Law Institute published the original Restatement on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. Twenty two years later in 1987, a new edition appeared – The Restatement (Third) on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. Together, they've had an enormous influence on the courts;...
I’m fascinated by the recent story that volcanic activity has produced an actual, new island in the South Pacific near Tonga. The sailors who claim to be the first to have “discovered” this new land mass have pretty amazing photos of the island and the “pumice raft” that accompanied its creation. Scientists are having a field day assessing...
There’s been lots of recent buzz suggesting that the U.S. might start “talking with the enemy” (a.k.a. Iran). I suspect folks favoring such talks will groan when they hear CNN’s story of how an Iranian court is prepared to hand over the U.S. embassy in Tehran to an Iranian man, Hossein Alikhani, who successfully sued the United States in...
What’s the hot topic in U.S. foreign affairs law these days? (Hint: it's not Medellin, although I suppose that may change quickly). Rather, if tomorrow’s conference at Duke Law (co-sponsored by Harvard Law School) is any guide, it’s the issue of delegating authority under treaties to international organizations or other autonomous international bodies. Can the United States agree...
I’ve been busy over the last few weeks working on Temple’s Faculty Recruitment Committee. Along with our other hiring needs, we’re interested in bringing on another international law expert to bolster our recent hires in that area. As part of this process, I recently participated in the American Association of Law’s Schools Faculty Recruitment Conference (impolitely a.k.a. as...
As I discussed in a recent post, I was fortunate enough to attend José Alvarez's talk last week in Ottawa at the Canadian Council of International Law's Annual Meeting. José has been kind enough to make the text of his talk available (see here or check out the ASIL President's Page where it will be posted more permanently). ...
I’m in Ottawa for a few days, attending the annual meeting of the Canadian Council on International Law – Canada’s equivalent to ASIL, but smaller. Fewer folks aside, the conference packs a powerful punch. I was here to present a paper, exploring how Principal-Agent theory (and Karen Alter’s Trustee variant) explains the U.S. relationship to the International...
Back in July, I wrote about U.S. treaty-making trends, noting that the Bush Administration was lagging when compared to previous administrations in terms of concluding treaties. Well, they’ve obviously been reading Opinio Juris, and now appear to be making up for lost time. In September 2006 alone, the President submitted 8 treaty packages to the Senate for advice...
My colleague Craig Green has posted on SSRN a revised version of a piece--Wiley Rutledge, Executive Detention, and Judicial Conscience at War--that's just been published by the Washington University Law Review. The article analogizes the decisions of Wiley Rutledge in the post-WWII context to the Supreme Court's recent decisions related to detainees and terrorism. Here's the abstract: ...
As I noted a few weeks back, PrawfsBlawg is hosting a research canons series, where readers can post thoughts on the most useful resources within a given discipline for new scholars seeking to gain a foothold in that field. Today, they're seeking input on international law. I've posted a few of my general public international law favorites over...
