Tomorrow, China’s President Hu Jintao has a summit scheduled with President Bush that will cover a variety of important topics, ranging from the Iranian nuclear crisis, China’s human rights record, the U.S. trade deficit with China, and China’s undervalued currency. But, its political importance aside, this will simply be one among many meetings Bush will have this year with foreign...
In addition to my treaties obsession, I seem to be spending more and more time each year following the U.S. national pasttime – baseball. This year, in addition to the on-the-field action, attention has swirled around the question of doping – who used steroids to amplify their physical performance, when did they use it, and what should baseball do about...
I’ve been coming to terms lately with the fact that I’m obsessed with treaties. Now, to some, this might be a strange subject for an obsession, but I really do like treaties – I like to read newly negotiated treaties; I like to debate who can make treaties, not to mention my interest in comparing how different states interpret...
‘Tis the season for international law conferences. Assuming you are not heading to New York or Orange County this weekend, consider stopping off in Wilmington, Delaware, where Professor Andy Strauss of the Widener University School of Law has organized a conference, Envisioning a More Democratic Global System. It’s being co-sponsored by Widener and the American Society of International...
The blogosphere is abuzz this week with discussion and analysis of the latest round of U.S. News & World Report's law school rankings (see here and here and here). Most such efforts have concentrated on identifying movement (or lack thereof) in the general rankings of law schools, the methodologies employed in the rankings, or the internal effect the rankings...
Is Justice Kennedy a treaty lawyer? Listening to him yesterday during his speech to the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, you would think he’s at least been studying up on the subject. As Peggy pointed out, Justice Kennedy’s wide-ranging talk focused most closely on the problem of genocide, and his comments in that...
First of all, I’d like to thank Chris, Peggy, Julian, Rodger and Kevin for inviting me to join Opinio Juris. I’m looking forward to plenty of posts on the major international law issues of the day (which, today, as Julian pointed out, is the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in Hamdan). But, analogizing to the conventional-wisdom for public speakers,...
The New York Times greets the arrival of 2006 with this lead story about UN efforts to revise the much maligned Human Rights Commission (it has counted among its members Sudan, Cuba, and Zimbabwe; Libya chaired it in 2003). Although I had earlier predicted (see here) UN hopes to have a new "Human Rights Council" in place by the end...
I've been grading exams this week and reading various student explanations of how a decision on an international legal issue (defining torture) will vary depending on whether the decision-maker has a positivist or naturalist approach to international law. Of course, I could have asked my students to consider other "schools" of international legal theory -- e.g., the New Haven School,...
An Italian Judge today issued a European Arrest Warrant for 22 individuals alleged to have been involved in a CIA abduction of a Muslim cleric in Italy in 2002. Osama Mustafa Hassan was purportedly seized by CIA agents on February 17, 2003 in Milan, without permission from Italian authorities, and sent to Egypt for questioning. Mr. Hassan later alleged being...
Today, both the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed closely coordinated resolutions (see here and here) approving the establishment of a new "Peacebuilding Commission" (UN buffs will find such a procedural move noteworthy in its own right). As for the Commission, it will serve as the UN’s central repository for advising countries emerging...
Last Monday, I attended a conference at Vanderbilt Law School, sponsored by the American Society of International Law’s Interest Group on International Law in Domestic Courts. It was a great conference on many levels. For one thing, it afforded me the chance to see several of my Opinio Juris colleagues--Julian, Peggy, Roger and recent alum, Bobby Chesney--in person (for those...
