Those in favor of a “gloves off” approach to the war on terror are finding themselves increasingly isolated both politically and legally. Last week, Secretary of State Rice made front-page news with her pronouncement that “As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States’ obligations under the CAT [the Convention Against Torture], which prohibits, of course, cruel and inhumane...
That's a central question for states as they gather this week in Dakar, Senegal for the 17th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. Unlike its more controversial cousin, the Kyoto Protocol, the Montreal Protocol is widely regarded as the success story for using treaties to address a global problem -- i.e., the hole in the ozone layer. Although...
The United States is currently bound by over 10,000 treaties and other international agreements. That’s a big number. But as Detlev Vagts noted seven years ago (subscription required), the United States has done a poor job of making these treaties publicly available. In terms of publications, the situation has only deteriorated in the interim. If you are hoping to find...
For the last several years Mexico had certainly thought so. But on Tuesday, Mexico’s Supreme Court decided to lift a ban on extradition of persons who would be subject to life imprisonment, reversing an earlier 2001 decision that had found such extraditions violated the prohibition on “unusual penalties” in Article 22 of the Mexican Constitution. As a result...
First of all, I want to thank Chris, Peggy, Julian and Roger for letting me spend some time here at Opinio Juris. As an avid reader, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to exchange ideas with other Opinio Juris readers.To that end, I want to start off with a question about judicial treatment of non-self-executing treaties. U.S. courts have certainly...
