After being one of four countries to vote against the new Human Rights Council, the U.S. has announced that it will cooperate and even support funding for the new council. If that's the case, I'm not exactly sure what was the point of U.S. opposition in the first place In any event, as I've suggested, the new Human Rights Council...
Exxon has lost its bid to dismiss an alien tort statute lawsuit alleging it is liable for human rights abuses committed by Indonesian troops using its facilities in Indonesia. (thanks to Pointoflaw for the tip). I can't seem to find the district court opinion online, but it should set up an important test case for all corporate Alien Tort...
The ECHR has refused to admit a case filed by Saddam Hussein against European countries that participated in the military invasion and deposition of his regime in Iraq. (Full text of the decision here) The obvious problem with Saddam's claim is jurisdictional. But his lawyers argued that "he fell within the jurisdiction of all the respondent States because they...
There are lots of benefits to multilateral military intervention, but quick and decisive action is not one of them. Darfur is a case study. The game of pass the buck between the U.N. and Sudan has led to an underfunded relatively ineffective peacekeeping force combined with delays over further deployments of U.N. forces. Meanwhile, the ICC, a year...
The NYT is now reporting that the autopsy of Milosevic has turned up a antibiotic that none of the doctors treating him had prescribed for him. In other words, the evidence from one of the autopsies suggests that Milosevic may not have died of completely natural causes. One of the local Dutch doctors has a theory that Milosevic...
The NYT notes that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and the Defense Department are considering plans to resume military aid to certain Latin American countries that had defied U.S. demands that it exempt U.S. soldiers from the ICC's jurisdiction. Along with the U.S. agreement to refer Sudan to the ICC, this latest move suggests that the U.S. is adopting...
In response to the aforementioned U.S. Human Rights report, China released its own report on the situation of human rights in the United States. It paints a horrible picture indeed and one wonders how Americans can survive amid the endemic poverty and pervasive violent crime. One further wonders why immigrants from China and elsewhere continue to move to...
Opinio Juris readers enjoy (or suffer) through my views on international law stuff on a near-daily basis. Today, readers of the LA Times get the same (questionable) benefit in the form of my op-ed about the Supreme Court's cases assessing whether the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations creates a judicially enforceable private right of action. (Unhappily, the headline for...
Last year the ACLU and Human Rights First sued Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for responsibility in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. After much legal wrangling, the parties have finally agreed on a forum (the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.). Monday, Rumsfeld filed this motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit. As I argued in...
While most attention at the Academy Awards was focused on the gowns and the ridiculous selection of "Crash" as best picture, most folks in China were probably focused on Taiwanese director Ang Lee's award for Best Director. Lee is, as far as I know, the first Asian director ever to with the Best Director Oscar, and certainly the first...
It is trendy to say that every area of law is "global" in a globalizing world. It is also probably correct. Administrative law is a good example of this. Administrative agencies need to cooperate transnationally as well as domestically, but scholars have only begun to study those transnational relationships. As lawprof David Zaring of Washington...
Overshadowed by the war on terrorism, the U.S. war on illegal narcotics continues apace. This war is not just metaphorical. It involves substantial deployment of military and diplomatic assets throughout the world, as the State Department's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy report indicates. The U.S. has poured billions of dollars into narcotics interdiction or eradication overseas. Drugs dominates the...
