U.S. opposition may result in a delay on the current proposal to replace the U.N. Human Rights Commission with a new Human Rights Council, Reuters reports. Although, as I pointed out, the U.S. only has five votes in the General Assembly, it does have other levers of influence. Britain, for instance, is supporting a delay and members of Congress...
The U.S. and India have reached a landmark nuclear cooperation agreement by which the U.S. will give India access to civilian nuclear technology and India appears to give international inspectors access to its civilian nuclear facilities. The deal is the centerpiece of President Bush's current visit to India and, indeed, is an important symbol of future U.S. cooperation with...
The new African Court of Human and People's Rights, which was established as Africa's new regional international court, will sit in Arusha, Tanzania. This is not exactly a surprise. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda already sits there and its mandate will expire in 2008, so it makes a lot of sense to take advantage of the existing...
The U.S. government has announced that it will oppose the current proposal for a new Human Rights Council to take the place of the much-derided U.N. Commission on Human Rights. (The new proposal is here.) Although the U.S. has been pushing for a new Council, it is not happy with the current proposal, which would not guarantee the exclusion...
Professor Curtis Bradley has put together a terrific conference at Duke Law School this week on Delegating Sovereignty. The presenters are leading law school and political science scholars. This is a topic that pops up in many contexts, including my own personal obsession with the ICJ (see my articles on the subject here and here) but also in many other...
The U.S. and Colombian governments have announced they have reached a bilateral free trade agreement. The USTR's announcement can be found here and a pdf summary of the agreement can be found here.As the NYT points out, a U.S-Colombia Free Trade Agreement will be the largest U.S. free trade agreement in the Western Hemisphere south of Mexico. Moreover, with...
Today, the ICJ opened public hearings in the long-anticipated case between Bosnia and Serbia over Serbia's alleged responsibility for genocide during the 1993-1999 Balkan wars. The ICJ has decided to make everything public and web-accessible. Hence, the opening argument of Bosnia's counsel is already available here. This case has a long and torturous procedural history. It was...
The journal Foreign Policy has an interesting post on the cost of international criminal tribunals. I have to admit I had no idea they were so expensive. According to the article, "As of November 2005, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) had handed down judgments for only 25 individuals. More than $1 billion has been spent on the tribunal...
A New York federal court has dismissed the complaint by a Canadian who alleged he had been "rendered" to Syria by U.S. government officials in order to be tortured. Maher Arar had sued former U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft as well as a number of other U.S. officials alleging he has a right to damages under the Torture Victim Protection Act...
Two of America's leading scholars of foreign relations law, John Yoo and Jack Goldsmith, are co-hosting a day-long conference on Tuesday, February 21 at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C (see here for registration details). The conference, entitled the "The Outsourcing of American Law" will feature Justice Antonin Scalia as the keynote speaker (gee, what do you think he...
This and other very interesting questions are being discussed over at the Grotian Moments. (By the way, the answer appears to be yes, as long as certain guidelines are followed)....
Canada appears to have lost a round in the never-ending dispute over U.S. duties on softwood lumber. A WTO panel has ruled that U.S. duties do not violate WTO obligations. Canada's view, of course, is that the U.S. duties do violate WTO obligations, in part because they also violate NAFTA obligations. Essentially, the U.S. has consistently lost in...
