The Katrina disaster is far worse than most Americans could have expected. I've spent a fair amount of time in New Orleans and I remember people telling me that New Orleans in particular is vulnerable to hurricanes, but I never took it seriously. The pictures and stories coming out of the Gulf Coast are horrifying, and to many Americans,...
David Glazier at Intel Dump has provided this analysis of the new military commission rules here. Most of his criticisms seem fairly plausible, although I wonder about one particular claim he makes:There is an extensive body of WWII era precedent that establishes that the failure to provide a trial measuring up to customary international due process standards is in...
The Pentagon released new rules today governing procedures in military commission trials (the USA Today account is here and the WSJ account is here). Note that these rules will not directly affect the consideration of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (the case I discussed here involving Osama Bin Laden's driver) because the petitioner there is challenging the legality of the military commissions...
By many measures, the U.S. relationship with Canada is its most important. After all, Canada is its most important trading partner and shares the longest border with the U.S. Yet how to explain the continuing recent war of words between the U.S. and Canada. After new U.S. ambassador to Canada David Wilkins chided the Canadian government for "emotional outburts"...
The BBC is reporting that China has ratified the World Health Organization's Framework Convention onTobacco Control. This make China the 78th party to the FCTC according to the WHO website (contrary to the BBC's report).This treaty is an easy treaty to ratify for most countries, because it doesn't really require them to do anything that they don't want. In this...
The final draft of the permanent Iraqi Constitution can be found here. The lack of support from Sunni representatives and the Constitution's subordination of any law to "the undisputed rules of Islam" is certainly the big news.It is also interesting to note, however, that the new Constitution cuts back substantially from the internationalist commitments of the interim Constitution. As I...
Some versions of the proposed text for Iraq's Constitution have been posted here. Now Prof. D'Amato has already suggested there are possible conflicts between the proposed text's commitment to Islamic law and to international law. Which naturally leads to the legal question: in a conflict between domestic Iraqi law and international law, which law will prevail in the...
The UN has released more information on the eight candidates for the 5 opening slots on the ICJ here.Amor, Abdelfattah (Tunisia)Bennouna, Mohamed (Morocco)Buergenthal, Thomas (United States of America)González Campos, Julio D. (Spain)Keith, Kenneth (New Zealand)Mazou, Seidou Adamou (Niger)Sepúlveda Amor, Bernardo (Mexico)Skotnikov, Leonid (Russian Federation)Here is a useful horse-race analysis from a knowledgeable source who works for a government agency:There are...
U.S.-Canada trade relations appear to have hit a new low as Canada has suspended further settlement talks over U.S. tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber. This may sound fairly trivial compared to some of the rather momentous topics that Prof. D'Amato has treated Opinio Juris readers to over the past week and a half, but I think the problems Canada is...
I'm also back after another short hiatus. I will post at greater length later this week, but for now I just wanted to note some recent pushback on those controversial Article 98 Agreements between the U.S. with a number of its allies preventing U.S. soldiers from being extradited to the International Criminal Court. Nigeria's Senate recently passed...
I only recently noticed this op-ed by Cuba expert Wayne Smith, a former head of the U.S. Interests section in Havana, noting that Cuba could easily claim the use of Guantanamo Bay as a detention center violates the Agreement between the United States and Cuba for the Lease of Lands for Coaling Stations, the treaty which is the basis for...
I also want to welcome Professor D'Amato to Opinio Juris. And, in the typical Opinio Juris fashion, I want to welcome him by immediately taking exception to some of the arguments he put forward in his inaugural post.I agree that Judge Roberts should be held responsible for the D.C. Circuit's decision in Hamdan as much as if he had written...
