Let's see if I got this right.5 votes to dismiss as improvidently granted. (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Ginsburg).1 vote would have also preferred staying the case: (Ginsburg).4 votes to remand to the Fifth Circuit to resolve all of the issues raised by the parties at the Court as well as the new ones created by the President's intervention. (O'Connor, Souter,...
The Supreme Court's disposition of Medellin is here. The actual six page opinion is quite short, but the interesting part will be the concurrence by Justice Ginsburg (joined by Justice Scalia) and the dissent by Justice O'Connor (joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer). I will try to read the tea leaves of this rather unusual coalition later(UPDATE: My thoughts...
The Court today dismissed the petition in Medellin holding that certiorari was improvidently granted. Basically, this means that they are holding that they should not have accepted the case in the first place. Thanks to SCOTUSBlog for the pointer. I'll have much more to say later today. For a reminder on the issues raised by a challenge...
Gregg Easterbrook has another great and contrarian piece in the TNR this week explaining that "war" has actually been in sharp decline over the past 15 years. He relies on an academic study by two political scientists, Monty G. Marshall and Ted Robert Gurr, who have done a series of empirical studies demonstrating that violent conflict has been steadily decreasing...
This IHT report documents horrific human rights abuses in Myanmar/Burma gathered by an Englishman who has been sneaking in Burma over the past five years. Of course, the real story here is that these abuses, if true, are going on. But the practical question: Is there any remedy for foreign governments, consistent with existing international law, to stop the abuses....
Here is a neat international law puzzle. Caricom, a trade association including most Caribbean nations, is threatening to bring an action against the EU in the International Court of Justice for violating its agreements to support the Caribbean sugar industries by purchasing their sugar at preferential prices. The catch? The reason the EU is changing its policy is mostly as...
Just in time for the arrival in theaters of the Revenge of the Sith, The NYT reports that the Air Force is seeking a presidential directive endorsing an aggressive policy to develop weapons that can be used in outer space. Like the Law of the Sea, outer space is a logical place for international law to play a role. Indeed,...
Justice Kennedy is just looking for a fight with conservatives in Congress annoyed by his increasingly frequent citation to international and foreign law in the interpretation of the Constitution. In a speech to the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, he remarked:"It's really quite wrong to say that the Supreme Court ignores international law and doesn't understand it," he said. Referring to...
As I've frequently noted, Asia is a hotbed of territorial disputes, mostly involving Law of the Sea issues, and with very large economic stakes. In the past two days, two of the trickier disputes, which might have been litigated in an international tribunal, have "settled".First, Australia and East Timor are expected to announce an agreement on a boundary settlement that...
It looks like former EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy of France will be the next head of the WTO. Oddly enough, this is probably a good thing for the U.S. because, as I suggested, Lamy's predilections will almost certainly coincide with the U.S. on most issues....
This NYT article details efforts by local and state governments to comply with the Kyoto Protocol despite that treaty's rejection by the President and Senate. Along with various corporate efforts to battle global warming, these efforts further confirm that not everything in foreign affairs starts with the federal government.On the other hand, these efforts do raise an interesting domestic U.S....
This NYT article suggests the U.S. will oppose granting any new permanent members of the Security Council a veto power that is currently shared by the Big Five. I have to admit that I am a big surprised at this opposition. If the U.S. really doesn't think the UN Security Council matters very much, then why should the U.S. care...
