Following up my Darfur post , I note that Nicholas Kristof of the NYT weighs in and, predictably, lays all the blame here on the U.S. opposition to the ICC. He quotes Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch: "The I.C.C. could start tomorrow saving lives . . . [w]ith the [ad hoc] tribunal route, you're talking about another year of...
Peru has announced it will bring an application to the International Court of Justice seeking to force Japan to turn over former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori to face corruption charges. I've heard rumors about Peru bringing such a case for years but I never figured out what the legal basis would be because Peru and Japan do not have...
I've blogged before suggesting that the U.N. was being an obstacle to more action to stop the atrocities in Darfur, but perhaps I was unfair to the UN. Its report on Darfur (which can be found here) found plenty of horrible atrocities (though not genocide) that it believes rises to the level of war crimes. More to the point, the...
I can't resist weighing in on the Guantanamo decision again, although I agree with Peggy's analysis yesterday. I think the decision is a defeat for the government (per Andreas) and that it moves beyond existing precedent and certainly beyond past practice. That does not mean it will be reversed, but it is certainly pushing the envelope of judicial review of...
I had initially thought I would “liveblog” the Santa Clara University conference I attended last week but the lack of free wireless internet access and the limitations of my typing skills stymied that plan. So instead of simply recapitulating the discussions and presentations, including my own (which will be published in any event), let me instead profile three of the...
This Reuters story suggests that a district court judge has held the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals unconstitutional. As usual, Reuters (and other news agencies) are overstating the scope of the decision. Rather, it is more accurate to say that the district court judge has refused to grant all of the U.S. government's motion to dismiss claims by certain detainees...
The Foreign Minister of Mexico, peeved that Arizona voters passed a referendum denying benefits to undocumented aliens, is threatening to sue the U.S. in unspecified international courts. This raises an interesting question: Can Mexico sue the U.S, or Arizona, under international law to stop this law from going into effect? If so, where? There is no shortage of international law that...
A UN commission has concluded that the violence and killings in Darfur do not rise to level of genocide. The report is not yet publicly available. It is unclear what effect this report will have on the battle over whether to refer the Darfur actions to the International Criminal Court. So far, it looks like the U.S. is not taking...
Strangely enough, the war on terrorism is providing a slight boost for plaintiffs lawyers specializing in tort suits alleging violations of international law. This week, the UK released four men who had previously been detained at Guantanamo Bay. Lawyers for the detainees are threatening to sue. A number of such lawsuits have already been filed over Abu Ghraib and the...
This seems to be a big day for international law conferences. Not only are bright lights in our profession gathering at Vanderbilt this weekend, but a fairly impressive conference on International Law in the United States Legal System: Observance, Application, & Enforcement, will be taking place at the Santa Clara University School of Law today as well. And I’m not...
Australian television viewers watching Alicia Molik defeat Venus Williams on at the Australian Open were probably caught by surprise by TV commercials denouncing Australia's government, among other things, withdrawing from the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ. Australia withdrew from its acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction in 2002 to avoid allowing East Timor to start litigation in the ICJ over undersea oil...
In the department of self-promotion, I thought I would note that John Yoo and I have posted our forthcoming article from the Supreme Court Review entitled, "Beyond Formalism in Foreign Affairs: A Functional Approach to the Alien Tort Statute". In this article, John and I consider the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision interpreting the ATS to permit federal courts to...
