As Chris noted, Justice Breyer and Scalia engaged in an unusual public "conversation" about the use of foreign law in constitutional interpretation last Thursday. The transcript has been posted here (via how appealing ). This exchange has already been the subject of numerous posts in the blogosphere here and here. I don't have much more to add...
John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, has become somewhat well known recently for his role in shaping the Bush Administration's legal approach to the war on terrorism, and in particular, the effect of treaties and statutes prohibiting torture on U.S. government policy in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan. But prior to his recent fifteen minutes...
One of the things I think we can provide to blog readers is an insight into what international law academics are thinking and writing about. And not just what the three of us are thinking about (as valuable of course as that may be). Peggy has already gotten us started with her post about Peter Spiro's recent work. In the...
I am enjoying this discussion, not the least because it reveals some of the fundamentally different views of the law, and perhaps the world between Chris and myself. Chris makes a move that I've seen many international lawyers make. He concedes there are all sorts of problems with international institutions, but then suggests that the United States doesn't really...
On a tangentially related topic, President Bush announced today that he is nominating Judge Michael Chertoff to be the new Homeland Security chief. I don't know all that much about Judge Chertoff, except that he is well-respected in conservative circles. Interestingly, he has penned what I think is a very convincing critique of the International Criminal Court based on the...
Just a quick note, because I think Chris' thoughtful response also illustrates part of the problem I was trying to get at in my first post. That is to say, do defenders of the UN engage in kneejerk defenses of the UN simply because their commitment to the UN's causes (e.g. world peace or, if you like, multilateral politics)...
Peggy, Thanks for getting us off to a great start. The United Nations will no doubt be a perennial topic for us here. The UN is obviously having a rough period, at least in the U.S., where congressional committees are harassing it and certain right-leaning parts of the media are relentlessly attacking it. The right-leaning blogosphere is certainly on the case, as...
