In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Julian Ku

11 May

My friend at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin, offers a fairly convincing critique of the effectiveness and efficiency of the U.S. Agency for International Development as its budget is taken up this week by Congress. Take branding: Throughout the Middle East, especially in areas where anti-American sentiment is especially strong, the USAID refuses to put the USAID logo on its...

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10 May

The standoff between China and the Philippines over the Huangyan Island/ Scarborough Shoal (see the island marked 黄岩 on the Chinese map to the right) has continued to fester over the past few weeks. CFR's Asia Unbound blog has a nice summary here of the latest. The bottom line: The Philippines has been calling for restraint in recent days, but the...

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09 May

According to the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. government has recently re-affirmed its obligations to defend the Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.  This is a particularly sensitive time to re-affirm this commitment, given the ongoing tensions between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea. But what exactly is the U.S. committing to here? Would the...

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03 May

The Chen Guangcheng saga is not yet completed, and indeed, as the NYT puts it, "what briefly looked like a deft diplomatic achievement for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton [has] turned into a potential debacle."  I do hope Mr. Chen will find safety and justice soon, but I am not optimistic. Until we discover his final fate, I thought I'd...

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02 May

President Obama went to Afghanistan today to sign The U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement. The Agreement is a classic agreement to have further agreements, but doesn't really commit either side to many specifics.  The most important thing they agreed to do is to negotiate a Bilateral Security Agreement within a year.  But other than agreeing to seek funds in Congress for...

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02 May

As far as I can tell, the NY state court reached the right conclusion by rejecting former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn's claim for immunity under customary international law.  It is also worth noting that the Court wisely dodged the tricky question of whether and how customary international law would affect the state case. The Court noted that some scholars (e.g....

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26 Apr

I don't have much to add to Peter's pithy and insightful take on the Supreme Court's oral argument today in Arizona v. United States.  I just wanted to emphasize the difficulty the federal government had in advancing, even rhetorically, its view that the federal government has an "exclusive" role in the management of immigration policy and foreign affairs.  Solicitor General...

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25 Apr

I couldn't resist posting this rather scary video of a girl swallowed by a sidewalk sinkhole in Xi'an China. Sure, this doesn't mean China won't be a key and influential power in world affairs.  But it does remind us that China is not exactly the inevitable global juggernaut it is sometimes portrayed as.  This is actually not the first time...

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23 Apr

Last week, the good folks at the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society hosted a book roundtable on Taming Globalization.  In addition to John Yoo and myself, we were joined in a very lively discussion by Prof. Martin Flaherty of Fordham and Prof. Jeremy Rabkin of George Mason (with Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post as moderator).  While John...

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22 Apr

One of the most popular arguments made against the Second Circuit's interpretation of the Alien Tort Statute in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell is essentially a policy argument: How could it be possible for Congress to have intended to allow corporations to immune from claims of serious international law violations while at the same time allowing individuals to be liable?   This...

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