This web video nearly fooled people into believing France was about to pay Haiti billions in reparations for payments Haiti made to France ensure its independence. Yes, like that was going to happen. France quickly released a statement declaring the whole thing a hoax. This hoax was so well done that it leads me to wonder what other interesting statements could...
The massive U.S. financial regulation legislation, known as "Dodd-Frank", is finally heading to President Obama for signature. In addition to containing a partial reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the bill also contains some rather stern instructions for the U.S. representative at the International Monetary Fund. The instructions are so stern that they...
The much-awaited ICJ advisory opinion on Kosovo will be released on July 22 at 3 p.m (local Hague time): On Thursday 22 July 2010, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will deliver its Advisory Opinion on the question of the Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the Provisional...
Morton Abramowitz and James Hooper have a very interesting analysis in the National Interest of the likely effect of the soon-to-be released ICJ advisory opinion in Kosovo. The analysis is not legal, but political. And the bottom line, Kosovo is far from out of the woods, even if the judgment is favorable to Kosovo statehood: No one knows what the court will do, but: —If...
Our own Peter Spiro talks to the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog on today's filing of a federal lawsuit against Arizona's immigration law. The grounds for the lawsuit, as expected, is preemption, even though most of the political debate about the lawsuit is concerned with racial discrimination. The choice of preemption confirms my assessment that an equal protection challenge to...
I wanted to thank all of the contributors (Bill Dodge, Austen Parrish, Margaret Sachs) to our discussion here about the recent Supreme Court decision on the extraterritorial application of U.S. securities laws in Morrison v. National Australia Bank. I wanted to also point readers toward some very wise and interesting comments on the decision from Prof. Hannah Buxbaum (over...
[caption id="attachment_12870" align="alignright" width="300" caption=" "][/caption] The U.N. General Assembly and Security Council today voted to elect Xue Hanqin (薛捍勤) of China to membership on the International Court of Justice. Xue will fill out the rest of the Judge Shi Jiuyong's term, which runs until 5 February 2012. As I noted before, Xue has an extensive experience as a diplomat as well as...
Marko Milanovic over at EJIL Talk! has a nice discussion of a recent European Court of Human Rights Chamber decision (Schalk and Kopf v. Austria, no. 30141/04) finding that denying same-sex couples the right to marry does not violate a member state's obligation under the European Convention of Human Rights. The analysis is complicated, but one part of it is striking...
U.S. courts have long struggled with questions about the extraterritorial scope of U.S. federal law. Many U.S. laws regulating business activities, most notoriously antitrust law, have been interpreted to apply to conduct outside U.S. territory, even by foreign nationals. And this all has been a constant irritant to foreign nations, who have sometimes complained about the expansive, sometimes imperialistic, application...
I tread warily into ICJ blogging after my last bizarre brain cramp, but I can't resist commenting on Roger's posts (and the comments to his posts by very knowledgeable folks like Paul Stephan and David Kaye) on the new U.S. nominee Joan Donoghue. Unlike Roger, I don't have a problem with Donoghue's qualifications in general (although it is worth pointing...
I don't know what to make of this report about a controversial device used to repel teenagers and children by using a high-pitched frequency only young people can hear. The mosquito works by emitting a pulse at 16-18.5 kilohertz that switches on and off four times a second for up to 20 minutes. It emits an irritating, high-pitched sound that can...
I kind of expected this would turn out this way, but it does the Rwandan government no credit that they finally released jailed U.S. law professor Peter Erlinder, albeit on bail and due to concerns about his health. Needless to say, I doubt Professor Erlinder will be returning to Rwanda anytime soon. Peter Erlinder, the American lawyer jailed inRwanda after being...
