OK, so France wins on a bad call by a referee. And people in Ireland are mad. And the Irish Prime Minister even brought it up with French President Sarkozy at a recent EU meeting. But nothing quite captures the importance of soccer and the World Cup then riots, clashes, and the recall of ambassadors after Egypt defeated Algeria in...
[caption id="attachment_10567" align="alignright" width="150" caption=" "][/caption] I'm fascinated by the mini-kerfuffle (on the Right at least) over President Obama's propensity to bow when meeting foreign heads of state who are also royalty (see his super-bow to the Emperor of Japan to the right). In the old days, this type of stuff was really important. Students of Chinese history may recall that one...
Richard Goldstone is getting lots of flak for his recent report on the conflict in Gaza. Much of this flak is either undeserved or way over the top. But the unreasonableness of some of his critics does not mean his report was actually good and wise and fair. The basic problem, as I see it, was that Goldstone and...
Unless something rather dramatic happens, the Obama Administration is going to give up on its self-imposed January 22, 2010 deadline for closing prison facilities at Guantanamo Bay. The Center for American Progress, a reliable barometer of the Administration's thinking, has also advised against meeting the deadline. As a legal matter, it is not obvious that closing Gitmo would have made much...
[caption id="attachment_10102" align="alignright" width="101" caption=" "][/caption] The Yale Journal of International Law (YJIL) has announced the launch of its new website, http://www.yjil.org, featuring unique online content for the first time in its thirty-five year history. YJIL Online provides authors a forum for short analytical essays relevant to the furtherance of both scholarship and practice. The first issue includes a co-authored piece...
Following up on Ken's post (whose views I totally endorse, by the way), I wanted to flag one UN budgetary issue of particular interest to our readers. As the NYT article details, UN budget negotiators will battle over whether each of the ICJ's 15 judges should have a law clerk. They currently share nine. Former ICJ President Roslyn Higgins made an...
Maher Arar, a Canadian who was detained by the U.S. and the subject of an "extraordinary rendition" to Syria, has lost his bid to maintain his lawsuit in U.S. courts. By a 7-4 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting en banc, has voted to dismiss his suit against U.S. government officials for alleged violations of...
[caption id="attachment_10327" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Raquel Rolnik"][/caption] In a further display of the UN Human Rights Council's sense of how to efficiently allocate its limited resources, its "special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing" has decided to conduct her next investigation in the United States, and in New York City in particular. (h/t the Corner). I'm sure that New York housing...
Looking at the long-awaited new Obama Sudan Strategy, there is much to admire. It is sensible, forward-looking, and realistic. It also appears to be pretty much the same policy President Bush pursued, which then Obama campaign adviser Susan Rice (and current UN Ambassador) trashed back in 2008. For instance, it emphasizes ending the violence and war through a peace agreement,...
(Please note that a commenter has rightly corrected me on two points, which I correct below) Former State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger (and former OJ guest blogger) spoke today at Hofstra's biennial Legal Ethics Conference. His talk was typically engaging, honest, and interesting (it will not be news to many of our readers that Bellinger was an internal dissenter on...
The Obama Administration is becoming famous for their Friday night news dumps (deficit reports are always on Fridays). So here is another one sure to anger some parts of their base, but which is carefully buried while everyone is watching the Yankees beat up on the Angels. The Obama administration has formulated a new policy for Sudan that proposes working with that country’s...
Wow! I know there has been some talk and some cases about an international right to internet access. But Finland has upped the ante by guaranteeing a right to high speed internet access. Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right, YLE, the country's national broadcasting company, reported on Wednesday. According to the report, every person...
