I would like to push the conversation about Mike Ramsey’s new book to a slightly different topic. What does the Constitution’s text tell us about the status of treaties in the domestic U.S. legal system? As many of our readers know, Article VI of the U.S. Constitution makes treaties the “supreme law of the land,” but conventional wisdom...
I have some more detailed thoughts on the postings by Professors Kent, Flaherty, and Ramsey but I did want to note one news item today that is actually relevant to the discussion between Professors Ramsey and Kent about the President's ability to use military force to respond to attacks. In a major national security address, presidential candidate Barack Obama called...
[Michael Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego. He will be posting today and tomorrow on his new book: The Constitution's Text in Foreign Affairs. Please stay tuned for his posts, as well as for comments by our other symposium participants.] Thanks to Opinio Juris for organizing this symposium and inviting me to participate....
Opinio Juris is proud to host an online symposium on Michael Ramsey’s new book The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs recently published by Harvard University Press. We are especially pleased to have Professor Ramsey with us to discuss his book because it is, in my humble opinion, the most important monograph on U.S. foreign relations law in the...
For better or for worse, Africa has become the leading testing ground for mechanisms of international criminal justice in this decade: e.g. Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. Generally speaking, African opinion makers have seemed pretty supportive of such processes, but there are signs of a backlash brewing. Uganda: As this report from the Independent reminds us, the...
The Special Court for Sierra Leone has convicted three men of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war. The convictions include, apparently for the first time, a conviction for child recruitment. Here is the Court's press release. These are the Court's first judgments since it was jointly established by the United Nations...
Sudan announced yesterday that it would agree to a U.N.-led peacekeeping force operated in cooperation with the African Union. The U.N.-led force of 19,000 will eventually be deployed in 2008. No one is getting overly excited about the prospects of this U.N.-led force, and I don't think it is quite yet the solution to the Darfur crisis. Still, it is...
I doubt it, but this report from AP suggests otherwise. If it really turns out to be a problem, it seems like the only fix at this point is an amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. That's going to take a while, though. ...
In its last remaining international law-related decision for this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today (India v. City of New York) that foreign sovereigns are not immune from domestic lawsuits seeking to establish the legal validity of tax liens on real property. The case turns on the interpretation of the "immovable property" exception to the general rule of...
A number of key Southern African countries have agreed on a proposal that would result (eventually) in a nine-year moratorium on sales of ivory. The agreement was made during the latest meeting of state-parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). There are of course many complex details to consider, none of which I will do...
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times (subscription req'd) has figured out the solution to the Darfur crisis, as well as the other humanitarian horrors in Africa: Western military intervention. One essential kind of help that the West can provide — but one that is rarely talked about — is Western military assistance in squashing rebellions, genocides and civil...
Speaking of the several states, this map gives a neat perspective on just how large, economically speaking, the individual states of the United States would be if they were independent countries. For instance, as economic entities, California would be as large as France, Texas would be as large as Canada (many Texans would be shocked to hear that they...
