The WSJ($) reports on Page One today about various state legislatures (14 so far) passing or considering the passage of legislation requiring their public pension funds to divest from companies doing business with Iran. U.S. companies are already barred from doing business with Iran, but many foreign companies still do. Although this sounds like small peanuts, the article suggests...
The Vatican is calling on Catholics to stop supporting Amnesty International due to that group's apparent shift to support for abortion rights. Whether the Vatican is right to do this is a question for another day (AI's position on abortion seems unclear), but what I'm interested in is the ability of one NGO (the Vatican) to pressure another (Amnesty...
The ICTY sentenced Milan Martic, the former leader of a breakaway Serb enclave in Croatia, to 35 years in prison for his "ethnic cleansing" of non-Serbs as part of a broader plan to create a Greater Serbia. A summary of the judgment is here. Interestingly, the bulk of Martic's convictions stem from a finding that he participated in former...
The indefagitable pair of David Rivkin and Lee Casey have an op-ed in the WSJ today decrying an ACLU lawsuit against private company involved in providing flight planning services to the CIA, allegedly for extraordinary renditions (See Mohamed et. al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan). Rivkin and Casey aren't happy with this and other lawsuits' effect on the ability of private...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled today that an alien resident of the U.S. alleged to be affiliated with Al Qaeda cannot be detained as an "enemy combatant." (al-Marri v. Wright). Al-Marri is a citizen of Qatar who is alleged to have trained at Al Qaeda training camps prior to September 11 and who was...
I somehow doubt this will go very far, but who knows? Russian President Vladimir Putin called Sunday for creating an alternative to the World Trade Organization that would favor developing economies and suggested giving a greater role to regional currencies. Speaking at an economic forum in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg, Putin lamented that today's international economic organizations ''look archaic, undemocratic...
The Inter American Court of Human Rights has ruled that Colombia must pay $7.8 million in damages to the relatives of 12 judicial workers killed in a 1989 massacre by Colombian-army backed paramilitary groups. According to news reports, the ruling seems to establish a standard for assigning state liability for paramilitary groups, an important and complicated issue. The judgment was...
I just noticed this decision yesterday by the Canadian Supreme Court holding that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms generally does not apply to searches and seizures in foreign countries, even those that eventually result in evidence that is used in a trial of a Canadian citizen. I'm far from knowledgeable about Canadian law, but it does seem...
Things just keep getting worse for Chiquita Brands International, Inc. Yesterday, families of victims killed by a right-wing Colombia terrorist group (the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia or AUC) sued Chiquita in D.C. federal court alleging Chiquita is responsible or at least liable for the AUC's actions. As Kevin noted a few months ago, Chiquita, the U.S. banana giant,...
Readers of this blog know that the top legal adviser at the U.S. State Department, John Bellinger, is not afraid to take on critics of the U.S. government's treatment of international law. He did so on this blog a few months ago. Yesterday, he went into the "capital" of international law, the Hague, to defend the U.S. administration's approach...
In its relentless quest to recover the underseas treasure recently found by a Florida-based company, the Spanish government has instructed its Navy, pursuant to a court order, to detain to U.S. ships belonging to that company. Those ships are currently in Gibraltar, but apparently, they will be boarded and seized as soon as they leave Gibraltar and enter...
Over at International Law Reporter, Professor Jacob Cogan points out that the Neutrality Act has been invoked a bit more frequently than I suggested in my earlier post on the subject. For a discussion of other cases invoking the Act, check out his post as well as his very useful blog. ...
