Just a quick note to point out that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a potentially important decision Tuesday rejecting what it suggested would be an impermissible delegation of administrative authority to decisionmaking bodies created by the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. (This decision would be worth noting even if it...
I'm very grateful to Tomer Broude (travel safely, Tomer!) both for organizing this APSA roundtable as well as suggesting this online "preview." I've enjoyed all of the terrific contributions of the APSA attendees and look forward to hashing some of these questions out in person on Friday. Indulging my prerogative as a co-host (at least in the blogosphere),...
The BBC reports that the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has reached a truce in the 20 year civil war that may eventually lead to a comprehensive peace agreement. As we noted on this blog, the apparent success of this round of peace talks has been an informal assurance by the International Criminal Court that it would...
Professor William J. Stuntz, the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law at Harvard has a very persuasive and well-argued essay in the Weekly Standard analyzing and rejecting arguments for a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq. Stuntz is a very smart guy and a leading professor of criminal law. But even though I tend to agree with him here,...
The International Astronomical Union decided yesterday to downgrade Pluto's status as a planet (see report here). And just like that, the solar system has been reduced to eight planets. Although there is some grumbling, there seems little doubt the world will accept the IAU's judgment, even the IAU is a non-governmental international association. Talk about power! I'm sure folks...
The BBC reports that delegates in New York appear to be close to an agreement on a Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This new, potentially expansive human rights treaty, will be submitted to the U.N. General Assembly this September and then opened for signatures and ratifications in the fall. I don't have any views on the...
Just in case you didn't get enough commentary here and elsewhere on Judge Taylor's decision last week invalidating the NSA wiretapping program, Luke Debevec has this useful roundup of blogosphere reaction in today's Legal Intelligencer. Luke, an attorney in Philadelphia, also has a posting on his blog here. Check it out! ...
As the NYT reports, Amnesty International issued a blistering ...
Starting Monday of next week, Opinio Juris is pleased to be hosting an online preview of a roundtable at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Entitled "The Allocation of Normative Power to and among International Tribunals," the roundtable will explore legal and political issues arising out of the rise of international tribunals and the increasing legalization...
As most of our readers already know, a U.S. federal judge has invalidated the U.S. government's program for wiretapping phone calls without a warrant. I know this is a hard issue, but this is one of the least persuasive opinions I've ever seen on this question. The judge found that the program (called the "Terrorist Surveillance Program") violated the...
Recent Yale Law School grad and proto-law professor Ariel Lavinbuk has a useful piece in Slate reviewing the still ongoing constitutional challenge to the Chapter 19 NAFTA dispute resolution process. The constitutional issue is a good one, but I was under the impression that the recent settlement of the lumber dispute between the U.S. and Canada would require the...
I missed this item from last week noting that the U.S. Senate gave its approval last Friday to the Council of Europe's Cybercrime Treaty. I have also not been following the debate over the treaty, which is opposed by some civil libertarian types and former Clinton impeachment manager Bob Barr. Here is the basic complaint, which sounds scary enough, but...
