Opinio Juris is thrilled to welcome Professor Peter Spiro as a guest-blogger here for the next two weeks. Peter holds the newly established Charles R. Weiner Professor of International Law at Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia. Prior to joining Temple, Peter held the Dean and Virginia Rusk Chair in International Law at the University of Georgia...
For those of you who missed it, U. Chicago law professor Eric Posner had a very sensible op-ed in the NYT yesterday defending the detention of suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists in Guantanamo Bay. Here's a brief excerpt, but the whole essay is worth reading: The detention of enemy aliens, especially enemy soldiers, during wartime is a long-established practice. Enemy aliens and soldiers...
The Security Council held an unusual meeting yesterday morning entitled "Strengthening international law: rule of law and maintenance of international peace and security". The reason it is unusual, at least to me, is that the discussion was not about any particular issue or problem, but rather a free-wheeling abstract discussion about the importance of international law generally. ...
The NYT and WSJ report that the Bush Administration, specifically the CIA and Treasury Department, have been secretly monitoring financial transactions conducted through SWIFT, a Belgian firm that conducts most of the world's financial traffic. This is a pretty obscure area of law, but it strikes me that the President is in better legal shape here than in the NSA wiretapping...
The chairman of an upcoming U.N. Conference on Small Arms Review tells Reuters he has received over 100,000 letters from U.S. gun-owners protesting the U.N.'s plot to ban all guns worldwide. According to the conference chairman, however, these letters are misguided. The small arms conference," he says, "will not negotiate any treaty to prohibit citizens of any country from...
The federal court for the Eastern District of New York yesterday dismissed, in part, a class-action lawsuit brought by a number of immigrants who were detained without charges by the federal government in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York. The plaintiffs in Turkmen v. Ashcroft alleged that they, and a number of other illegal...
I may have spoken a bit too soon about the likelihood of Nigerian compliance with the ICJ's 2002 judgment awarding the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. Here is a report detailing seriously angry reactions in Bakassi itself. My favorite angry reaction: The Paramount Ruler of Bakassi, Chief Etim Edet said: "I was born there. I schooled there. Watch out, on...
The NYT has a fascinating article today detailing the story of Moazzam Begg, a UK citizen who was detained by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Guantanamo for nearly three years. Mr. Begg, the NYT reports, is on a tour promoting his book (pre-order it here) describing his experiences in U.S. detention (he says he wasn't tortured, but does say...
Attorneys for a number of detainees suspected of ties to Islamic terrorist groups are challenging their continued detention by Canada in Canada's highest court, the Seattle PI reports. The three non-Canadians have been detained for years without being charged or without any evidence about them being released, apparently for purposes of deportation to their home countries. Because they might...
Phillip Carter, an attorney, blogger, and U.S. Army captain currently serving in Iraq, gets the front page treatment today in the WSJ. Phil blogs regularly at Intel Dump and he is a thoughtful and serious guy who, by the way, is involved in very important and difficult work in trying to develop the legal system in Iraq. The...
In a rare triumph for the ICJ, Nigeria and Cameroon agreed yesterday to implement the 2002 ICJ judgment awarding the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. Under the agreement, Nigeria will begin withdrawing its troops from Bakassi within 60 days. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed the agreement as a "remarkable experiment in conflict prevention by Cameroon and Nigeria." And he's right,...
The NYT reports that the U.S. government has invoked its "state secrets privilege" in federal court motion seeking to dismiss the main legal challenge to the NSA wiretapping program. (The ACLU complaint bringing this challenge and its various supporting memos can be found here). Although I don't have a copy of the transcript of oral argument today in the Michigan...
