The New York Times and Washington Post (and lots of other places) report today (Saturday, September 20, 2008) that the two senior executives of the Human Rights Watch Americas Division, executive director Jose Miguel Vivanco and deputy director Daniel Wilkinson, were detained by Venezuelan security personnel in Caracas and placed on a plane to Brazil. From the NYT: Armed men in uniforms...
I want to follow up Roger's post on law professor sign on amicus briefs with a really basic, genuinely naive question. I am not a litigator and do not know very much about litigation. I have never really understood the rationale behind courts accepting amicus briefs - law professor briefs, or any other kind. I'm not putting this as a...
My law school (Washington College of Law, American University), the ABA national security committee of the international law section, and the Federalist Society are putting on a one-day conference on Friday, September 19, from 10-4 pm, in DC, in case anyone is interested. I unfortunately will not be there, though I am still listed on the program, but it has...
I don't watch television, so I wouldn't actually know, but I take it there was some sort of dustup in a Sarah Palin ABC interview in which Governor Palin was asked about the so-called Bush Doctrine. I don't know exactly what the discussion was about, but I did get an email from a friend a little while ago that said,...
Over at the New York Times opinion page (but alas behind The Wall), Philip Bobbitt and John Danforth argue that with respect to national security, neither campaign has articulated the fundamental points of view that will allow people to make an informed choice in November ...
Tom, Thanks for that cordial response. I did not mean to give offense, but wanted to be direct about my perception. I'm also under pressure for something else, so I won't go on for too long. On the Israel-Palestinian conflict and its role in defining neoconservatism and, more broadly, the book's thesis overall. I take your writing very seriously indeed, always...
I want to thank Tom for participating in this discussion; I have re-read the book as we have had this discussion, and it has provided great illumination on what the text is about. I have learned a great deal from the discussion and from the book. I apologize for coming late with this entry; it was hard to get to...
This, according to an article in the Guardian, September 3, 2008, from a correspondent in Washington. According to the story: "If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC. "[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution," he...
I want to join the rest of Opinio Juris in welcoming Tom; I have read Confronting Global Terrorsm and American Neo-Conservatism with great interest and am looking forward to commenting on it. As befits someone who, on some definitions anyway, probably counts as a neo-con, I have some disagreements with the book - starting, unsurprisingly, with the definition of neoconservative...
The World Bank last week released new figures - reflecting new and improved methodology - on the number of people in poverty around the world. The effect was to increase the number from roughly a billion people to something like 1.4 billion. The Economist explains: IN APRIL 2007 the World Bank announced that 986m people worldwide suffered from extreme poverty—the first...
... and hoping that the damage is minimal and that everyone is safe, including any OJ readers. Watching the television today caused me to recall a conference I attended a few years ago, a meeting of humanitarian disaster professionals who dealt with developing world disasters ranging from natural disasters to conflict relief. At one session, on natural disasters and, as...
I have blogged in the past about the growing phenomenon of 'libel tourism' and its chilling effects upon free expression, as well as some (really, considering the free expression issues under threat, quite modest) New York state and US federal legislative efforts to deal with it. It amounts to using English courts and their views on libel, together with the...
