Continuing their fractured ways — last week they failed to agree on provincial elections — Iraq's Presidency Council is still fighting over the death sentences of Ali Hassan al-Majid, Sultan Hashim Ahmad Jabburi Tai, and Hussein Rashid Mohammed. They have agreed that Chemical Ali should hang, but VP Tariq al-Hashemi continues to oppose executing the other two:Prime Minister Nouri...
For what it's worth — a question about which I will remain steadfastly agnostic — Opinio Juris has been ranked the 19th most influential law blog for 2007. The rankings, which were created by TheRacetotheBottom.org, are based on traffic, links, and citations. Here is the list:1. Volokh Conspiracy 2. Sentencing Law and Policy 3. Jurist-Paper Chase 4. Instapundit.com 5. Balkanization 6. Concurring Opinions 7. Hugh Hewitt's...
The following is a second post by Sonya Sceats, an Associate Fellow in International Law at Chatham House in London. The ‘absolute’ nature of the torture ban was affirmed today by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, thus bringing to a close a long campaign by the UK to dilute the ban in cases involving proposed deportation of terror...
From TPM Muckraker:[Y]ou may have despaired of ever seeing a clear, unequivocal exchange on the topic with a government official. Like this one from today's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, with Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) asked, "General, do you believe that waterboarding is consistent with Common Article...
The following is a guest post by Sonya Sceats, an Associate Fellow in International Law at Chatham House in London. Tomorrow could be the end of the road for the UK's long campaign against a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which prevents the removal of terror suspects to countries where they face a 'real risk' of...
Not really, says Noel Malcolm, a senior research fellow at Oxford, in today's Guardian:"Kosovo is Serbia", "Ask any historian" read the unlikely placards, waved by angry Serb demonstrators in Brussels on Sunday. This is rather flattering for historians: we don't often get asked to adjudicate. It does not, however, follow that any historian would agree, not least because historians do...
According to surveys conducted in 2000, 73% of Americans believe that higher rates of immigration lead to higher crime rates. If a new study by the Public Policy Institute of California is any indication, they don't:Key findings in the report Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do with It?:People born outside the United States make up...
From CNN: Think Barack Hussein Obama has it rough campaigning for president with a name like that? The Illinois senator has nothing on Frankenstein Momin. Or Billy Kid Sangma. Or Adolf Lu Hitler Marak. The three men are among dozens of others with equally colorful names who are competing for legislative seats in Meghalaya, a remote northeast Indian state, on March 3. There...
Over the past few weeks, the Bush administration has repeatedly tried to legitimize the military commissions by comparing them to the trials held at Nuremberg. First, William Haynes invoked Nuremberg in defense of his belief that the military commissions would provide detainees with fair trials:When asked if he thought the men at Guantánamo could receive a fair trial, Davis...
So, after much prodding, I have officially joined Facebook. I even have three friends — which means that I'm only 229,997 behind a Facebook group that recently organized world-wide protest against FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia:What began as a group of young people venting their rage at the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on Facebook, an...
Further to Julian's post on Friday, the ICC has already made clear that it has no intention of lifting the warrants:The office of the prosecutor of International Criminal Court Thursday insisted arrest warrants for Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, rebels in Uganda remain in effect following news Kampala has agreed to set up national courts to handle LRA crimes. "The office...
Interested in learning more about the political farce that the military commissions have become? Run, don't walk, to Scott Horton's fantastic "The Great Guantanamo Puppet Theater" at Harpers.com. On these issues, Scott (like Marty Lederman) is always an invaluable read. ...
