I will be giving a public lecture next Tuesday, November 13th, at the London School of Economics. The lecture, which is sponsored by LSE's International Humanitarian Law Project and the Law Society Charity, will ask whether the Iraqi High Tribunal should serve as a model for what scholars have called "internationalized domestic tribunals": domestic courts that directly apply international...
It's bad enough that the Mafia's criminal activity accounts for 7% of Italy's gross domestic product. Even worse is that at least one major Mafia clan has discovered a new product to traffic — nuclear material:Authorities in Italy are investigating a mafia clan accused of trafficking nuclear waste and trying to make plutonium. The 'Ndrangheta mafia, which gained notoriety in...
I know next to nothing about UNCLOS, but I will still amused by one the reasons the Wall Street Journal invokes today against ratifying it — customary international law:The best arguments for the treaty come from the U.S. Navy, which likes how it creates a legal framework for navigational rights. The oil and gas industry approves of provisions that create...
Readers who are interested in international affairs — "at the highest level of generality," according to the title — would do well to check out The Grand Strategy Blog. Here is the blog's self-description:TGSB is a collaborative and non-partisan site dedicated to the study of international relations. The goal of this enterprise is to improve our understanding of major...
This is a wonderful story:For the first time, Yad Vashem will inaugurate an exhibition this week on Muslims who saved Jews during the Holocaust. The exhibition, which opens on Thursday, focuses on more than a dozen of the scores of Muslim Albanians previously recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" - the Holocaust center's highest honor - for risking their lives to...
I was shocked — to say the least — when I read Roger's post on the extremely important Khulumani case. With due respect to the Second Circuit, Judge Katzman's analysis of the mens rea of aiding and abetting under customary international law is completely incorrect. Although I can see how a judge who is not familiar with international...
The government of Iraq has decided to formally revoke CPA Order 17, a move that would open the door to prosecuting Blackwater employees in Iraqi courts for killing 17 civilians last month:"The cabinet held a meeting yesterday and decided to scrap the article pertaining to security companies operating in Iraq that was issued by the CPA (Coalition Provision Authority) in...
As has been widely reported, a second Congolese warlord has been transferred to the ICC to stand trial:Germain Katanga, who led the Forces for Patriotic Resistance (FRPI) in Ituri, was flown from the capital, Kinshasa. Prosecutors say Mr Katanga - known as Simba - led the FRPI in Ituri in north-eastern DR Congo in 2003. He was arrested two years ago. He...
My friend Olympia Bekou at the University of Nottingham has asked me to post the following conference announcement:The International Criminal Court and the State 9th November 2007 The Human Rights Law Centre and Methods and Data Institute at the University of Nottingham announce a multi-disciplinary conference entitled 'The International Criminal Court and the State'. As one of the four partners to the...
It's been a difficult week for the global campaign to abolish the death penalty. First, Afghanistan executed 15 prisoners, ending a three year moratorium on executions:The mass execution took place Sunday evening according to Afghan law, which calls for condemned prisoners to be shot to death, said Abdul Salam Ismat, the prisons chief. During the 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan's hard-line...
Here is the Nobel Committee's explanation of the award, which Gore shares with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale...
Meet Ann Coulter, Fox News media darling, best-selling author, syndicated columnist — and raving anti-Semite. From an exchange with Donny Deutsch on CNBC: DEUTSCH: Let me ask you a question. We're going to get off strengths and weakness for a second. If you had your way, and all of your — forget that any of them...
