There is an interesting paradox in Mead's book between luck and the spoils of war. On the one hand, Mead spends much of the book suggesting that the English were just plain lucky. "By luck or ...
Let me begin by saying that God and Gold is an ambitious book. According to Walter Russell Mead, the book is not about history, but about the meaning of history. What is the overarching plot of world history? Mead argues that history is best viewed from the perspective of Anglo-American power. He writes, “It is not...
In order to get our readers thinking about Mead's book, let me highlight the key questions he seeks to answer in his book. These questions are, in Mead's view, the "six key questions about the world we live in" (p. 12): 1. What is the distinctive political and cultural agenda that the Anglo-Americans bring to world politics? 2. Why...
We are very pleased to introduce Walter Russell Mead to Opinio Juris readers to discuss his most recent book, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Walter Russell Mead is the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of the country’s leading students of American...
According to the prediction market TradeSports, the likelihood that the Giants will win the Super Bowl today is trading at 18.8 percent. That compares to the likelihood of Middle East peace by January 2009 trading at 32.5 percent at Intrade. That's right, a Giants win is less likely than Middle East peace. ...
The D.C. Circuit on Friday ordered the government to provide detainees' lawyers and the court access to virtually all the information the government has on the detainees. The case attempts to balance the need for adequate information for federal court review of CSRT status determinations with the concerns about comprosing national security by providing sensitive documents to detainees' counsel,...
In the tortured debates about torture, one rarely hears something new. But last week I was having a wonderful discussion with some prominent international law thinkers and one of them said something quite thought-provoking that I had never heard before. “If you think torture is wrong then you should also conclude that humanitarian intervention is wrong. ...
5 + 10 = X X – Y = 0 if Y = 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 5 + 10 = X X – Z = X/192 if Z = 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15 What is X, Y, and Z where Y = Z? (Continue Reading for the Answer) Y = Permanent Members of the Security...
From last week's D.C. Circuit decision in Rasul v. Myers, Judge Brown in a concurring opinion argued: The present case involves the method of detaining and interrogating alleged enemy combatants during a war--a matter with grave national security implications. Permitting damages suits by detainees may allow our enemies to “obstruct the foreign policy of our government.” Moreover, dealing with foreign relations...
The American Law Institute has recently approved the first ever Restatement on International Commercial Arbitration. This is one of the most important international projects that the ALI has undertaken in decades. The Reporter for the Restatement will be George Bermann (Columbia) and the Associate Reporters will be Jack Coe (Pepperdine), Catherine Rogers (LSU/Bocconi), and Chris Drahozal (Kansas). ...
Martin Luther King did not intend to impact international law, but he did so nonetheless. His life-long struggle was to secure racial equality in the United States. His non-violent efforts rarely focused on the worldwide struggle against racial injustice. But on a few occasions he elaborated on the relationship between the civil rights movement and the global...
In case you missed it, in addition to Medellin and Boumediene, there is one other significant international case before the Supreme Court this term. Although the case is a sleeper, it has important ramifications for any attempts by successful claimants to attach assets of government officials who violate human rights when the sovereign also has a legitimate claim...
