In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

29 May

I’ll look forward to digesting today’s lengthy, front-page article along with my colleagues. In the meantime, one snippet: It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals: Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the...

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28 May

On past Memorial Day weekend celebrations I have posted various speeches and photos in memory of our fallen heroes. For this Memorial Day weekend, I thought I would offer you a different perspective and present one of the best anti-war poems ever written. The poem "The Battle of Blenheim" by Robert Southey was assigned in my younger son's...

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28 May

Foreign Policy in Focus reports on Europe's immigration dilemma after the Arab Spring. IMF Chief Christine Lagarde has attracted the ire of the Greeks over her comments in a Guardian interview last week that it is payback time. The UN Security Council has condemned Syria over the massacre of at least 108 people in the city of Houla. The Syrian government denies involvement and The Telegraph reports how...

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27 May

I've been meaning to blog about the 33-year sentence that Pakistan recently imposed on Shakil Afridi, the doctor who secretly worked with the CIA to locate bin Laden. The United States is predictably up in arms over the sentence, with Leon Panetta recently claiming that "[i]t is so difficult to understand and it’s so disturbing that they would sentence...

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27 May

Calls for Papers The University of Seville Faculty of Law and COST Action are hosting a conference in Sevilla, Spain, October 26-27, 2012 entitled: Standard of Review in International Courts and Tribunals Rethinking the Fragmentation and Constitutionalization of International Law. The call for papers can be found here. Abstract submissions of 250-500 words are due June 15. The AALS section on International...

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26 May

This week on Opinio Juris, we continued last week’s book discussion of Laura Dickinson’s Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs, with Laura’s post on the role of organizational structure and institutional structure as a mechanism of accountability and constraint, and her response to Steve Vladeck and to the other commentators. In a guest...

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25 May

Supporters of US ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty now have a network home, curiously called "The American Sovereignty Campaign." It seems to be a serious undertaking, counting the US Chamber of Commerce and the Pew Charitable Trusts among its members, running this polished ad in the print media. What of the use of "sovereignty" here?  From the coalition's...

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25 May

Ukraine and Honduras have initiated complaints at the World Trade Organization against Australia with respect to the latter's plain cigarette packaging rules.  Neither country has much trade with Australia.  (Ukrainian cigarettes? Doesn't sound very appealing!)  So why bother?  Because the cigarette companies are fronting legal costs.  From Reuters: Both complainants have "requested consultations" with Australia, the first step in the WTO...

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25 May

Amnesty International has condemned the United States for the Bin Laden raid, saying that it was unlawful. In response to Pakistan’s sentencing doctor Shakeel Afridi—complicit in helping the CIA track Osama Bin Laden—to 33 years in jail for treason, the US has cut aid by $33 million to Pakistan. Reuters reports that the Muslim Brotherhood is claiming an early lead in the Egyptian...

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24 May

The Taliban has reportedly circulated poison in girls' classrooms in northern Afghanistan poisoning girls with toxic powder sent through the air shafts, leaving more than 120 students and teachers unconscious. Amnesty International launched a stinging accusation in its annual report (available here) at the UN Security Council, accusing the body of "failed leadership" and saying the Council is "tired, out of...

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24 May

[Laura Dickinson is the Oswald Symister Colclough Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School in Washington DC.] This is the final day in our discussion of Professor Dickinson’s book Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs. Links to the related posts can be found below. Thank you all for your insightful comments and...

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23 May

So says the WSJ's account of today's hearing on US ratification of UNCLOS. I still haven't found the 193 minutes I would need to watch today's UNCLOS hearing, but it seems like there is still some Republican opposition (remember it only takes 34 votes to block the treaty). Wednesday's hearing demonstrated the continued skepticism among Republicans toward the treaty. Sen. Robert...

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