Again and again, my fellow citizens, mothers who lost their sons in France have come to me and, taking my hand, have shed tears upon it not only, but they have added, "God bless you, Mr. President!" Why, my fellow citizens, should they pray God to bless me? I advised the Congress of the United States to create the situation...
There are many reasons to demand closing Guantanamo Bay and ending the military commissions, such as the government's tendency to invent armed conflicts in order to convict defendants of imaginary war crimes. But even if you don't care about the integrity of international humanitarian law or the coherence of the American approach to that body of law, you should still...
For those in NYC tomorrow, I wanted to note that NYU Law is hosting what promises to be an informative experts' meeting tomorrow on the International Criminal Court. Here's the event description: How best to assure the independence of the ICC Prosecutor Friday, Nov. 11th from 6-7:30 p.m. NYU School of Law, Lipton Hall, Faculty Club, 108 West 3rd Street, New York, New York The independence...
[Robert E. Williams, Jr. is an associate professor of political science at Pepperdine University and an expert on corruption in Equatorial Guinea]. The other shoe has dropped in the U.S. Government’s corruption case against Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. Last week, a civil forfeiture complaint was unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California as a second...
Here is a story that no one (here in the U.S. anyway) is paying attention to: Russia’s accession to the WTO cleared a major hurdle when the WTO Working Party on its accession approved, ad referendum on 10 November 2011, the package spelling out Russia’s terms of entry to the organization. The Working Party will now send its accession recommendation to...
The Naval War College has published the latest volume in its Blue Book series. Here is the description and information about how to obtain it (although you can simply get the PDF here): The Naval War College International Law Department recently published volume 87 of its International Law Studies "Blue Book" series. The Blue Book has served as...
Next Friday (November 18), Berkeley (along with the ICRC and ASIL's Lieber Society) is hosting what looks like a fantastic conference on the issue of 'cyber war' and the relevant questions of law, ethics and policy. Here's how they're describing it: The seminar will examine legal, ethical and policy issues posed by cyber warfare. While much attention has been paid to jus...
Congratulations to Kal Raustiala and Laura Dickinson, the masterminds who conceived and carried out the first Research Forum sponsored by the American Society of International Law. The forum took place this past weekend in Los Angeles, together with the ASIL Mid-Year Meeting, which ASIL President David Caron has successfully moved out of Washington and out among broader constituencies of international...
Robert Reinstein is Clifford Scott Green Professor of Law at Temple University Law School and the author of Executive Power and the Law of Nations in the Washington Administration, which addresses the early history of the recognition power. M.B.Z. v. Clinton is the first case in which there is an apparent conflict between an act of Congress and the President’s authority...
That was the candid assessment of outgoing ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo at the recent ASIL Midyear meeting held at UCLA this past weekend. In a free-flowing and unusually frank discussion of the International Criminal Court to a packed assembly, Moreno-Ocampo admitted that there is "one standard for 119 member states, and another standard for every other country." He...
Once I again I want to extend our thanks to all of the discussants of my book on both EJIL: Talk! and Opinio Juris. In addition to my introduction, readers can find at the specified links the contributions of Michael Marrus, Alexa Stiller, and Rob Cryer with my reply on EJIL: Talk!, and those of Dave Glazier, Detlev Vagts, Roger...
Tonight's episode of The Good Wife featured a Muslim-American man -- a former Army translator in Afghanistan -- who sues the U.S. government for torture and ends up being accused of supporting al-Qaeda. It was quite a fascinating episode; it's not everyday that a mainstream television show is built around Executive Order 13324, which blocks property and prohibits transactions with...
