I am delighted to announce that Mark Kersten will be guest-blogging at Opinio Juris for the next two weeks. Mark is the founder of the superb blog Justice in Conflict, which I've recommended before. Here is his bio: Mark Kersten is a PhD student in International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of the blog Justice in Conflict....
Check out the following ad for the new Audi A6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeuveTXuNho&feature=relmfu You know you're in trouble when a German company is using the decaying state of America's infrastructure to sell cars. Then again, when you think about it, the ad is actually kind of a Republican utopia: austerity and expensive, environment-destroying luxury goods all in one. Why fix the roads when your...
I've been following the Kenyan confirmation hearing relatively closely, and I've continually found the reporting at allAfrica.com -- which aggregates articles from numerous leading African newspapers -- to provide extremely good coverage of the proceedings. An article today from the Nairobi Star, however, caught my eye for all the wrong reasons (my emphasis): A dissenting judge of the International Criminal Court...
I want to call readers' attention to a very interesting new essay by Milan Markovic, forthcoming in the Texas International Law Journal, that urges the ICC to adopt a code of conduct for prosecutors in the OTP. Here is the abstract: A largely unexamined area of law is the intersection between legal ethics and international criminal law. This...
Kate Sheppard has an interesting post at Mother Jones today discussing a series of WikiLeaks cables that detail Chevron's attempts to convince the Ecuadorian government to end the lawsuit against it. Here are the two key cables she discusses: This from a March 2006 cable written by US officials in Quito: "In previous meetings, Chevron reps have suggested that the ...
[Kevin Walsh is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law] The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard arguments this week in the second of two pirate prosecutions in federal court in Norfolk, Virginia. The first appeal, which the court heard in the spring, has been held up on a procedural issue and...
Following Talisman Energy, the Fourth Circuit has now held in Aziz v. Alcolac, another ATS case, that the mens rea of aiding and abetting under the "law of nations" is intent, not knowledge. That's plainly wrong, as I have pointed out before, so there is no point dwelling on the new decision. But this paragraph deserves specific mention, because it...
[Ed. note: David Caron is the C. William Maxeiner Distinguished Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law and the President of the American Society of International Law. This post is also published in the ASIL Newsletter.] The continuing influence (the “tail”) of historic events such as 9/11 has numerous dimensions. In international law, the event and the responses...
Fantastic news: New York – A federal appeals court vacated an order Monday by a New York judge that barred an $18 billion judgment in Ecuador against Chevron Inc. for contaminating the Amazon. The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously expressed skepticism that a New York judge could wield jurisdiction outside...
It is hard to know how seriously to take this report, or even if it is accurate. But if it is accurate, this could be trouble for the U.S. drone strike program in Pakistan. ISLAMABAD: Human Rights Ministry (HRM) has decided to take up matter of drone attacks with United Nations under international humanitarian law and file an official complain to...
Philip Alston has posted an important new essay on targeted killing on SSRN. Here is the abstract of the essay, which is forthcoming in the Harvard National Security Journal: This Article focuses on the accountability of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in relation to targeted killings, under both United States law and international law. As the CIA, often...
