Recent Posts

I read with great interest Professor Bainbridge's post a few weeks ago about self-publishing legal scholarship. The discussion Bainbridge linked to in that post by Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler about self-publishing (and expanded upon here) is even more interesting. (Eugene Volokh's posts from 2009 are also quite useful.) Self-publishing of fiction appears to be the wave...

On Friday, the State Department issued the 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, a mandatory report to the United States Congress on human rights conditions around the globe.  This link to the full report is here,  the remarks of Secretary Clinton is here, and a very useful q and a with Mike Posner, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights...

As readers will recall, I wrote a short response to Gabriella Blum's wonderful essay on IHL and common-but-differentiated responsibilities for our inaugural Opinio Juris-Harvard International Law Journal symposium.  HILJ has now published my much longer formal response.  Here is an overview, from my introduction: Blum’s normative analysis of the desirability of CDRs in IHL is exceptionally...

Luis Moreno-Ocampo wants to formally investigate crimes against humanity in Cote D'Ivoire.  Cote D'Ivoire consented to the ICC's jurisdiction over crimes committed there eight years ago.  So what's Moreno-Ocampo waiting for?  Apparently, a state referral: "We are concerned about the recent information on massive atrocities committed in the western part of Cote d'Ivoire," he said. "We are trying to...

The Office of Legal Counsel has released an opinion asserting the constitutionality of President's Obama's use of force against Libya.  Here's how it frames the question: [T]he President’s legal authority to direct military force in Libya turns on two questions: first, whether United States operations in Libya would serve sufficiently important national interests to permit the President’s action as Commander in...

This time concerning the Goldstone Report and whether Israel intentionally targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead as a matter of policy.  You know a post is in trouble when it's entitled "Human Rights Watch Lies re: Goldstone Retraction," but then states, three paragraphs later, "Well, maybe lying isn’t quite right. Roth chose his words carefully, and I suppose...

The American Branch of the International Law Association has a call for panel proposals for International Law Weekend 2011, which takes place October 20-22 in New York City.  The theme of this year's ILW is "International Law and National Politics." The call for proposals can be found here, and includes the following information about submissions, which are due to the...

There's a great article by Professor Adam Goodheart in the New York Times describing how Union Major General Benjamin Butler, a lawyer by training, used the laws of war to help end slavery in America. When three fugitive slaves presented themselves to Butler at Fort Monroe, he had to quickly decide what to do with them. The Confederate...

The Kenyan government has filed a 30-page motion with the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II arguing that recent improvements to the Kenyan criminal-justice system render the cases against the Ocampo Six inadmissible.  Here are the highlights of the reforms, from the motion's introduction (para. 2): 2. The Government's Application must be determined with a full understanding of the fundamental and far-reaching constitutional...

It's amazing what not working for the government can do for one's ability to tell the truth.  As readers likely know, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was forced to resign last month for the sin of accurately describing Bradley Manning's abusive conditions of confinement as "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."  (For his part, the ever-credulous Obama dismissed the abuse allegations...