In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

04 Apr

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...

|
04 Apr

Have you worked on post-conflict justice issues? Have you been part of a rule of law project in a conflict zone?  If so, you may be of help to our colleague Professor Elena Baylis (Univ. of Pittsburgh), who is working on a really terrific empirical project on post-conflict justice.  Here is the information from Elena which includes eligibility...

|
04 Apr

Assume that a U.S. agency modifies its interpretation of a federal statute to respond to an adverse WTO decision. In so doing, consistent with the Charming Betsy doctrine, its interpretation is brought into conformity with WTO jurisprudence with respect to one stage--the investigation stage--of the administrative proceeding. But the agency does not alter its interpretation of the federal...

|
04 Apr

The following is a guest-post written by Orde Kittrie, a professor at ASU's law school, and Sandy Spector, the deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.  They very much want input from OJ's readership, so please post your thoughts.  Our thanks to Orde and Sandy for contributing the post! Seven years after A.Q. Khan publicly confessed to...

|
01 Apr

Critics of the Security Council's decision to refer the situation in Libya to the ICC normally argue that the referral denies Gaddafi the option of going into exile instead of fighting to the death.  That may or may not be true -- as I've noted previously, Max Boot's reliance on Charles Taylor's prosecution to make that argument fudges the actual...

|
01 Apr

On paper, courts-martial are far more fair than military commissions -- the substantive law they apply is superior, and their rules of evidence and procedure are designed to protect defendants, not ensure convictions.  Unfortunately, a recent McClatchy investigation indicates that literally hundreds of courts-martial might have relied on evidence that was unreliable and even fabricated by an unethical forensic scientist...

|
31 Mar

Tomorrow, the Center for International and Comparative Law (CICL) of St. John's University School of Law will have its inaugural symposium. Peggy and I are CICL's Co-Directors, and we are looking forward to what we hope will be a great kick-off. The symposium, entitled Challenges to International Law, Challenges from International Law: New Realities and the Global Order, is co-sponsored by...

|
30 Mar

The UN Security Council's approval of the no-fly zone over Libya serves to answer the thorniest jus ad bellum questions, but there are also jus in bello questions that need to be answered. Most importantly, what kind of conflict is this? Before the UN became involved, the conflict was clearly a conflict "not of an international character" (NIAC) between...

|
30 Mar

I wanted to call readers' attention to an upcoming web seminar on Libya held by Harvard's Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research.  The Program's web seminars are always excellent, and this one -- which features Luis Moreno-Ocampo and Nicholas Burns -- shapes up to be superb.  Here are the details: On Tuesday, April 5, 2011, the Program on Humanitarian...

|
30 Mar

I had a wonderful time at the ASIL annual meeting last week, and greatly enjoyed the panel discussion with Mary-Rose Papandrea and Simon Chesterman. One of the principal points that I was trying to convey in my presentation was the government’s legitimate interest in protecting the individual privacy interests. As I said in that presentation, “The government recognizes...

|
30 Mar

My colleague Anne Orford has a fascinating contribution today to the official blog of the London Review of Books questioning the universality of the supposedly universal international law that underlies the Security Council's authorization of military action in Libya.  Here is a taste: In 1954, Carl Schmitt bemoaned the destruction of European international law in the 20th century. According to...

|