As a pastor of a church I find Professor Guiora's words both challenging and problematic. Here are four points: 1. Professor Guiora writes, "Society has historically - unjustifiably and blindly - granted religion immunity." What society? Separating "society" from "religion" is very much a modern issue. Society didn't grant immunity to anything. Rather, society was shaped by religion and was pretty...
Society has historically ---unjustifiably and blindly---granted religion immunity. That immunity has been expanded to include religious extremism; doing so, presents an imminent danger to civil society. In many ways the failure to adequately protect society falls squarely on the shoulders of society; the refusal to directly address religious extremists is purely self-imposed. Religious extremists manipulate society’s sensitivities which, in large...
We are very pleased to host for the next three days a discussion of Amos Guiora's new book, Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security(Oxford 2009). Amos is probably well known to many readers of this blog, a professor at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law and a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Israel Defense Forces Judge...
Between Jose's guest blogging and book discussion we are about to start on Amos Guiora's book on religious freedom I want to sandwich a short notice about my recent favorite topic: no-holds-barred full contact chess arbitration. Backstory: here for the arbitration, here for the Russian regional politics and space aliens,and here for how it relates to the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. I...
On behalf of my co-bloggers, I want to thank Professor Alvarez for his recent spate of posts as a guest-blogger. I hope we can persuade him to revisit us in a few months to tell us what he does with his winter break....
As a member of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law, I was asked to give my reactions to the International Law Commission’s release, on first reading, of a set of proposed articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. (For the ILC’s report containing these draft articles and commentaries, see here). I was probably asked to undertake this...
Ben Wittes at Lawfare and Adam Serwer at TAPPED traded posts today on the government's motion to dismiss the ACLU/CCR lawsuit. I think the exchange -- particularly Wittes' response to Serwer -- illustrates perfectly why discussions about national security between conservatives and progressives always seem to have a Pinteresque quality. Here is the point to which Wittes responded: I think it's...
Under a bill approved by the Senate on Monday night,the White House would be required to notify the full membership of both congressional intelligence committees of presidential directives to conduct covert action, known as "findings." At present, the administration is required to notify only the "Gang of Eight": the chairmen and ranking members of each committee and the party leadership in both chambers. But the new language still gives the White House flexibility, including a 180-day period in which to notify all 22 House and 15 Senate intelligence committee members of a finding. The White House can defer full notification even longer, according to the bill, if it provides "a statement of reasons that it is essential to continue to limit access" because of "extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States."The Senate bill also contains a couple of specific provisions of interest in today's environment, including a new cybersecurity element of reporting, and a provision requiring that the "White House provide the legal grounds for certain intelligence operations and estimates of whether "significant" costs or a "significant risk of loss of life" might be involved." My own general view is that Congressional oversight of covert activities needs to be strengthened and reformed - not because I think the CIA is out doing rogue stuff with, say, targeted killing, but instead because I think it is the only way to ensure that the political branches are on the same page on policy, what is acceptable and lawful and what is not. It is an essential element in protecting intelligence agency personnel from actions by courts or, for that matter, Congress itself claiming that they overstepped their authority. Likewise it is a crucial element in ensuring that the political branches retain their role - Steel Seizure cases-style - in foreign policy and the conduct of self-defense operations abroad and armed conflict.
In the same month that I traveled to Barcelona, I went to Paris to attend a conference organized by Paris I Professors Emmanuelle Jouannet and Hélène Ruiz Fabri and Professor Mark Toufayan of the University of Ottawa. According to its organizers, the purpose of the symposium, on “The Third World Today: Assessment and Perspectives,” was to “evaluate the situation of...
The IISD’s paper on transparency I mentioned this morning demonstrates why the investment regime is globalization’s Rorschach test. Recent scholarship (most prominently the work of one of the participants at Barcelona, York University Professor Gus Van Harten (see, e.g., “A Case for an International Investment Court,” available here) contends that investor-state arbitration is nothing like the commercial arbitration between private...
The opportunity to guest blog on Opinio Juris is most appreciated. It is almost like having the ASIL Presidency forum all over again. My first topic emerges from a conference hosted by the Canadian-based Institute for Sustainable Development in Barcelona in July 2010. The Institute invited a number of practitioners and scholars to address the topics of transparency and independence in...
I'm delighted to introduce José Enrique Alvarez as our guest blogger for the next few days. Professor Alvarez is the Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at NYU Law School, and serves as a special adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on a pro bono basis. He is also a past President of the American Society...
