In 1995, while Elena Kagan was an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, she wrote a review about Stephen Carter’s book, The Confirmation Mess. Carter’s book, of course, was highly critical of the confirmation process and identified numerous ailments, including most famously, the handling of the confirmation hearing of Robert Bork. Kagan begs to differ....
There's hypocrisy, and then there's Omar al-Bashir: Sudan's justice minister has asked Interpol to arrest the leader of Darfur's most powerful rebel group, state media said on Monday, a step likely to dash hopes of progress in a faltering peace process. [snip] The Sudanese Media Centre quoted Abdel Basit Sabderat as saying the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) leader,...
I wanted to point our readers to a terrific discussion at EJIL Talk! on our own Ken Anderson's recent article "The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences". Ken's article "offers a high-altitude, high-speed look at the effects of international criminal law on other parts of public international law and organizations." EJIL Talk! has solicited two very interesting...
Not surprisingly, Ed Whelan breaks from the post and takes the lead in the most-ridiculous-criticism-of-Elena-Kagan derby, claiming that not learning to drive until her late 20s...
Is there anything new or useful to say about "International Law and the Israeli-Arab Dispute"? Well, a number of scholars (including Ken, Roger, and myself) will try to come up with something next Monday, May 17, during a conference at Northwestern University School of Law. This is one of the few subjects intersecting international law where there is way too...
It's a done deal: President Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow. Kagan will be the first nominee for the Court since the 1970s who has no judicial experience, although I doubt this will be a problem for her (it may even be an asset). As Kevin has already noted, Kagan will probably...
Last week, Russia announced with some fanfare that it had captured several Somali pirates who had attacked a Russian-flagged vessel. It had also announced that (like the U.S.), these pirates would be brought back to Russia for trial. And then yesterday, Russia announced...
Yesterday a federal court in New York granted Chevron's request for discovery of outtakes from the 2009 documentary Crude about the multi-billion dollar litigation in Ecuador. Chevron's request was pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782, which authorizes a judge in the United States to order discovery of evidence to be used in proceedings before a foreign tribunal. As reported here, Chevron's...
That is what Mike Allen is reporting at Politico. If he's right, our next Supreme Court Justice will likely be the woman who recently argued this (h/t: my friend Steve Vladeck): [W]ith regard to the material support statute, there are substantial (pending) issues with regard to its scope, given that the Ninth Circuit invalidated the "service," "training," and "expert...
Ian Hurd, the distinguished scholar of international organizations (e.g., After Anarchy) at Northwestern University, has posted to SSRN a short response to an article much-discussed here at OJ, Michael Glennon, "The Blank Prose Crime of Aggression." Professor Hurd's response is titled, "How Not to Argue Against the Crime of Aggression." It is not long, elegantly argued and usefully systematic, and...
[caption id="attachment_12297" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Judge Thomas Buergenthal"][/caption] Sure, some guy named John Paul Stevens is retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court, but there is another big judicial resignation this spring to note. Thomas Buergenthal, the U.S. member of the International Court of Justice, has announced that he will not finish out his term on the court. I am breaking some news...
As most people probably know, Duke's Guy-Uriel Charles wrote a devastating blog post criticizing the lack of diversity in Harvard Law School hiring while Elena Kagan was Dean. (Short version: 28 of 29 were white, one was asian; 23 of the 29 were men.) The White House has now pushed back against the post by releasing what strikes me as...
