In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

20 Apr

I haven't really looked at it, but here is the ICJ's judgment in the Argentina-Uruguay Pulp Mill Dispute. Although the Court found that Uruguay violated certain procedural obligations, it essentially ruled in favor of Uruguay on all substantive obligations (or it simply ruled that certain issues, like pollution effects, were outside its jurisdiction).  On the substantive obligations, there were three...

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20 Apr

Eli Lake has a fantastic essay at Reason.com on the myriad ways in which Obama has replicated the worst excesses of the Bush administration with regard to national security.  He rightly identifies the source of the problem -- the AUMF, which was passed in a fit of hysteria three days after 9/11 and has no natural expiration date.  Here is...

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19 Apr

I am simply raiding Eugene Volokh's edited clip from this new holding in the Ninth Circuit, including a discussion of the Charming Betsy canon (see the last couple of paragraphs, below the fold).  From Serra v. Lapin (9th Cir. Apr. 9, 2010) (Clifton, J., joined by Kozinski, C.J., and Wallace, J.) (some paragraph breaks added by Eugene):
Current and former federal prisoners allege that the low wages they were paid for work performed in prison violated their rights under the Fifth Amendment and various sources of international law.... Plaintiffs earned between $19.00 and $145.00 per month at rates as low as nineteen cents per hour. Plaintiffs contend that by paying them such low wages, Defendants ... violated Plaintiffs’ rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution; articles 7 through 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”); a U.N. document entitled “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners;” and the law of nations.
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19 Apr

In interests of being "fair and balanced," I thought I'd post Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen's rebuttal to Jane Mayer's "devastating" New Yorker review of his book on Bush-era interrogation policies. At this point, neither side is really arguing the law much, but both seem focused on policy. Thiessen's rebuttal looks pretty strong (as was Mayer's review).  (see below for excerpts) Here's Mayer: His...

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18 Apr

If you are going to be in DC on Friday, April 23, there will be a terrific law of armed conflict program all day at Catholic University, Columbus Law School, including Harold Koh as lunchtime keynote speaker and a host of luminaries on the panels.  Advance registration required.  See program details below the fold. Controversy and Developments in the Law of Armed Conflict: Customary vs Treaty Law; Law of the Sea Manual; Manual on International Law Applicable to Air and Missile Warfare Friday, April 23, 2010 The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law Washington, DC 20064 This program will examine three important efforts relating to International Humanitarian Law: the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, the more recent Commentary and Manual on International Law Applicable to Air and Missile Warfare (prepared by the Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research), and the ICRC's multi-volume study on Customary International Humanitarian Law. To what extent do the manuals reflect state practice, and what role do such manuals play in the formulation and application of customary international humanitarian law?  Panels of international law experts and practitioners will discuss these important issues in a format designed to encourage lively debate, and to draw conclusions based both on scholarly treatises and the actual practice of states.
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18 Apr

Our friends at the Leiden Journal of International Law -- an exceptional journal -- have asked us to post the following call for papers: Special Issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law (2011) Foucault and International Law Abstracts due by 12 May 2010; Complete articles by 17 September 2010 The Leiden Journal of International Law is now soliciting articles for a special issue exploring the relevance...

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18 Apr

Alas, I don't agree with very much of KJH's critique of Eric Posner's Wall Street Journal opinion piece last week - Eric commenting on the suspension of Spain's crusading universal jurisdictionalist judge, Baltasar Garzon.  However, rather than get back into that, I wanted to flag instead Financial Times columnist Christopher Caldwell's comment on the subject.
Baltasar Garzón, the radical and ambitious investigative magistrate, made his name in Spain by revealing the tactics of Spanish counter-terrorism officials in the 1990s. In 1998, he ordered the arrest of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in a London hospital and in 2009 he proposed trying White House lawyers for the advice they gave George W. Bush on the legality of detaining prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. His agenda is consistently controversial. To some it looks like battling corruption on an ever bigger stage. To others it looks like corruption itself.
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17 Apr

It's been 18 days since I asked NGO Monitor to provide the same detailed accounting of their funding that they demand of the human-rights groups they so regularly malign and demonize.  Readers will be shocked -- shocked! -- to know that the organization has ignored my request, in keeping with its profoundly hypocritical approach to funding. In the meantime, of course,...

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17 Apr

I am pretty supportive of Obama Administration's general approach to Sudan, largely because it reflects a realistic sense of the limits of the U.S. government's ability to influence matters there as well as the (relative) unimportance of Sudan to the U.S. and to the wider region. And so I think the hardline ICC-favored approach to Sudan (demand the arrest of...

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