I have just been informed that Sir Ian Brownlie, one of the true legends of international law, has died in a car crash in Egypt. I have no other information, as it has apparently not been reported yet. Tremendously sad news. I'm sure we will have much more information in the coming days....
Happy New Year to all. For those of you looking for "new" things in international law this year, check out the newly redesigned website of the Private International Law office in the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser (L/PIL for short). It has links to other relevant websites and resources as well as listings of the status of U.S. treaties...
Last year, as I was reading an early draft of the agenda for the ICC's Review Conference in 2010, I asked myself what I would change about the Rome Statute if I was King of the Assembly of States Parties. My answer was that I would amend Article 17, the complementarity provision, to make a case admissible if a national...
A couple of years ago I wrote a paper on ways in which the American political class is riven by deep foundational disagreements about the proper way to approach transnational terrorism. It is partly implicated in the “war” versus “law enforcement” argument, but actually it goes deeper than that — is it possible to have an offensive strategy against terrorism,...
I rarely agree with our colleagues at the Volokh Conspiracy, but I think Jonathan Adler is right on the mark when he describes the TSA's security measures as "political theater." It's all about creating the illusion of safety, not actual safety. An erstwhile terrorist needs more than 100ml of a particular liquid to make a bomb? Let's hope he's not...
The New York Times has a very interesting article on the mining of rare earths, a group of elements that are particularly important for green technologies. The Times piece begins like this: Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare...
Britain's New Scientist has a short piece on the arrival of non-Latin script Internet addresses in 2010. They explain: Net regulator ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications...
A very Merry Christmas to our celebrating readers, and to everyone, a happy holiday and best wishes in the New Year. I would like to report for the record that NORAD got it right, and ...
The Trial Chamber has -- completely unsurprisingly -- rejected Dr. Karadzic's motion challenging Richard Harvey's appointment as stand-by counsel. As I explained in a previous post, that challenge was based on three grounds: (1) Harvey's appointment violates Article 21(4) of the ICTY Statute, which provides that a defendant has the right “to communicate with counsel of his own choosing” and...
Sixty-six years ago today, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed a national radio audience to discuss his recent meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference. Stalin secured commitments to open up a second front against Germany. Roosevelt secured a commitment from Stalin to support an international security organization. 1943 was the turning point in the...
Since 1955 NORAD (and its predecessor CONAD) has tracked Santa’s each Christmas Eve and has answered questions for boys and girls about his progress. NORAD’s Santa tracking service uses interactive maps updated every few minutes at http://www.noradsanta.org. As Santa stops in each location, you can click an icon to learn more about that part of the world. There is also...
Although most countries endorsed the Copenhagen Accord, few left Copenhagen in a positive mood. The general lack of enthusiasm about the outcome was exacerbated by the procedural wrangling on the final day about whether to “adopt” or merely “take note of” the Accord, which left delegates in a dispirited mood, both about the prospects for halting climate change and...
