Apparently, the Obama Administration has decided it will not seek ratification of the ICC Rome Statute. There is still no official policy, as far as I know, but this is the latest from Assistant Secretary of State for War Crimes Stephen Rapp. This is not exactly a surprise, but it shows just how far the U.S. is from the Rome...
Here's a wonderful story from my friend and former student Jeff Cook on the wonderful work he is doing in Cambodia with International Justice Mission to fight child prostitution. Jeff Cook is a former law clerk to Judge Urbina in Washington, D.C. and a former associate at O'Melveny & Myers. Here is Jeff's account of the conviction of...
The NY Times Opinionator has a nice roundup of lefty-blog reaction to the Obama Administration's claim of the legal authority to kill and assassinate U.S. citizens abroad (and its admission to having already done so). Most lefty-blogs seem unconcerned about this policy, with the notable exception of Glenn Greenawald. From a legal perspective, the relative lack of outrage among the...
We are very grateful to Professors Ginsburg, Vandenbergh, Cohen, and Wiener for engaging in this dialogue with us. The value of discussing these issues with such leading scholars in the field cannot be overstated. Professor Ginsburg’s very helpful comments push us to focus on two main points: (1) the U.S. has similar internal dynamics that make committing to a climate change...
[Jonathan B. Wiener is the Perkins Professor of Law and Environmental Policy at Duke University; Eli Goldston Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School; and a University Fellow at Resources for the Future] In their paper on the "Two Chinas" and climate change policy, Professors Abebe and Masur raise an important point about how China's internal politics may affect its international relations....
[Michael P. Vandenbergh is Tarkington Professor of Law; Director, Climate Change Research Network; and Co-Director, Regulatory Program at Vanderbilt University Law School. Mark Cohen is Vice President for Research, Resources for the Future; Director, Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies; Professor of Management and Law, Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.] Daniel Abebe and Jonathan Masur have made an...
[Tom Ginsburg is a Professor at the University of Chicago Law School] Thanks for this opportunity to respond to the Article by Professors Abebe and Masur. My learned colleagues are certainly correct that, notwithstanding its status as a unitary and authoritarian state, China is an internally complicated place, with substantial de facto control at the provincial level. Besides the East-West cleavages...
As Kevin notes, the ICC Appeals Chamber has overruled the Pre-Trial Chamber on the question of whether Sudan's President Bashir can be charged with genocide. In a very useful note, Chile Eboe-Osuji points out here that the Appeals Chamber did not in fact provide the Pre-Trial Chamber with guidance on what standard it should adopt to determine whether there was...
[Daniel Abebe and Jonathan S. Masur are Assistant Professors of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Their Article may be found here.] On July 8th and 9th, 2009, the New York Times published two seemingly unconnected articles about China. One focused on China’s rejection of an agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, while the other concerned clashes...
I've been on blog-silence the last few months, but one of my students today made me feel a little guilty about my lack of blogging, so I'm back (at least for now). So while not wanting to interrupt this great online symposium, I'll just point our readers to this remarkable little exchange between U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair...
I intend to closely follow the reactions to the Appeals Chamber's decision on the genocide charges against Bashir. The pushback has already begun in a predictable place: the Making Sense of Darfur blog, which has led the charge against the arrest warrant. The post itself, in which David Barsoum asks "what is the ICC really after in Sudan?", is not...
[David H. Moore is a Professor at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University] The Supreme Court’s decision in Medellin v. Texas has understandably generated substantial debate on the status of treaties in domestic law. Medellin has significant implications for three other areas of foreign relations law as well: Alien Tort Statute litigation, the domestic legal status of customary international...
