In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

30 Sep

I thank Professors Guiora and Cliteur for their thoughtful interventions. As I see it, the basic distinction Prof. Guiora draws is between terrorism motivated by religious convictions – “religious terrorism” – and terrorism motivated by non-religious convictions – “non-religious terrorism.” Despite their arguments, though, I fear I am still not persuaded that this distinction is very helpful. For instance, Prof. Guiora...

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30 Sep

Certainly Professor Guiora has raised very profound issues.   It would help me to have a specific scenario of how this would play out.   For example - some well known Christian radical fundamentalist preacher (who has been known to call on God's wrath against some group) gets up in the pulpit one Sunday and says; "I have had a direct revelation from God and...

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30 Sep

Thank you to Prof Movsesian, Prof Cliteur and Rev. Lentz for their thoughtful and informed comments in response to my initial posting. With respect to Prof Movsesian's concern regarding my identification of religious extremism as posing the primary threat today, I would suggest that analysis of contemporary terrorism clearly suggests that religious extremist actors (in all three monotheistic faiths) are,...

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29 Sep

In its motion to dismiss the ACLU/CCR lawsuit, the government argues that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the lawsuit on al-Aulaqi's behalf, because al-Aulaqi has the option of surrendering to the government and bringing the lawsuit himself: Defendants state that if Anwar al-Aulaqi were to surrender or otherwise present himself to the proper authorities in a peaceful and appropriate manner,...

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29 Sep

Thanks to Opinio Juris for inviting me to comment on Professor Guiora's new book. I look forward to the interchange with him and the other participants. Professor Guiora deserves credit for tackling the very controversial and timely topic of religious terrorism. Much of what he says is thought-provoking. He tries to be fair and avoid “religion-bashing.” He concedes that religion can...

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29 Sep

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...

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29 Sep

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...

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29 Sep

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...

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29 Sep

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...

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29 Sep

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....

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29 Sep

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...

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28 Sep

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...

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