I started teaching my introductory course to international law this week. I've got nearly 80 upper-level students, which is a pretty good number considering that an equal if not greater number of students had the opportunity this past spring to take international law as a first year elective. Nor is Temple alone in moving international law into the first year...
One of my favorite ICL scholars, Guenael Mettraux, recommends precisely that in a recent New York Times op-ed. Here is the core of his pitch: The Guantánamo detainees pose a similar conundrum today. Trying these men stateside would necessarily require the compromise of long-cherished principles of American law. Yet continuing to hold them without the prospect of a fair trial or...
I am a big fan of Laura Rozen's work over at The Cable blog on foreignpolicy.com. She posted a piece late Monday, "Getting to Yes on Middle East Peace Talks," which offers a brief but fascinating peek into the art and science of mediating protracted conflicts -- a topic I have written about here and here....
The success of a UN Secretary General is largely dependent on two things: (1) the charisma and personal drive of the office holder; and (2) his (to date, they have all been men) ability to lead and work well with the Secretariat. On both dimensions, recent evidence suggests Ban Ki-moon appears to be in real trouble. Unless...
So says the headline of a WSJ news article today (Monday, August 24, 2009, B1, by August Cole), noting that unmanned aircraft - drones such as the Predator to us civilians, although the Pentagon seems to prefer UMV - are transforming not just the military, strategic as well as tactical considerations, but defense contracting. (PopSci ran a story a little...
Cross-posted at Balkinization UPDATE: The long-awaited report by the CIA Inspector General completed in 2004 and kept secret since has now been released by the Administration. The memos former Vice President Cheney says demonstrate the efficacy of torture in eliciting information are also now available. Note the Cheney memos are heavily, heavily redacted and it is impossible to tell...
Kathleen Sullivan has filed a petition for certiorari (2009 WL 2173302) in Abdullahi v. Pfizer arguing that there is a circuit split on the question of corporate liability under international law: There is no general international common law of torts. Thus, to establish subject matter jurisdiction under the ATS for a violation of international law by a private corporation or individual,...
I received this notice that I thought our readers may find of interest: The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) is the flagship journal of one of India's premier law institutions, the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The NLSIR is a peer-reviewed journal, and is published twice a year. The latest issue - Volume 21(1) - included contributions...
Ruth Wedgwood comments at Forbes magazine website on the "compassionate" release of Al-Megrahi from prison in Scotland. I agree overall with Ruth: Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, is now a free man. He was convicted in the specially created Hague trial court by a panel of Scottish judges, and his appeal was rejected by the Scottish appellate chamber. He remained in prison...
[caption id="attachment_9512" align="alignright" width="137" caption=""][/caption] The battlefield robots we have mostly discussed here at Opinio Juris are those that are about remote control - realtime control by a human operator who is not actually in the cockpit of the Predator, for example. We've talked somewhat about autonomy issues and robots - battlefield robots with programming enabling them to be able to...
I want to offer a few thoughts on Dean Edley's email, which I appreciate Deb posting. I am much less impressed by his reasoning than Deb appears to be. (And please, Deb, correct me if I am wrong about that.) At the outset, it is important to note that I think Dean Edley's conclusion -- that Yoo cannot be fired, at...
Aaron Zelinsky, YLS '10, smart person and occasional correspondent with me, has an article up at HuffPo arguing for a certain parallel (a negative one) between the Lockerbie release this week and the Guantanamo detainees. Aaron argues that it was wrong for the Lockerbie bomber to have been released, and would not have been, had he been tried and convicted...
