ABC reports that President Obama is considering the temporary use of executive agreements to create a news arms control treaty with Russia this winter. MOSCOW -- With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty...
I have ignored Obama's refusal to take concrete steps to end formal discrimination against gays and lesbians, because it's not really the subject of this blog. But I have followed his gradual abandonment of his campaign promise to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" with increasing concern. It seems clear that he has no real stomach for taking on the military...
Botswana has refused to go along with the AU resolution that -- in theory -- guarantees Bashir safe travel around Africa: Botswana says it will not abide by an African Union (AU) decision to ignore an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir. Countries signed up to the ICC have a duty to help arrest...
KJH has already remarked here at OJ on the contempt trial in the ICTY of Florence Hartmann. Ruth Wedgwood (SAIS-JHU and also a fellow member of the Hoover Task Force on National Security and Law) offers an analysis at the American Interest online and, like Kevin, thinks this an unfortunate move by the tribunal....
to those celebrating it. (Not everyone at OJ rains on the July 4 parade!) For those in DC, in addition to the usual stuff, you might check out the historical reenactment of Frederick Douglass's July 5 speech, as Randy Barnett notes, at its historic site in Anacostia (Professor Barnett has a very interesting discussion and commentary on the speech at...
As happens every July 5th, tomorrow’s newspapers will carry reports of attractively diverse groups of immigrants naturalizing as U.S. citizens in uplifting ceremonies, flags waving, with predictable but heartfelt welcomes from judges and elected officials. This Independence Day ritual is perhaps the only public relations play of the federal government’s immigration agencies that seems to work. It bears out all...
I don't know quite what to make of this story from the AP of July 3, 2009: African leaders approve anti-ICC move By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU – 9 hours ago SIRTE, Libya (AP) — African leaders have approved a contentious decision to denounce the International Criminal Court and refuse to extradite Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir. The final decision by the African Union heads of state...
The Economist has a short article discussing EU proposals for financial regulation reform, in the July 4, 2009 issue, "Divided by a Common Market." The article is not persuaded that EU regulatory reforms, divided on at least two fundamental matters, will get very far, very soon: The EU remains riven by two deep divides on the regulation of finance. The first is...
Thomas Barnett has pointed out a map in Business Week that is coded for the sovereign bond rating of each country (the map is a click-through from this page). What Barnett calls the "Old Core" (the U.S., Canada, western Europe, etc.) tend to have the highest ratings, the "New Core" (Brazil, Russia, India, China and other rising powers) have the...
Next week looks to be a busy one on Capitol Hill. As the Obama Administration Task Force on Detention nears its initial July 21 reporting deadline, both the House Judiciary and Senate Armed Services Committees will be holding hearings on a closely related topic: legal issues surrounding the use of military commissions to try offenses against the law of war....
That's the question underlying my new essay, The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences, in the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 20, No. 2, June 2009). And I'm very curious as to whether anyone else shares my general feeling that the very success, on important metrics, of international criminal law is tending to swallow, as it...
I expect sloppy reporting from the traditional media, but not from the normally excellent FP Passport. So I was surprised to read the following in a post by Michael Wilkerson implying that the ICC has accomplished almost nothing: But with so much scorn and a suspect arrested for only one of its outstanding warrants -- former Congo rebel commander Jean-Pierre...
