I thank Professor Bartow for taking the time to respond to my article, but I am deeply disappointed that she has chosen to misrepresent many of its principal arguments, attacking me for statements I did not make and for opinions I do not hold. My article is a comparative study of constitutional obscenity jurisprudence in the United States and Canada....
Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner have an interesting op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal (November 25, 2008), "Does Europe Believe in International Law?" I believe it is behind the subscriber wall, but it offers a series of instances in which, in effect, Europe says one thing and does another. In fact, Europe's commitment to international law is largely rhetorical. Like the...
I was asked to respond to Bret Boyce’s recent article, published in the Yale Journal of International Law and entitled “Obscenity and Community Standards.” My one sentence summary of his thesis is this: Pornography is private sexual expression with which legislatures and courts should not interfere. Although this article was published in a forum dedicated to international law, it doesn’t...
In this article, I present a comparative study of constitutional obscenity doctrine in the United States and Canada, and argue that the community standards test that has long been the touchstone of this jurisprudence cannot be reconciled with fundamental principles of freedom of expression and conscience. In the United States, the imposition of community standards of morality is at odds...
My congratulations to Professor Hakimi on a very intelligent article, with which I am largely in sympathy, and also to Matt Waxman for his response. I'm on the fly, without access to documents or the ability to search the web, so forgive the broad brush nature of this comment and question, but let me put it anyway (I'm depending on...
Thanks to Matt for his very thoughtful comments. I agree with almost all of them, so will take this opportunity to amplify on some of the issues he raises. First, Matt “wonder[s] whether administrative detention is so underdeveloped, or so expansive a concept, that it doesn’t make sense to think of it as a single model at all.” I agree with...
I thank YJIL and Opinio Juris for the opportunity to comment on Monica Hakimi’s article, “International Standards for Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond the Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide.” Monica’s important paper will contribute to a raging debate likely to grow more intense as President-elect Obama moves to shut down Guantanamo and put U.S. detention policy on sounder legal footing. ...
Thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this symposium. I read the blog regularly so know to expect a lively and interesting discussion. My article addresses the international legal rules for detaining “non-battlefield terrorism suspects”—i.e., suspected terrorists not captured on a conventional battlefield or in the theater of combat. Despite the extensive literature on the rules that govern the “war on terror,”...
The University of Auckland magazine recently published a copy of the university's 1918 final exam in public international law. I have only the vaguest recollection of the exam I took, but I it wasn't this hard. (Exhibit A: I didn't fail.) Have academic standards really declined so precipitously? How would you fare, readers?...
The Yale Journal of International Law (YJIL), one of the world’s leading journals of international and comparative law, is pleased to continue its partnership with Opinio Juris in this second online symposium. This week, we will be featuring two Articles published by YJIL in Vol. 33-2, both of which are available here. Thank you to Peggy McGuinness and the other...
'The Marquis does not like bloggers, I warn you; it is his one antipathy,' the Abbe Pirard said to Julien. 'Know Latin, Greek if you can, the history of the Egyptians, of the Persians, and so forth; he will honour you and protect you as a scholar. But do not go and post a single page in French, especially upon...
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting has an interesting report today on the Ugandan government's efforts to prosecute Kony and other LRA members in a special domestic court. According to the IWPR's report, the problem is not the lack of political will, but the potential retroactivity of the legislation necessary to make the Rome Statute's core crimes -- war...
