All the really cool people in the world are at SMU in Dallas today, at a conference called The Rise of Transnational Networks. Professor Jenia Turner is the organizer, and she and her colleagues and the SMU students have done a fantastic job of getting great speakers and panelists. This is a very smart meeting. The videos will be posted...
The General Assembly and Security Council have just announced the election of two current and three new members of the International Court of Justice. Here is the key excerpt of the press release: The General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations yesterday elected five Members of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a term of office...
The celebrations in Africa (in particular in Obama's father's homeland of Kenya, where scores of newborns have been named Barack or Michelle) have left some introspective: Why has democracy continued to evolve and progress is the U.S., but not here? Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch links to this letter to the editor from the Guardian in Lagos, Nigeria: What has happened in United States...
This past September, I was a speaker at a conference on Law, Ethics and the War on Terror that was organized by Geoff Corn at the South Texas College of Law. The conference is now available as a video-stream. Part one is here and part two is here. The other panelists were incredibly impressive including senior military officials, prominent defense attorneys, and academics...
Remember the halcyon days of the election when Obama was a socialist and a marxist? Well, funny thing. According to the RNC, he's actually a moderate Republican: In all, with Barack Obama's promises to cut taxes, merit pay for public school teachers, and renewed offshore drilling, I would say he simply ran the most successful moderate Republican presidential campaign since Dwight...
While Peggy, Peter and Ken have provided more overarching views of the impact of Obama's election and his coming presidency, those readers ready to get into the weeds of what Obama will do when it comes to international law should check out his responses to an ASIL survey done back when the primaries were still in full swing. You can access...
I'm hopping on a plane shortly, so I can't fill this out as I'd like. And anyway, it is probably too early to say very much other than to note the question, which is this. Peter and others have claimed the Obama election as something for the world, and even as (maybe, with many qualifications, etc., etc.), sort of honorary president...
As Peter notes here, yesterday’s historic American election felt, in many ways, like a global event. Measured by how the election affects the lives of people around the world, it is not too much of an exaggeration. For months now, pundits have also seized on the overwhelming support of Obama all over the world as evidence that Obama’s election – in and of...
Or should that be President of the World? The global reactions have been overwhelming, not the least because Obama carries in himself a mixed global identity. As Philippe Sands put it: “People feel he is a part of them because he has this multiracial, multiethnic and multinational dimension. He represents, for people in so many different communities and cultures, a...
from someone who supported the other guy. It is a great day for this country, and one of the things that makes and keeps the United States great is that Barack Obama will be my president too. I remember asking someone in the Georgian civil wars why this was all worth a civil war, why not an election - he...
Great speech. Amazing day. Whether or not you supported Barack Obama, one cannot deny the achievement America made last night. Martin Luther King has always been one of my heroes and I cannot help but wonder what he would have said had he lived to see this day. If there are tears of joy to shed...
The New York Times ran a front page story from its lead Guantanamo reporter yesterday. (William Glaberson and Margot Williams, research assistance Andrei Scheinkman, "Next President Will Face Test on Detainees: Some at Guantanamo Called Serious Risks," NYT, Monday, November 3, 2008 (behind reg. user wall), A1; plus a referenced data base of detainees used to analyze the detainee...
