The Sudanese government is not very happy with the Prosecutor's decision to indict Bashir. Indeed, Sudan's ambassador to the UN has said that the government intends to ask the Security Council to block the prosecution, describing any attempt to arrest Bashir as "an act of war." Such belligerent rhetoric is expected from such a belligerent regime. Many opponents of the Sudanese...
I have been going back-and-forth with myself about the wisdom of indicting Bashir for genocide. I continue to believe that the move is a risky one in the short term, given the likelihood that the Sudanese government will respond to the indictment with violence against the peacekeepers and the humanitarian workers in the country. Nevertheless, I find the following defense...
I am grateful to be associated with this blog in so many ways: personally, because of my wonderful co-bloggers and our many invited guests; intellectually, because the blog allows me to try out new ideas and forces me to keep up with what is happening in the world; and -- yes -- professionally, because the blog exposes my ideas, often...
Oxford University Press and Opinio Juris have teamed up to re-launch this widely read and influential blog. The new site continues to provide the insight, debate and analysis that you’re used to, but has been enhanced with an easy-to-use interface and additional features. We invite you to re-discover Opinio Juris, with its contributions from leaders in the field and thought-provoking...
Besides announcing our new partnership with Oxford University Press, and debuting our new-and-improved website, we are also pleased to welcome Kenneth Anderson of American University’s Washington College of Law as the newest member on the Opinio Juris team of bloggers. Ken should be well-known to our readers. He is a scholar in areas such as international humanitarian law, international finance, and...
I mentioned last month that the ICC Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, was considering bringing genocide charges against Sudanese officials far more senior than Ahmed Haroun, the country's "humanitarian affairs" minister. Well, he's now decided to do exactly that — and his target is no other than Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the President of Sudan himself:The chief prosecutor of the Internationals Criminal...
We greatly appreciate all of the wonderful postings this week on America Between the Wars and thank all of those who participated. We wanted to conclude by touching on two of the issues raised in the discussion. One is the question Matt Waxman raised concerning the future of the U.S. political debate about democracy promotion. The other...
Thanks to everyone for what has been a very enriching discussion so far. I’d like to respond briefly to the thoughtful comments made by Peggy and Chris concerning what the story of these modern interwar years between 11/9 and 9/11 tells us about how to think about America’s role in the world – and whether that can be summed...
Every week, an Australian show called The Gruen Transfer asks two advertising companies to compete with each other to sell the unsellable. This week's challenge: create a TV ad to whip up support in Oz for a military invasion of New Zealand. One of the ads is okay — but this one had me laughing so hard there...
Shameless plug alert: I have posted a new essay on SSRN, "The Cognitive Psychology of Mens Rea." It's a sequel of sorts to my essay "The Cognitive Psychology of Circumstantial Evidence," which appeared last year in the Michigan Law Review. Here is the abstract:"Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea" -- the act does not make a...
I'm afraid I haven't been holding up my end of this discussion very well because it turned out that I am traveling to Europe just as things got underway. I'm here in Paris for some meetings that include some very serious intellectual-activist-elites from across Europe. A very distinguished group of people, and I feel a bit of a...
Let me raise the uncomfortable subject of the Clinton Administration's commitment to international law. Chollet and Goldgeier offer three episodes that I think shed light on President Clinton’s commitment to international law and the use of force. First, with the Rwandan genocide, Clinton failed to intervene in Rwanda or even treat the situation seriously. Tony Lake described...
