Shocking legal news out of Iraq — the Court of Cassation has reversed the conviction of Mohammed Munaf, the US citizen sentenced to death for helping kidnap three Romanian journalists in Iraq in 2005:Munaf's lawyer, Joseph Margulies, said the Iraqi Court of Cassation reversed the conviction and sentence because it could not determine the role Munaf and other defendants played...
Joshua Keating of Foreign Policy has a new essay, How to Start Your Own Country in Four Easy Steps. He begins:With Kosovo unilaterally declaring independence and a host of wannabe states looking to follow its lead, you might be thinking it’s about time to set up your own country. You’ve picked out a flag, written a national anthem, even...
Continuing their fractured ways — last week they failed to agree on provincial elections — Iraq's Presidency Council is still fighting over the death sentences of Ali Hassan al-Majid, Sultan Hashim Ahmad Jabburi Tai, and Hussein Rashid Mohammed. They have agreed that Chemical Ali should hang, but VP Tariq al-Hashemi continues to oppose executing the other two:Prime Minister Nouri...
Kosovo's declaration of independence raised a host of interesting international legal questions that Chris, among others, explored in some very good posts and discussions. And it looks like the ICJ may get a chance to opine on this question as well. Serbia will soon take Kosovo's "illegal" declaration of independence to the International Court of Justice, Foreign Minister Vuk...
This episode is shaping up to be a nice little case study in constitutional method. The question: is McCain a "natural born citizen" for constitutional purposes notwithstanding his birth in the Panama Canal Zone. (See background story in the NYT here.) The controversy will never get to the courts -- among other jurisdictional thresholds, who has standing?...
If you are thinking about an LL.M., I strongly recommend you check out the website LLM Guide. It provides you wonderful details of all the major LL.M. programs in the world. There also is a nice, handy discussion board for each school. Say you are thinking about doing an LL.M. in International Legal Studies at NYU. ...
It's been in practice since the 16th century. The practice is general, consistent and uninterrupted across the decades. There is a strong sense that every nation must do it. There used to be consistent objectors, but they slowly came on board such that by the Second World War every nation in the world adheres to the practice....
For what it's worth — a question about which I will remain steadfastly agnostic — Opinio Juris has been ranked the 19th most influential law blog for 2007. The rankings, which were created by TheRacetotheBottom.org, are based on traffic, links, and citations. Here is the list:1. Volokh Conspiracy 2. Sentencing Law and Policy 3. Jurist-Paper Chase 4. Instapundit.com 5. Balkanization 6. Concurring Opinions 7. Hugh Hewitt's...
In Europe, a woman was near death from a very bad disease, a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times...
The following is a second post by Sonya Sceats, an Associate Fellow in International Law at Chatham House in London. The ‘absolute’ nature of the torture ban was affirmed today by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, thus bringing to a close a long campaign by the UK to dilute the ban in cases involving proposed deportation of terror...
During the most recent U.S. presidential debate, candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton competed over who was against U.S. participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and who was REALLY against NAFTA. Interestingly, both candidates essentially pledged to, if elected, threaten to withdraw from NAFTA in order to force Canada and Mexico to renegotiate. As a policy...
From TPM Muckraker:[Y]ou may have despaired of ever seeing a clear, unequivocal exchange on the topic with a government official. Like this one from today's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, with Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) asked, "General, do you believe that waterboarding is consistent with Common Article...
