Doris Lessing received the Nobel Prize in Literature yesterday. Her Nobel Lecture is a joy to read. It's so easy to take for granted how much books enrich our lives. Lessing helps us imagine a world without them, a world that is a reality for many in Africa today. Here is a taste: Not long ago I...
The U.S. Supreme Court seems to want to answer that question, or at least some aspects of that question, by agreeing to hear two petitions from U.S. citizen detainees being held in Iraq by multinational forces. The consolidated cases arise from two lower court appellate decisions, both from the D.C. Circuit: MUNAF V. GEREN, SEC. OF ARMY and GEREN,...
Like many other geeky lawyer types, I have been scanning the arguments in the Supreme Court today for cluses about the ultimate result in Boumediene. But I couldn't resist posting about this neat article about legal questions arising out of European participation on the International Space Station. The space station currently exists as a legal patchwork of about...
In reading the transcript of the oral argument in Boumediene today, I spent some time looking for clues about Justice Kennedy. If you look at the transcript, he asked only a handful of questions and almost all focused on the D.C. Circuit’s review as an adequate substitute for habeas. Other than one joke (p. 30) and one question...
[Charlie Martel is an adjunct professor at the American University Washington College of Law. His most recent article (available on SSRN here) examines the implications of Oslo and Road Map obligations on the legality of the Israeli security barrier, and was published last month at 17 Duke J. Comp. & Int'l Law 305] First, thanks to Roger for offering me...
Professional life in the national security agencies is much better for gays and lesbians today than it was twenty years ago. The old rule that homosexuality would alone disqualify an individual from receiving a security clearance has been abolished. However, on a range of benefits and equal treatment -- including adequate security training for same-sex partners -- there...
As I blogged about here, Adam Liptak has a terrific occasional series ("American Exception") in the NYTimes examining common features of the US criminal justice system that are quite at odds with the approaches of other democracies. Liptak's piece today examines the felony murder rule — a rule we adopted from the English common law, but which has in...
Apparently, the British are a little rusty when it comes to US constitutional law. They're shocked — just shocked! — to learn that the US can kidnap a British citizen suspected of a crime other than terrorism even though the US and UK have an extradition treaty:A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal...
There'll be much discussion this week in conjunction with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on Wednesday in the cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States. Most of the conversation will likely (and rightly) focus on the question of the U.S. Constitution's reach as a matter of U.S. law to detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...
Well, that was quick. Amazing what a change of administration can do:Kevin Rudd has started his prime ministership with a bang, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol as his first act of government hours after being sworn in. Mr Rudd’s signing of the climate agreement yesterday brought applause from environmental groups and delegates at the United Nations climate conference in Bali. It leaves...
This past week's Annapolis Agreement has been received with lukewarm enthusiasm by the press. Commenters have described the agreement as simply a procedural document. I'm not so sure that such a tepid response is warranted. For the moment, remove the general pessimism about the possibility of Middle East peace. Ignore spillover effects from the Bush Administration's foreign policy...
In my post yesterday on the controversy over the pending execution of Chemical Ali and his two co-defendants, I argued that the Iraqi Constitution gives the President of Iraq, and not the Presidency Council, the authority to ratify death sentences. Earlier today, I received a friendly e-mail from a US official involved in the drafting of the Constitution...
