Last month the Seventh Circuit, per Judge Posner, rendered an especially ill-informed and badly written decision upholding a Illinois statute that banned the export or import of horsemeat for human consumption. In the case of Cavel International v. Madigan, the Seventh Circuit ruled that there was only incidental discrimination to foreign commerce and there was a rational basis to...
Okay, so it’s not easy to connect these dots, and I certainly wouldn’t pretend to have a generalizable theory here. But there’s a plausible story to be told in John Yoo’s ascent and the pretty clear damage done by his post-9/11 work at the Office of Legal Counsel. One can take Jack Goldsmith’s critique of Yoo’s OLC work...
My colleague Tim Zick has a post over at Co-Op about the "cyber protest" in Second Life in response to the crackdown in Burma. Admittedly skeptical about such cyber-activism at the outset, Tim writes about whether "virtual world" protests "will lead to greater social and political activism in existing 'meatspace.'" Another aspect of cyber-activism is how "virtual world" protests...
The Intlawgrrls bloggers have given up on their experiment with blogging under pseudonyms. The details are here. Notwithstanding that the pseudonyms had an initial educational value--highlighting the contributions of various historical figures--the fact that the postings were not truly anonymous always had me trying to click through to identify a post's actual author. As such, I...
YJIL has just posted the call for papers for the next Young Scholars' Conference. (Yale Law Students had guest blogged during the previous conference here.) I was on a faculty panel at last year's conference and was very impressed by the student presentations. It is a great opportunity for students who are interested in pursuing careers in international law. Here's...
First, I’d like to thank Professor Paust for his thoughtful response to my Article. He is one of only a handful of scholars who have written on this topic and I am grateful for his taking the time to respond. Our work surrounding the question of customary international law (CIL) in relation to the individual has taken us to very similar...
Christiana Ochoa’s article provides important insights into the relevance of various jurisprudential approaches to questions concerning the role of individuals and other nonstate actors in the international legal process. Her primary concern is whether individuals participate in the formation of customary international law. In sharp contrast to what she and too many others prefer to identify as a...
My friend Olympia Bekou at the University of Nottingham has asked me to post the following conference announcement:The International Criminal Court and the State 9th November 2007 The Human Rights Law Centre and Methods and Data Institute at the University of Nottingham announce a multi-disciplinary conference entitled 'The International Criminal Court and the State'. As one of the four partners to the...
First, I would like to thank Roger Alford and VJIL Editor-in-Chief Chris Ripple for the groundwork they’ve done to create this blogging opportunity. I’ve followed VJIL/Opinio Juris posts all week and have found them very informative. In my most recent article, The Individual and Customary International Law Formation, I propose opening a space for non-state actors, specifically individuals, in the...
I thank Roger for his thoughtful comments. Roger himself has written a seminal article in this area, Federal Courts, International Tribunals, and the Continuum of Deference, 43 Va. J. Int’l L. 675 (2003), and I’m grateful for his kind words about my work. Let me try to address his points. First, I agree that Medellin addresses a...
Mark’s excellent article provides a thoughtful analysis of Sanchez-Llamas and the significance of that case for the question of deference to decisions of international tribunals. There is much to commend about this article. I particularly like his analysis of the risks and rewards of the dualist approach and his forceful argument that dualism strikes the appropriate balance of...
I’m grateful to the folks at Opinio Juris and VJIL for this opportunity to introduce readers to my article and to Roger for offering to serve as commentator. My article discusses the Court’s decision last year in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon. Sanchez-Llamas addressed the precedential effect of ICJ judgments in domestic courts. (By contrast, Medellin v. Texas, which the Court...
