Great article in the New York Times profiling Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith. His book the Terror Presidency is out later this month should be a bestseller on the Foreign Affairs bestsellers list. The article has some juicy excerpts of Goldsmith's confrontations with David Addington. Knowing Jack Goldsmith quite well, I have every reason to believe his...
Microcredit - providing small loans to individuals who would not normally qualify - is becoming tool of some consequence in economic reconstruction and disaster relief programs. The UN declared 2005 the year of micro-credit, and in 2006 Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen micro-credit Bank he created won the Nobel Peace Prize. Recent reports such as this...
Former NY governor and perennial presidential hopeful Mario Cuomo has a confusing and muddled editorial in the LA Times yesterdayclaiming that President Bush lacked the constitutional authority to start the war in Iraq, or to continue it. The war happened because when Bush first indicated his intention to go to war against Iraq, Congress refused to insist on enforcement...
A federal district court in Washington D.C. last week rendered a decision against Iran and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security for a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem that killed Marla Bennett. Details about the July 2002 terrorist attack on Hebrew University that killed nine are available at this moving victims memorial website. In Bennett v. Iran, Marla...
Argentine protesters have marched into Uruguay to protest the construction of a pulp mill that they believe will pollute downriver Argentina. As this dispute heats up, it seems more and more likely that litigation at the ICJ is not going to provide a solution, and that litigation at the ICJ is almost never preferable to bilateral arbitration in these...
Given all the bad press that international peacekeepers have been getting -- justifiably -- this is a welcome change:The United Nations all-female Indian police unit in Liberia, the first such unit deployed in peacekeeping missions, not only demonstrates gender equality but also serves as an encouragement for Liberian women to become police officers themselves, the top UN envoy to the...
Jeremy Rabkin, a long time critic of contemporary international law and institutions, has a more detailed and persuasive attack on the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea in this week's Weekly Standard than his previous joint op-ed with Jack Goldsmith some weeks back. As the U.S. Senate gears up for ratification hearings, Rabkin's voice will no doubt...
The Security Council held an open debate on Conflict Prevention in Africa this week (following up on the implementation of Resolution 1625 (2005)) on the same subject. The debate was notable in substance because of its emphasis on the Council’s role in conflict prevention. The Security Council is the UN’s primary organ with jurisdiction over threats to international...
As Roger noted, the EU presidency recently sent a public letter to the governor of Texas asking him to declare a moratorium on executions in his state. Texas governor Rick Perry sent a rather tart reply, which can be boiled down to: "Buzz off!". On the other hand, he did commute the death sentence of one convict yesterday,...
Well, sort of. Here's a snippet from ABC News:United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous chemical warfare agent, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the...
Human Rights Watch yesterday issued a 128-page report entitled "Civilians Under Assault: Hezbollah's Rocket Attacks on Israel in 2006 War." The full report is here and the press release is here. Here is an excerpt: During the 2006 war, Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately and at times deliberately at civilian areas in northern Israel, killing at least...
Rodrigo de Rato - Managing Director of the IMF announced he would resign earlier this summer. How should his successor be chosen? By convention, merit, or a mix of both? The established convention is that the Managing Director of the IMF is European, and the First Deputy Managing Director is American. (By comparison, the head of the...
