In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

21 Mar

I should add my sincere thanks to those of my colleague and yesterday’s guest-blogger, William Aceves, to Opinio Juris for inviting this year’s ASIL Annual Meeting Co-Chairs to share this space for a few days. In contemplating the theme “The Future of International Law” charged to us by ASIL President Jose Alvarez, the Co-Chairs identified global development and poverty reduction...

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20 Mar

Adam Liptak's column yesterday on the relevance of legal scholarship (note that TimesSelect material is now available to anyone with an .edu email address - how long before they wave the white flag on this undertaking?) has predictably generated follow-ons in the legal blogosphere. Jack Balkin does an excellent job putting the story in context, including the context of...

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20 Mar

Let me begin by thanking Opinio Juris for inviting the Co-Chairs for this year’s ASIL Annual Meeting to guest blog this week. As they say: long time reader, first time blogger. This year’s Annual Meeting theme is The Future of International Law. While it is easy to disregard theme statements when organizing a conference, this year’s Program Committee took...

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20 Mar

As we gear up for our ASIL guest bloggers and the Annual Meeting, it is worth pointing out the important work ASIL does in support of international law scholarship and teaching. Among other things, ASIL is responsible for several essential publications, including the American Journal of International Law, the premier peer-reviewed international law journal in the U.S., and the...

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19 Mar

The transcript of Morse v. Frederick is now available here. No surprise, there was no mention whatsoever of comparative experiences. Although my faux oral argument in the previous post was of course a parody, the justices’ remarks I quoted do come quite close to actual statements that they have made in other contexts, either in judicial opinions or...

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19 Mar

The ICC announced today that Judge Karl Hudson-Phillips has resigned his post for personal reasons. Judge Hudson-Phillips (more background here) had previously served as Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago. Under Article 37 of the Rome Statute, the Assembly of States-Parties to the ICC will now elect a new judge to replace Judge Hudson-Phillips,...

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19 Mar

This morning the Supreme Court will hear Morse v. Frederick, a case about a high school student who held up a banner advocating “Bong Hits for Jesus” at a school function associated with the passing of the Olympic torch through Juneau, Alaska. The school principal, Deborah Morse, refused to allow Joseph Frederick to display the banner, and he was...

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19 Mar

According to the AP, Sudan announced yesterday that it will suspend all cooperation with the International Criminal Court following that the ICC prosecutor's charges of war crimes against a Sudan government minister. "We had extended our cooperation with the ICC for some time, but now the situation is completely different," Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi told The Associated Press on...

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17 Mar

Der Spiegel has an interesting article today about Germany's decision to forward to Interpol arrest warrants for 10 CIA agents involved in the kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen. Not surprisingly, the U.S. is unhappy about the decision, which means that the agents will now be hunted internationally:The German investigation into what exactly happened to...

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17 Mar

Debating Darfur Battle to Block New Report: The assessment mission created by the Council in December and led by Nobel Laureate Jody Williams presented its report finding "large-scale international crimes" in Darfur. Sudan and its supporters--the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Arab League, almost all of the Council's Asian Group, Russia and Cuba--rejected the report as "invalid"...

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17 Mar

As I noted last week, the hybrid international-domestic court set up to try Khmer Rouge leaders has been teetering on the edge of disbanding due to disputes between the international and local Cambodian lawyers on a variety of matters. According to this Financial Times report, almost all the problems have been ironed out, except one: the fee charged by...

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