In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Featured

07 Feb

As most readers likely know, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism recently released a 22,000 word report documenting the disturbing U.S. practice of using drones to target individuals attending funerals or attempting to provide aid to individuals wounded in previous drone strikes.  Here is the report's central conclusion: A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at...

|
01 Feb

It's rare that I defend the ICTY, but I feel compelled to do so here.  As discussed in this blog post by Laurie Blank, a group of experts in military law have released a report attacking the Trial Chamber's judgment in Prosecutor v. Gotovina for allegedly misapplying basic IHL rules regarding targeting.  Unfortunately, the report fundamentally misstates what the Trial...

|
16 Jan

There has been much debate the past couple of days about whether the bomb attacks that have killed at least three Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010 qualify as terrorism.  Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Drum on the left and Andrew Sullivan on the right say "yes"; many of their readers (see Greenwald here) and the editor of Technology Review say "no." ...

|
13 Jan

I had the good fortune yesterday to spend the afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. To my great surprise, I experienced my first encounter with treaties as art. A special exhibit on display through March 26, 2012 of the work of Sanja Iveković entitled Sweet Violence focuses on the plight of women in post-Communist...

|
31 Dec

By Marty Lederman and Steve Vladeck* Section 1021 of the NDAA and the Laws of War In our companion post, we explained that section 1021 of the NDAA will not have the dramatic effects that many critics have predicted--in particular, that it will not affect the unresolved question of whether the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) would authorize a...

|
31 Dec

By Marty Lederman and Steve Vladeck* Editorial pages and blogs have been overrun in the past couple of weeks with analyses and speculation about the detainee provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, which the President has just signed into law.  One of the major disputes concerns whether and how the NDAA might alter the status quo.  In this post, we'll...

|
27 Dec

Foreign Policy has just published its rankings of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2011. As expected, there were the typical assortment of statesmen, economists and activists. But what really stood out was the continued dominance of old media in the shaping of foreign policy. We may be prone to think of 2011 as the year of...

|
15 Dec

Ashley Deeks, a fellow at Columbia and a former member of the Office of the Legal Adviser, has posted an essay on SSRN -- forthcoming in the Virginia Journal of International Law -- entitled "Unwilling or Unable: Toward an Normative Framework for Extra-Territorial Self-Defense."  Here is the abstract: Non-state actors, including terrorist groups, regularly launch attacks against states, often...

|
07 Dec

I'm so saddened to report that Professor David J Bederman has passed away at the age of 50 after a lengthy illness. Emory has a tribute to David here. I still vividly remember my first encounter with David's work when I was a new attorney in the Legal Adviser's Office and read his concise, witty and simply wonderfully written introductory text,...

|