Monday, December 14 – The climate negotiations ground to a halt for much of today, as negotiators debated the organization of work for the second and final week of the meeting. The ostensible cause of the breakdown was concern among (some?) developing countries that the Kyoto Protocol (KP) track in the negotiations is moving more slowly, and getting less...
As the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen enters its crucial week, we will be joined by a few guests who will be blogging about the climate talks, sometimes from Copenhagen itself. Dan Bodansky of the University of Georgia (and soon to be of Arizona State University) and the author of the book The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law has already...
[As noted earlier, Professor Dan Bodansky is continuing his dispatches on the climate change talks. He is in Copenhagen this week and next, and sends us this initial letter. OJ will be providing additional commentary on the climate change talks -- from the conference, and from other academic commentators -- over the next week. Dan's letter is being cross-posted at...
B. Don Taylor, a former legal officer at the ICTY and a good friend, has argued in the comments to a recent post that although Dr. Karadzic's criticisms of the procedure the Registry used to appoint Harvey may well have merit, Dr. Karadzic's request for certification to appeal the Rule 44 issue did not adequately raise the issue. I disagree...
The Nation has just published an extensive article documenting the "secret war" Blackwater employees have been conducting in Pakistan. The opening grafs: At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which...
The ICTY has appointed Richard Harvey, a barrister with Garden Court Chambers in London, to serve as Dr. Karadzic's stand-by counsel. There is no question that Mr. Harvey is more than qualified for the position: in addition to defending a number of individuals accused of terrorism-related offences in the UK, Mr. Harvey has served as the lead counsel in one...
[Major John C. Dehn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law, US Military Academy, West Point, NY. He currently teaches International Law and Constitutional and Military Law, and is also a former prosecutor. He is writing in his personal capacity and his views do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense, the US Army, or...
As I reported here, the two cases of Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida present the best opportunity for constitutional comparativism since Roper v. Simmons. We apparently are an international outlier and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with 190 parties, categorically prohibits JLWOP for everyone under the age of eighteen. But from reading the transcripts...
Both Martin Holterman and Sasha Greenawalt have questioned my repeated -- and quite deliberate -- insistence that "no competent barrister will accept appointment as stand-by counsel under these circumstances," and that any barrister who does accept the appointment will thus "be interested in one thing and one thing only: the free publicity that comes with it." Martin's comment is the...
[Daniel Bodansky, University of Georgia School of Law and OJ guest blogger, sends this second dispatch on the state of the Climate Change talks leading up to the Copenhagen Conference. Professor Bodansky will also be blogging from Copenhagen here at Opinio Juris in December.] This week, the chair of the negotiations and the executive secretary of the UN climate change...
[Alvaro Santos is an Associate Professor at Georgetown University Law Center] The current global financial crisis has provoked intense criticism of the regulatory framework for financial markets. Financial market flexibility, once considered the key to successful financial institutions and economic growth, has now come under intense scrutiny. In contrast, labor market flexibility is still promoted by scholars and...
As most readers probably know by now, the Trial Chamber has decided to adjourn Dr. Karadzic's trial until 1 March 2010 and appoint stand-by counsel who will step in if, at that time, Dr. Karadzic continues to boycott the trial. Here are the relevant paragraphs from the decision: 19. On the issue of continuing the trial in the absence of the...
