Yes, after nearly nine years of detention in Guantanamo, Noor Uthan Muhammed has pleaded guilty to two non-existent war crimes. As the ACLU notes in its post on the plea, although the court reporter faithfully translated each time he said "yes" to whether he understood what he was doing, the reporter did not translate the only full sentence Muhammed uttered:...
This must be that vibrant democracy Richard Cohen recently extolled in defense of denying democracy to Egyptians: The Knesset House Committee on Wednesday approved the composition of two parliamentary panels to investigate the funding sources of human rights organizations. Most of the opposition parties have decided to boycott the committees. The motion passed at the House Committee by a...
What will daily life in Jerusalem be like a century from now? This is the theme of the Jerusalem 2111 International Animation Competition, organized by the Association of Planning and Conservation- Jerusalem (Beit Hamodel). The blog io9 has a post with links to some of the submissions, which include visions of a depopulated Jerusalem under UN control, what looks like a...
A stark reminder that freedom of expression is indeed a precious thing: Jafar Panahi is one of the most acclaimed film directors in the world. Admirers like myself were horrified and astonished at the news, announced yesterday, that Jafar Panahi had been sentenced not only to six years in prison, but to an unimaginable twenty-year total ban on...
The Ninth Circuit this week ruled that there was no federal policy with respect to the Armenian Genocide, thereby allowing insurance claims brought by Armenian nationals under a California statute to go forward. In Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung AG, the Ninth Circuit distinguished Garamendi, concluding that there was no federal policy against recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Indeed, "[c]onsidering...
Human Rights Watch's Tom Malinowski and Ben Wittes -- whom, for the record, I consider a friend -- have been having an interesting and useful dialogue about targeted killing. Here is how Malinowski lays out HRW's position: Our position on targeted killing is that its use can be legally justified so long as it is limited to situations involving a...
AFP ran an interesting story yesterday about how Palestinians are using their tunnels to smuggle goods into Egypt, in defiance of Israel's ongoing ban on exports from Gaza: But the canvas sacks full of food, beauty products and second-hand clothes that used to be dragged through hundreds of tunnels beneath the border now flow the other way in a...
On Thursday night I had the privilege of participating in a live webinar on targeted killing and Al-Aulaqi held by the Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research. The other participants included Yale's Andrew March, Emory's Laurie Blank, and Seton Hall's Jonathan Hafetz. It was a wonderful, wide-ranging discussion, one that focused not only on the international-law aspects of...
Today's announcement that Chinese political dissident Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize is welcome news. The award is consistent with a longstanding tradition of the Nobel Peace Prize to honor political dissidents. In announcing the prize, the Nobel Committee stated that "The campaign to establish universal human rights also in China is being waged by many...
Bobby Chesney has graciously responded at Lawfare to my post about detention in non-international armed confilct (NIAC). Unfortunately, I think Chesney's response not only misconstrues what Steve Vladeck and I have been arguing, but also demonstrates some important misconceptions about IHL. To begin with, we need to understand exactly what we are arguing about. As Steve pointed out in one of...
Gerald Steinberg, the head of right-wing propaganda outlet NGO Monitor, is not happy about George Soros' recent $100 million gift to Human Rights Watch: In accepting a huge grant from George Soros, Human Rights Watch has spurned the public advice (and warning) offered nearly a year ago by its founder Robert Bernstein. Rather than grapple with the serious...
I am in Israel this week on a nationwide tour with Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders from Los Angeles to examine in detail the current state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. We have heard from Arab and Jewish members of the Knesset, visited hot spots along the Green Line, toured holy sites together, spoken with journalists who report from both sides...
