It is a draft platform, but these parts of the 2012 GOP Platform are certainly interesting. It appears to have strong language in favor of "American Exceptionalism" and American sovereignty. Under our Constitution, treaties become the law of the land. So it is all the more important that the Congress -- the senate through its ratifying power and the House through...
South Africa recently decided that, in order to avoid consumer confusion, goods imported from the Occupied Palestinian Territories must include special labels that make clear they were not produced in Israel. Israel's outrage was predictable -- but its rhetoric was anything but: The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it would summon South Africa's ambassador to lodge a protest over the decision on...
Mark Klamberg, who is a lecturer in public international law at the University of Stockholm, has a detailed post on his personal blog about the likelihood -- or unlikelihood, to be more precise -- that Sweden would extradite Julian Assange to the United States. He has kindly given me permission to reprint a significant portion of it (I've made minor...
I will refrain from adding too much to the increasingly ridiculous battle over Julian Assange's refuge at the Ecuador Embassy in the UK. Assange is acting like a paranoid lunatic and it is astonishing to me that so many folks who should know better instinctively side with an accused rapist whose main argument is that the Swedish (Swedish!) justice system...
While I am at it, I might as well flog my most recent piece on China's relationship with international tribunals and international adjudication more generally. This study, which attempts to document all of China's treaties that include compulsory dispute resolution clauses (excepting bilateral investment treaties), concludes that China is unlikely to become a strong supporter and participant in mechanisms of...
President Obama emerged from his campaign bunker to face the press, and he issued what the NYT seems to think is a pretty serious military threat against Syria. “We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said in response to questions at an impromptu news conference at...
I've been trapped in an August blogging-slump. But I am roused to my keyboard by the surge of territorial disputes in Asia. China has aggressively asserted ever stronger and more expansive claims in the South China Sea, sparking dissension amongst the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and serious protests in Vietnam and the Philippine. China, Taiwan, and Japan are...
As I noted last week, I have just finished a long chapter critically assessing the work of the Human Rights Council-created International Commission of Inquiry on Libya (COI). My basic conclusion is that although the COI generally did an excellent job, particularly in terms of its fact-finding methodology, it seems clear that it was less interested in holding the rebels...
I honestly believed that the Libyan government couldn't make a public claim more ridiculous than the one about the Swatch with a hidden camera and GPS locator. Silly me for my lack of imagination! Mark Kersten, whose Justice in Conflict blog should be prominently featured in your newsreader, called my attention to this recent gem from the prosecutor in charge...
For you, dear reader, I risked life and limb to obtain the schematics of the video/GPS Swatch that the OPCD's interpreter used to undermine Libya's national security. After assuming deep cover, prowling some of the world's most dangerous locales, and making contact with too many shadowy characters to count, I finally succeeded. Here it is -- look at your own...
At Justice in Conflict, Mark Kersten calls attention to a recent motion filed by the Libyan government asking for more time -- read: stalling -- to reply to the OPCD's response to its admissibility challenge. The government doesn't actually want a deadline to respond; it would like to have 18 days from whenever it gets around to appointing a new...
In my previous post, I noted that Libya's admissibility challenge should fail regarding Saif Gaddafi because the government cannot demonstrate that it is able to obtain him from the Zintan militia that is holding him. It's now clear that the Libyan government has even less chance of obtaining al-Senussi: Mauritania's president has said former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi must be...
