The following is a guest-post by Gabor Rona, the International Legal Director of Human Rights First. It is a response to a post at LieberCode by Jens Ohlin, a Professor at Cornell Law School, that argues international human rights law (IHRL) does not apply in armed conflict, because it is displaced by international humanitarian law (IHL). Prof. Ohlin’s conclusion that IHRL...
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." ...
The media has been abuzz the past couple of days about a video that shows four U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban soldiers. The military's response to the blossoming controversy has been admirable. In addition to the Pentagon quickly confirming its authenticity, the Navy has stated that it is "deeply troubled by the video. Whoever it is, and whatever the...
I want to call readers' attention to a very useful new essay written by Emory's Laurie Blank, which is forthcoming in the William Mitchell Law Review. Here is the abstract: Targeted strikes – predominantly using drones – have become the operational counterterrorism tool of choice for the United States over the past few years. Targeted killing can...
The choice of book reviewer might be surprising but the result, unfortunately, is not. Yoo reviews two books: David Scheffer's memoir All the Missing Souls and William Shawcross' Justice and the Enemy. Scheffer's book details his time working on war crimes issues, ultimately as the Ambassador at Large on War Crimes, in President Clinton's State Department. (Disclosure: we hope to have Scheffer...
This post will seem like an extended plug for my own work, so apologies. But I wanted to offer a few thoughts on the legal issues raised by Ruti's excellent post, the politics of which -- with one exception, noted below -- I completely share. First, Ruti asks whether Libya should be able to claim the right to try to Saif...
My thanks to Marty and Steve for their fascinating and insightful posts (here and here) on the NDAA. I have many thoughts about the Act, but I want to focus here on the idea that U.S. courts can and should analogize to detention in international armed conflict in order to determine what it means for a person to have “substantially...
In case the government's actions haven't yet convinced you of the fundamental unfairness of the commissions (such as making up war crimes), perhaps its decision to treat the attorney-client privilege as optional will do the trick: The new commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison wants a team of government and law enforcement officials to be allowed to review all ...
Our friends at Cambridge University have asked me to bring the following journal to readers' attention, which has been established by James Crawford: Cambridge Journal of International & Comparative Law is a newly established double-blind peer reviewed, open-access journal which aims to publish high-end legal scholarship. It has a broad focus on international and comparative law and a particular focus on...
The OTP is seeking an arrest warrant for Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, the Sudanese Defence Minister, in connection with a number of attacks on civilians in Darfur between August 2003 and March 2004. The request alleges that Hussein is responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the attacks, but does not include a genocide charge. According to Bill...
Don't worry, I will not be linking to any and all reviews of my book. (Only the good ones.) I mention this review -- a review essay written by the distinguished scholar David Fraser at Nottingham (sub. req.) -- because it uses my book as a springboard to discuss a number of important historiographic issues concerning World War II scholarship...
A group of distinguished Nuremberg scholars, including myself (minus the distinguished part), have filed an amicus brief in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum on behalf of the petitioners. The brief argues that although the Nuremberg trials themselves did not involve the prosecution of juridical persons such as corporations, a wide variety of Allied actions outside of judicial fora indicate that...
