The ATS as we know it is dead. I predicted as much in October, but I was uncertain whether the Supreme Court would deliver a mortal blow and by what means it would deliver it. Now we know. The presumption against extraterritoriality, combined with a narrow interpretation of territoriality, means that the Filartiga human rights revolution is...
We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris over the next few days about the Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel. We also are going to try something new and invite young academics to submit guests posts for possible publication. We can't guarantee we will publish every post submitted, but we would love to broaden the discussion...
The US Supreme Court released its long-awaited Kiobel decision this morning, affirming the Second Circuit's dismissal of the plaintiffs Alien Tort Statute claims. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion, joined by Justices Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy. Justice Kennedy wrote a separate concurrence; Justice Alito did likewise, joined by Justice Thomas. Justice Breyer concurred in the judgment, joined by Justices...
So reports the Kuwait News Agency. The building is expected to be completed in late 2015. Here is the winning design: You can read more about the design, and see more artists renderings, here. It's not a bad design, but it's a bit too high-modernist for my taste. I preferred the one by Wiel Arets Architects & Associates that won third prize...
An opinion piece in Al-Jazeera by an international lawyer who works with the Palestinians, John Whitbeck, reports some interesting comments by Fatou Bensouda about Palestinian ratification: During a public discussion held at the Academie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris on March 20, Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, addressed the potential membership of Palestine in the ICC. During the...
[Jonathan Horowitz is writing in his personal capacity. He is the Associate Legal Officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Security and Counterterrorism Program and Naz K. Modirzadeh is a Senior Fellow at the HLS-Brookings Project on Law and Security at Harvard Law School, where she leads the Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement initiative.] Part I of the series can be...
Pierre N. Leval, a well-respected judge who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, has published a full-scale no-holds-barred policy defense of the Alien Tort Statute in Foreign Affairs. The essay, which is adapted from his lecture to the New York City Bar Association, offers the standard argument in favor of the...
[Jonathan Horowitz is writing in his personal capacity. He is the Associate Legal Officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Security and Counterterrorism Program and Naz K. Modirzadeh is a Senior Fellow at the HLS-Brookings Project on Law and Security at Harvard Law School, where she leads the Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement initiative.] Introduction: This is the first in a two-part series...
Since I was unable to attend their book launch at Georgetown yesterday, the least I can do is put in a hearty plug for a new casebook written by a number of superb IHL scholars: Geoff Corn, Victor Hansen, Chris Jenks, Richard Jackson, Eric Jensen, and James Schoettler. It's entitled The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Approach, and it...
Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, visited Chad earlier this year. The Chadian government made no attempt to arrest him, despite the fact that -- as a member of the ICC -- both SC Res. 1593 (the Darfur referral) and the Rome Statute obligated it to cooperate with the Court's arrest warrant. Human rights groups criticized Chad's unwillingness to arrest...
And remarkably enough, it has nothing to do with Assange himself. On the contrary: The top Swedish prosecutor pursuing sexual assault charges against Julian Assange has abruptly left the case and one of Mr Assange's accusers has sacked her lawyer. The turmoil in the Swedish Prosecution Authority's effort to extradite Mr Assange comes as another leading Swedish judge prepares to deliver an...
[Ryan Goodman is the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. You can also find him on Twitter: @rgoodlaw] In a forthcoming article in the EJIL (“The Power to Kill or Capture Enemy Combatants”), I argue that the law of armed conflict prohibits the use of lethal force, in some situations, when it is...
