While Peggy, Peter and Ken have provided more overarching views of the impact of Obama's election and his coming presidency, those readers ready to get into the weeds of what Obama will do when it comes to international law should check out his responses to an ASIL survey done back when the primaries were still in full swing. You can access...
As Peter notes here, yesterday’s historic American election felt, in many ways, like a global event. Measured by how the election affects the lives of people around the world, it is not too much of an exaggeration. For months now, pundits have also seized on the overwhelming support of Obama all over the world as evidence that Obama’s election – in and of...
The New York Times ran a front page story from its lead Guantanamo reporter yesterday. (William Glaberson and Margot Williams, research assistance Andrei Scheinkman, "Next President Will Face Test on Detainees: Some at Guantanamo Called Serious Risks," NYT, Monday, November 3, 2008 (behind reg. user wall), A1; plus a referenced data base of detainees used to analyze the detainee...
I’m with Chris – hard to focus today on anything other than the presidential election. (Indeed, I’m at pains to tear my eyes away from Ben Smith’s blog over at Politico, which is keeping anecdotal tabs on voter turnout here in the United States. His latest post as of 11:57am EST: “The Obama aide who told me last night that...
Those of us in the U.S. are off to the polls, so I thought we could try doing an open thread today for comments and suggestions to the new President, whoever that is, concerning America's foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on international law. Obviously there has been alot of talk about getting out of Iraq, putting a definitive end...
As part of its ongoing efforts to educate Americans about the national shame that is Guantanamo Bay, Amnesty International is touring the country with a replica of David Hicks' cell: AIUSA’s prison cell replica includes a steel toilet, florescent lights and a sliding metal door. In addition, visitors may record a 30-second reaction video that will be posted on youtube.com and...
As I predicted a few weeks ago, Judge Allred has refused to reconsider Hamdan's sentence in light of the Bush administration's argument that he was not entitled to credit for the time he served as an enemy combatant: A military judge has refused to reconsider the sentence of Osama bin Laden's former driver, forcing the Bush administration to either release a...
The last few weeks have seen a flurry of news stories on Iraqi political resistance to the "final" text of a U.S.-Iraqi status of forces agreement ("SOFA"). Last week, the main storyline was that the Iraqi Parliament had better accept the agreed text or else, while the Iraqi Parliament gave every indication they would delay any decision till after U.S. and Iraqi elections. This week the new...
It's a little late in the Bush administration to be creating new foreign policy doctrines, but the NYT suggests that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates did just that in his speech yesterday at the Carnegie Endowment. According to the NYT, this is the key sentence is the most expansive articulation yet of the nuclear deterrence policy: Today we also make clear...
While the Bush Administration may have reconciled itself to leaving office with the detention center at Guantanamo Bay still up and running, the U.S. federal courts continue pushing the detainees’ cases ahead toward resolution. After briefing by the parties on their competing definitions of “enemy combatant,” U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon yesterday announced a ruling: Enemy combatant’ shall mean an...
So asks Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation, in his interesting piece about the recent U.S. cross-border raids into Pakistan and Syria, with Iran looming (see this NYT article for background). Dreyfuss is very worried about this doctrine, and suggests that its acceptance could result in the "end of international law." I wouldn't go that far, but it is definitely a challenge to traditional norms...
In honor of Ken, I wanted to post a quick heads-up to this post by Tom James at Futurismic, which has the excellent title "I, For One, Welcome Our New Robodog Overlords." Money quote: According to Prof Steve Wright of Leeds Metropolitan University: “What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack...
