As Peggy noted a couple of weeks ago, the international-law blogosphere lost one of its most important collective voices when IntLawGrrls closed up shop. Fortunately, one of the most important individual voices within IntLawGrrls is back blogging -- Diane Marie Amann, who holds the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at my former academic home, the University of...
I argued yesterday that the Security Council cannot refer a situation to the ICC under Art. 13(b) of the Rome Statute while exempting nationals of non-States Parties from the Court's jurisdiction. Jennifer Trahan disagrees: I primarily disagree with Kevin’s first point. While it may be objectionable to have an exemption of nationals of non-States Parties, I actually think that the UN...
My friend and colleague David Caron, C. William Maxeiner Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, has been named the new Dean at the Dickson Poon School of Law at King's College London. The press release is here. I have known David Caron for over twenty years and always thought he would make an excellent Dean or...
A top US diplomacy team has been sent to Japan and South-Korea to douse the simmering tensions between the two nations. Facing strong electoral competition from EU skeptic parties, the Icelandic government has suspended negotiations on EU accession until after the elections in April. Navi Pillay has called for an international inquiry into widespread human rights abuses in North Korea during the past decades. Cuba has relaxed restrictions on Cuban's freedom to...
My thanks to Jennifer for contributing her post, which makes the case for referring the situation in Syria to the ICC. I don't necessarily disagree with her bottom line, but I have my hesitations. And I want to offer a few thoughts about the idea of a referral in general. First, as Jennifer notes, the letter states that a Security Council...
[Jennifer Trahan is associate clinical professor at the Center for Global Affairs at the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS). She is also chair of the American Branch of the International Law Association International Criminal Court Committee and was a member of the American Bar Association’s 2010 International Criminal Court Task Force.] Today, January 14, 57 U.N. Member States from...
[Peter Margulies is a Professor of Law at the Roger Williams University School of Law focusing on the balance of liberty, equality and security in counter-terrorism, and author of Law's Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration (NYU Press 2010).] The days of Donald Rumsfeld chiding “Old Europe” are gone, but targeted killing has renewed debate on counter-terrorism strategies between the US and...
French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's north. Britain has given logistical support to the French operation to stop al-Qaeda affiliates in Mali. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said that its military operation...
This week on Opinio Juris, Kevin responded to Eugene Kontorovitch's post over at The Volokh Conspiracy on the comparability of Israel's settlement of the West Bank to Turkey's settlement of Northern Cyprus, by arguing that both settlements are not comparable. Eugene rebutted by advancing five reasons why Turkey's settlement is the graver violation of international law. Reflecting on Zero Dark Thirty, Deborah wrote about the responsibility of film makers for...
“The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense,” begins Shawcross, “but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon.” He cites a Lehigh University study that calculated that a Death Star would cost a deficit-exploding $852,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s $852 quadrillion), notes that “the Administration does not support blowing up planets,” and rightly points out that it would be foolhardy to build a space station “with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship.” Shawcross then goes on to tout the many space endeavors, both public and private, that are currently underway. (“Even though the United States doesn’t have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we’ve got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we’re building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun.”) He concludes by encouraging the diligent soul(s) who created the petition to pursue a career in a science, technology, or math-related field, declaring that anyone who does so embraces the power of the Force: “Remember, the Death Star’s power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”I've put the full text of the Obama administration response below the fold (and check out the many interesting links at the White House site, which I haven't included). It is more substantive than one might have anticipated - it discusses private space flight initiatives, the International Space Station and - naturally! - robots. Update: Response from the Air Force General Counsel's Twitter feed (and I recommend both the Twitter feed (@AirForceGC) and blog:
Still smarting from Death Star decision, but must admit weapons review would have been a bear.Referring to US legal requirements for a review of the legality of all weapons systems, meeting the terms of Article 36 of 1977 Additional Protocol I.
Jennifer Daskal (who, I'm delighted to say, has just accepted an offer to join the faculty at my school, Washington College of Law) has an important op-ed in the New York Times today titled, simply, "Don't Close Guantanamo." Many of us know Jen Daskal from her earlier positions in the Obama administration Justice Department and, before that, Human Rights Watch...
More than 100 people were killed in bombings in Pakistan yesterday, and Pakistan Human Rights Watch is sounding alarm bells about increasing Sunni-Shia violence. Tensions in Kashmir are rising with Pakistan now claiming that India has killed another of its soldiers. Three women, including a founding member of the PKK, were assassinated at the Kurdish Information Centre were they worked in Paris. The...
Air Force GC