Moreno-Ocampo's inability to avoid allegations of bias has long haunted his tenure as Prosecutor. It's impossible to forget, for example, photos of him standing next to the Ugandan President, Youweri Museveni, as he announced that he was investigating the situation in Northern Uganda -- an act that Ugandans widely perceived, rightly in light of the OTP's failure to seriously investigate...
China will begin delivering oil ships to Iran in May, two months ahead of a European ban on tankers carrying Iranian crude. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an op-ed that Iran hopes for dialogue and trust from all sides going forward in nuclear talks and that it will be a process, not an event. The Guardian has an article...
Two calls for papers for ASIL events are closing on April 15 and April 20 Second Annual ASIL Research Forum October 20-21, 2012, Athens, GA The American Society of International Law calls for submissions of scholarly paper proposals for the ASIL Research Forum to be held at the University of Georgia School of Law on October 20-21, 2012. The Research Forum, a Society initiative...
Dioncounde Traore will be sworn in as Mali's interim president today and is tasked with pulling the nation in turmoil back on the right track. Syria has said it will comply with its truce deadlines today by halting military activity, but reserves its right to combat terrorist attacks. Kofi Annan says that Iran can be part of Syria's solution. In the wake...
The bankruptcy of the U.S. military-commissions system is currently on full display in the trial of Abd al-Rahim Al-Nashiri. Readers who can stomach the spectacle of a tortured detainee being prosecuted for imaginary war crimes committed at a time when there was no armed conflict between the U.S. and al-Qaeda anywhere in the world can find excellent coverage of the...
Republican congressman Allan West channeled Joe McCarthy yesterday, telling supporters at a rally that "he's heard" as many as 80 Democratic representatives in the House are members of the Communist Party. When asked to clarify his remarks, he wouldn't name names -- but he said he was referring to the Progressive Caucus. No problem, then....
In 1973, Hans Blix and Jirina Emerson edited the Treaty Maker’s Handbook to help newly emerging States appreciate, post-decolonization, the intricacies of treaty-making as a matter of both domestic and international law. One of the work’s lasting legacies was the inclusion of sample provisions drawn from existing treaties on various treaty topics such as participation, entry into force, reservations, and...
The speech delivered by CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston at Harvard yesterday is important and illuminating, and I agree with Ken the administration should be commended for it. But wow does it raise some troubling questions about how the CIA understands the legal authority for and constraints on its drone operations. There’s too much to unpack in it...
A UN convoy carrying the head of the mission to Libya was targeted while traveling in Benghazi; no one was hurt but this incident raises questions about stability and security in the country. The General Counsel of the CIA, Stephen Preston, spoke yesterday at Harvard Law School about the agency the rule of law, including giving a hypothetical about the covert use...
In honor of Ozzie Guillen, the manager of the Miami Marlins, who was forced to apologize today to Miami's Cuban-American community for saying that he admired Fidel Castro's ability to avoid being assassinated by the U.S. for five decades, who said the following? I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination,...
The European Court of Human Rights is getting a lot of play today with its decision to okay the extradition of Abu Hamza to the US. To much less (read: no) fanfare, it also denied a petition to compel external voting rights in Greek parliamentary elections for Greek citizens living outside of Greece in the case of Sitaropoulos and Giakoumopoulos...
