The United States has finally decided to seize Michael Jackson's glove. Not that it has anything against Michael Jackson. The owner of the glove, however, is another matter. Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator, has a thing for Michael Jackson memorabilia. He also has a taste for other luxury items, such as Bentlys,...
Last week I wrote that the Supreme Court's docket of international law cases was thin, thin, thin. Today the Court granted certiorari in two blockbuster cases, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum/Shell and Mohamad v. Rajoub. The Question Presented in Kiobel is: “(1) Whether the issue of corporate civil tort liability under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, is...
In my previous post, I responded to Mike's attempt to explain the amicus brief's distortion of ICTY jurisprudence. In this post, I want to respond to his similar attempt to explain the amicus brief's distortion of the Rome Statute. There are two basic issues: Article 10 of the Rome Statute's relationship to customary international law, and the importance of Article...
Via The Multilateralist, a speech by Shiv Shankar Menon, a former Indian foreign minister and senior security official: "[W]hile domestic societies have evolved or are evolving towards rule of law, international society is still much closer to primeval anarchy...
There are numerous problems with Mike's response to my posts (here and here) about how the amicus brief distorts the ICTY's jurisprudence. Before getting to them, though, it's important to acknowledge that he and I agree about one thing: decisions of the ICTY are not primary sources of international law. That, too, is international law 101. Even here, though, the...
[Rishi Gulati lectures on Public International Law at the University of New South Wales in Australia.] At 9.24am on 12 October 2011, surrounded by chants of “democracy is dead”, a suite of 19 bills (the Clean Energy Bills or the Carbon Tax Bills) were passed in the Lower House of the Australian Parliament. It must be borne in mind that those 19 bills won’t...
David Bosco, my American University colleague and author of the always interesting The Multilateralist blog at Foreign Policy, has posted an interview between him and Joel Wuthnow (Princeton’s China and the World Program) on China’s diplomacy at the UN Security Council. Among many interesting exchanges, this comment on China’s overall role in the world: The mainstream thinking in Beijing is that China should avoid...
Jeremy Waldron continues to do incredibly interesting philosophical work on questions surrounding torture. He recently posted a short, accessible piece on moral absolutes that is a joy to read. What I love about the piece is that he embraces the absolute prohibition against torture, but then is brutally honest about how hard it is to defend that position....
I want to draw readers attention (if they haven't already seen it) to this excellent discussion of the international legality of the Bin Laden killing by Alon Margalit over at EJIL Talk!. It is particularly instructive for Americans to get a better sense of the non-US views on the Bin Laden killing. It notes that the nearly uniform State support for...
Perhaps. At least they are getting their waterskis on. According to Politico, Amnesty International has filed a 1,000 page memorandum demanding that Canadian authorities arrest or extradite former U.S. President George W. Bush. “Canada is required by its international obligations to arrest and prosecute former President Bush given his responsibility for crimes under international law including torture,” Susan Lee, Americas Director...
