Christopher Caldwell does not quote Milton Friedman’s famous observation in this New York Times opinion piece, but it underlies it. Caldwell is a senior editor of the Weekly Standard and columnist for the Financial Times — as well as being the author of the most important book on Europe by an American that I’ve read in years, Reflections on the Revolution in...
Out-going Defense Secretary Gates has been delivering a series of farewell speeches that are noteworthy for their bluntness. His latest is perhaps the bluntest yet - on the future of the NATO alliance, which he sees as grim. The New York Times reports here; the Wall Street Journal has an editorial comment here. At one level, the problem is simply...
The Predator has asked that OJ's own KJH serve as its defense lawyer in the ICC. Joke!! But here, from The Onion: Predator Drone Court-Martialed For Afghani Civilian Deaths...
Over at the Harper's Magazine site Scott Horton interviews Laura Dickinson about her new book Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs. Horton begins: Waging war and engaging in diplomacy would generally be reckoned among the most important powers of any sovereign. Yet as Laura Dickinson argues in her new book, Outsourcing War and...
This according to the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, in Screed Number 1345 about how the evil ICC is preventing peace on earth and goodwill toward men: Libyans are stuck in a civil war in large part because of Gaddafi’s international prosecution. Diehl, of course, offers precisely zero evidence in defence of this ridiculously stupid thesis. Even better, his own column refutes the...
My former State Department colleague, David Kaye, now the Executive Director of UCLA Law's human rights program, has just authored a study under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations (John Bellinger and Matt Waxman also particiapted in the effort as Directors). Kaye acknowleges the contributions made by the likes of the ICTY, ICTR, and ICC, but argues that more work is needed...
The Wall Street Journal's ace national security reporting team - Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman, Julian Barnes, several others - reported in a very interesting story today that divisions have emerged at the senior levels of the Obama administration over the strategic utility of drone strikes in Pakistan. The issue is between the unquestioned effectiveness of the strikes - unquestioned by...
Here's the text of the resolution passed in the House this afternoon on Libya, as introduced by Speaker Boehner. It's not insignificant, as an institutional pronouncement, even though it's non-binding. It amounts to a kind of soft law. The resolution provides that "the President shall not deploy, establish, or maintain the presence of units and members of the United...
I have just posted a new essay -- my first since finishing the NMT book! -- on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Scholars have long debated to what extent the Rome Statute’s principle of complementarity permits states to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide as ordinary crimes such as rape and murder instead...
The ABA's International Lawyer Year-in-Review has just been published and as always it is a monumental achievement. The issue is not available on the web, but the International Lawyer's home page is here. The issue includes 450 pages of international law discussion and over 150 pages of foreign and comparative law analysis. If you are looking for a thumbnail...
In honor of the US government's decision to charge Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men responsible for 9/11 with the non-existent war crime of conspiracy, I want to call readers' attention to an excellent new article by Samuel Morison about the equally non-existent war crime of material support for terrorism. Morison vivisects the government's attempt to justify material support...
I'm traveling in Europe for the next few weeks, so posting will be a bit light. As always, I'm happy to meet up with Opinio Juris readers in the places I'm visiting. Here's my schedule: June 4-7, Helsinki; June 7-9, Tallinn; June 9-13, Berlin; June 13-15, Leuven; June 15-18, Amsterdam; June 18-20, London. On June 6, I'm giving a talk...
