Fine long article in the Washington Post today by Peter Finn and Anne E. Kornblut on why President Obama has not fulfilled his promise to close Guantanamo Bay. Detailed, measured, and comprehensive, with an excellent timeline graphic. I agree with Ben Wittes’ take that the best bit of reporting detail is this: On Obama’s inauguration night, when the new administration instructed military prosecutors...
Ken's post and the comments following it display an understanding that drones are particularly well suited to this mission because their longer loiter time makes them more discriminating and therefore more capable of proportional strikes than manned aircraft. As someone who has personal experience with the difficulties of discriminating between combatants and civilians while accurately delivering weapons from manned...
Jack Goldsmith notes at Lawfare: Last Monday Harvard Law School conferred its medal of freedom on one of its graduates, General Mark Martins, Commander of the Rule of Law Field Force -Afghanistan. The Harvard National Security Journal has just posted the speech, with slides, that General Martins gave for the occasion....
The US has now deployed armed drones over Libya, according to press reports. Drone systems have been operating as surveillance systems for weeks now, but acting on a NATO request, the US has now put up at least two weaponized drones in the Libya conflict. The logic of this move is inescapable. NATO countries launch air strikes against Libyan army assets, making...
For the students among you ramping up for your international law exams, you're probably glad that you won't have to face this kind of question (which appeared on Professor Beale's 1905 exam at Harvard Law School): Indictment for larceny. The defendant was an officer in the English army detailed to pursue a, band of Indians who had been murdering settlers in...
The Council of Europe continues to monitor death penalty practices around the world and call out friendly states that fall short of full abolition. Last week the Council passed a resolution (full text here) reiterating its support for abolition and calling on Belarus (as a potential member state), Japan and the U.S. to join the consensus of democratic, human rights...
Our friends at the International Law Association pass along the following registration information for the upcoming Asia-Pacific Conference in Taipei, which features a terrific line-up of speakersi: The 2011 International Law Association (ILA) Asia-Pacific Regional Conference will take place in Taipei, Taiwan from May 29 to June 1, 2011. The conference theme is “Contemporary International Law Issues in the Asia Pacific:...
Publicly, Israel has been nothing but critical of the Goldstone Report. Netanyahu responded to Goldstone's recent partial retraction, for example, by calling for the "twisted and nonfactual" Report to be thrown "into the dustbin of history." Behind the scenes, however, Israel has taken a different approach. According to the Jewish Press, the Report has led the IDF to adopt some very...
The San Francisco Chronicle has the story: The conference, titled "Litigating Palestine," took place at the San Francisco campus March 25 and 26. The 13 speakers - four of them Jewish, according to a school official - discussed legal issues and court cases involving Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, protests, consumer boycotts and related...
According to the Prosecutor, he needs 421 days to review 12,900 pages of documents that the Pre-Trial Chamber recently ordered him to disclose to the Ocampo Six so they can prepare for their confirmation hearings: International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has told the court he needs 421 days to review the evidence to comply with orders given last...
Sari Bashi is the Executive Director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that protects the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents. While many in the international community were unsure how to interpret Richard Goldstone's Washington Post op ed earlier this month withdrawing the allegation made in the Goldstone Report that Israel intentionally targeted civilians during the war in Gaza, within Israel,...
