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26 Jan

Even more revelations in the plagiarism scandal that has caused an uproar among the faculty of the University of the Philippines and the Philippines Supreme Court. MANILA, Philippines – Supreme Court Justice Mariano del Castillo plagiarized at least 20 more times in the decision on the comfort women case (Isabelita Vinuya v. Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo), apart from those already brought to the...

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25 Jan

I blogged a year ago about the ridiculous criminal-libel suit that an academic named Karin Calvo-Goller filed against NYU's Joseph Weiler.  Today Weiler blogs (no permanent link for some reason) about the trial at EJIL: Talk!. It's a remarkable account that should be read in full.  But here's a taste: Three months later I was summoned to appear before an...

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25 Jan

I've been updating my article advocating for an e-SOS (the first draft is available here).  When I originally wrote it, Stuxnet had been identified as one of the first forms of malware to target SCADA systems explicitly (a SCADA--or “supervisory control and data acquisition”--system is one specifically designed to operate and control infrastructure, such as electrical and nuclear power systems, telecommunications, and oil...

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25 Jan

An important update from NBC News: U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between a jailed army private suspected with leaking secret documents and Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. The officials say that while investigators have determined that Manning had allegedly unlawfully downloaded tens of thousands...

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25 Jan

Pirates are non-state actors who cause serious international problems that are sometimes beyond the reach or interest of most governments.  Mercenaries are non-state actors who can combat pirates without implicating the political and legal problems faced by regular armed forces.   And so, it is not surprising, or unwelcome, to hear that mercenaries are getting involved in Somalia. WASHINGTON — Erik...

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24 Jan

According to the Washington Post, Covington and Burling has filed with the Department of Justice to represent Alassane Ouattara, the recognized winner of the presidential election in Cote d'Ivoire.  Why would a U.S. law firm be representing (pro bono no less!) a foreign politician? According to Covington's international policy advisor, Alan Larson, the purpose was to make sure that ousted...

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22 Jan

Actually, I am not quite sure, since all I have is this report on the recent decision of the Supreme Judicial Circuit of Massachusetts holding that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations gives foreign nationals legal rights to the notification of their consular officials if they are arrested by Massachusetts authorities: Massachusetts, Cordy wrote, will take steps now to bring the...

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21 Jan

The U.N. is an amorphous, complex organization with many autonomous parts, as commenters on my post below have noted.  This means that when one autonomous part of the U.N. does something stupid or bad, it is not always fair to attribute that to the organization as a whole, or the Secretariat.  On the other hand, part of what gives the...

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21 Jan

OK, that's not quite it, but still this story (weeks old I know) is somewhat surprising. UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan last week flew a man indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court to a peace meeting in the flashpoint Abyei region, U.N. officials said on Tuesday. The mission, known as UNMIS, transported Ahmed Haroun, a Sudanese...

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21 Jan

Oklahoma's controversial constitutional amendment banning Oklahoma courts from relying on Islamic and international law has inspired as similar effort in Wyoming.  I think this whole effort is largely harmless, if misguided. Still, an interesting trend in the U.S. CASPER, Wyo. — Wyoming judges wouldn't be allowed to consider Islamic law or international law when making rulings, under a proposed state constitutional...

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21 Jan

I am sympathetic to the concern, expressed in this short article, about the threat that international agreements pose to state laws.  The American states, as I've argued here and here, need more autonomy in foreign affairs and in their interaction with international law, not less.  But I think free trade agreements like NAFTA are generally the least intrusive of those...

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