The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia has just held that JCE III, otherwise known as "extended" joint criminal enterprise, did not exist under customary international law during 1975-1979, the period over which the ECCC has temporal jurisdiction. The decision is a stunning rebuke to the ICTY, which invented -- literally out of thin air -- that form of...
David Kopel, Theodore Bromund, and Ray Walser offer this Heritage Foundation essay analyzing (and attacking) the Inter-American Convention on the Illicit Sale of Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA). Although critical, the essay doesn't actually focus on the constitutional problems, since those are fairly unclear. In fact, the First Amendment problems seem larger than the Second Amendment...
Cross-posted at Balkinization Following my co-blogger Ken Anderson’s lead, I wanted to add a few additional notes on the D.C. Circuit’s holding today that a group of detainees held at the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan, do not have a constitutional right to seek a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. federal court. While acknowledging that at least two...
During a conference earlier this week at Northwestern on Israel and International law, NYU law professor Samuel Estreicher presented an interesting proposal to shift the focus of the law of armed conflict toward the duties of defenders. Arguing that most of the law (or at least law interpretation) seems focused on attackers, the duties of defenders are largely free of...
I'm sure others here at OJ will have more detailed views, but ...
This sounds like a bit of a publicity stunt by prosecutors at the Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone, but it could very well work. Prosecutors want to subpoena Miss Campbell to testify over claims she was given the "large" diamond by Taylor after a 1997 dinner hosted in South Africa by former president Nelson Mandela. The one Taylor is accused of giving...
Prof. Chimene Keitner at UC-Hastings has posted a short essay in the online version of the Yale Journal of International Law criticizing the novel and influential interpretation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act proposed by Profs. Curtis Bradley and Jack Goldsmith. In a series of articles, Bradley and Goldsmith have argued that the FSIA's immunity for "foreign state[s]" should be interpreted...
John Robb notes the following on his excellent Global Guerillas blog: Coast Guard and BP's private military contractors team up to enforce media and scientific blackout (part of BP's information operations campaign) on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Here, they are caught on camera turning away a CBS film crew. Coast Guard officials say they are looking into the incident. I look forward...
Interesting article from Reuters on the growth of drone warfare under the Obama administration. One interesting note: drone attacks are being contemplated for Yemen, Somalia, and even against pirates. Also, the key explanation for the Drone Wars appears to be the legal problems created by capturing, interrogating, and detaining individuals. Some current and former counterterrorism officials say an unintended consequence of...
I continue to believe that this is a terrible idea: Spain's top judicial panel had suspended Mr Garzon on Friday pending his trial on charges he exceeded his authority by ordering an investigation into mass killings by the forces of former dictator Francisco Franco. The suspension from his functions as a judge was widely thought in Spain...
Last week, President Obama submitted the Treaty with Russia on Measures for the Further Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms to the U.S. Senate. Reading it is tough going, given all the technical terminology. A couple of not very profound observation: 1) Is this Treaty self-executing? For the many pro-self execution folks, the answer should be yes (look at the Supremacy Clause!)....
