Alan Dershowitz has never been shy to express his views, but I think he may be going a bit far here in reaction to recent stories about Judge Richard Goldstone's service to the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Goldstone was--quite literally--a hanging judge. He imposed and affirmed death sentences for more than two dozen blacks under circumstances where whites would almost...
The New York Times is reporting that Moreno-Ocampo has offered Spain's Judge Garzon a temporary position as one of his advisors: Spain’s well-known investigating magistrate, Baltasar Garzón who is being prosecuted in a case filed by far-right Spanish groups, has been offered a temporary post as an external adviser to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in...
I'm sorry, but I still find the argument that the Arizona Immigration Law violates the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination deeply unpersuasive. The fact that five U.N. special rapporteurs on human rights have weighed in here with the same analysis as Human Rights Watch doesn't convince me of much, other than that I am even less impressed...
Roger blogged below about how Kagan called in 1995 for substantive questioning of Supreme Court nominees. Just in time to avoid being asked such questions herself, she's changed her mind: The White House Monday said that Supreme Court nominee won’t follow her own advice from 1995 in answering questions on specific legal cases or issues, supporting Kagan’s flip flop...
It doesn't look like she's written anything even remotely related to international law (it is surprising how little she's written on anything, for an academic). On the now-standard question of what role IL should have in constitutional interpretation, we have this out-on-a-limb answer from her confirmation as Solicitor General: I do not believe that international law (assuming it has not been incorporated...
There's hypocrisy, and then there's Omar al-Bashir: Sudan's justice minister has asked Interpol to arrest the leader of Darfur's most powerful rebel group, state media said on Monday, a step likely to dash hopes of progress in a faltering peace process. [snip] The Sudanese Media Centre quoted Abdel Basit Sabderat as saying the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) leader,...
I wanted to point our readers to a terrific discussion at EJIL Talk! on our own Ken Anderson's recent article "The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences". Ken's article "offers a high-altitude, high-speed look at the effects of international criminal law on other parts of public international law and organizations." EJIL Talk! has solicited two very interesting...
Not surprisingly, Ed Whelan breaks from the post and takes the lead in the most-ridiculous-criticism-of-Elena-Kagan derby, claiming that not learning to drive until her late 20s...
Is there anything new or useful to say about "International Law and the Israeli-Arab Dispute"? Well, a number of scholars (including Ken, Roger, and myself) will try to come up with something next Monday, May 17, during a conference at Northwestern University School of Law. This is one of the few subjects intersecting international law where there is way too...
It's a done deal: President Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow. Kagan will be the first nominee for the Court since the 1970s who has no judicial experience, although I doubt this will be a problem for her (it may even be an asset). As Kevin has already noted, Kagan will probably...
Last week, Russia announced with some fanfare that it had captured several Somali pirates who had attacked a Russian-flagged vessel. It had also announced that (like the U.S.), these pirates would be brought back to Russia for trial. And then yesterday, Russia announced...
Yesterday a federal court in New York granted Chevron's request for discovery of outtakes from the 2009 documentary Crude about the multi-billion dollar litigation in Ecuador. Chevron's request was pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782, which authorizes a judge in the United States to order discovery of evidence to be used in proceedings before a foreign tribunal. As reported here, Chevron's...
