In something of a surprise move, the Supreme Court decided today to grant cert in Kiyemba v. Obama – an enormously important case about whether or not the federal courts have the power to order Guantanamo detainees (whose writs of habeas corpus have been granted) released into the United States. The NYTimes story is here. The Justice Department’s statement on...
I had resolved to avoid blogging about Bernstein's endless series of attacks on Human Rights Watch, but I couldn't let the following pass without at least some acknowledgement: At what point does the MSM stop treating HRW as a neutral source on human rights in the Middle East, and start treating it like the left-wing, anti-Israel, anti-Western organization it has openly...
Looking at the long-awaited new Obama Sudan Strategy, there is much to admire. It is sensible, forward-looking, and realistic. It also appears to be pretty much the same policy President Bush pursued, which then Obama campaign adviser Susan Rice (and current UN Ambassador) trashed back in 2008. For instance, it emphasizes ending the violence and war through a peace agreement,...
Making Sense of Darfur will be holding an online symposium over the next few weeks dedicated to analyzing what is likely to happen in Sudan in 2010 and 2011. Here is how it's described by Alex de Waal, with whom I rarely agree but always respect: Sudan faces two momentous events in the next fifteen months. The first is the general...
(Please note that a commenter has rightly corrected me on two points, which I correct below) Former State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger (and former OJ guest blogger) spoke today at Hofstra's biennial Legal Ethics Conference. His talk was typically engaging, honest, and interesting (it will not be news to many of our readers that Bellinger was an internal dissenter on...
Martin Holterman and Marko Milanovic have been kind enough to respond to my post on the ICTY's attack on Dr. Karadzic's right of self-representation, so it's only fair that I respond to their responses. To begin with, Martin writes that "[g]iven the precedent of the Milosevic case, and undoubtedly many others with which I am less familiar, I think we can...
OUP just sent along a review copy (note, per the FTC, free merchandise from OUP!!). The book is Rumu Sarkar, International Development Law: Rule of Law, Human Rights, & Global Finance. This isn't a review - I have only read the first chapter, and I am pretty certain I will find places both to agree and disagree. But I am finding...
As everyone in the world probably knows by now, Dr. Karadzic's trial is set to begin on October 26th. The current trial date is the culmination of two interrelated decisions by the Tribunal: the Trial Chamber's unsurprising decision not to require the Prosecution to trim its monstrous and completely unworkable indictment (choosing instead to impose insignificant time-limits on the prosecution's...
The Obama Administration is becoming famous for their Friday night news dumps (deficit reports are always on Fridays). So here is another one sure to anger some parts of their base, but which is carefully buried while everyone is watching the Yankees beat up on the Angels. The Obama administration has formulated a new policy for Sudan that proposes working with that country’s...
Wow! I know there has been some talk and some cases about an international right to internet access. But Finland has upped the ante by guaranteeing a right to high speed internet access. Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right, YLE, the country's national broadcasting company, reported on Wednesday. According to the report, every person...
It sure looks like it, according to Bloomberg. The Pentagon is reviewing the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive military strikes with an eye to modifying or possibly ending it. The international environment is “more complex” than when President George W. Bush announced the policy in 2002, Kathleen Hicks, the Defense Department’s deputy undersecretary for strategy, said in an interview. “We’d really like to...
For those of you working on anti-corruption papers, the following symposium might be just the place for you (Deadline November 1, 2009). ...
