1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) It is a curious feature of international human rights that we are reluctant to speak about foundations. As Jacques Maritain put it with respect...
My friend Jens Ohlin, who teaches at Cornell, has posted an important new essay on SSRN, "The Torture Lawyers." Here is the abstract of the essay, which is forthcoming in the Harvard International Law Journal: One of the longest shadows cast by the Bush Administration’s War on Terror involves the fate of the torture lawyers who authored or signed memoranda approving...
Joel Trachtman, whose book with my colleague Jeff Dunoff on Ruling the World is just out, also has a new paper on the relationship of domestic political coalitions and compliance with international law. Of course, compliance theory has taken a strong hold in international law (and international relations) scholarship of late. For the most part, however, that work has had...
Priceless. * Ed Swaine pointed out to me that the photo I posted earlier might be a fake. Thanks, Ed!...
I don't have any deeper insight into the situation than Ken, but there certainly has been pressure on the Prosecutor to investigate Afghanistan for some time -- both because it's not in Africa and because of US/NATO involvement in the armed conflict there. It is important to stress, though, that the OTP has not formally opened an investigation; it is...
My former colleague and current friend, John Ip, has an interesting post at Concurring Opinions discussing his reaction to the Australian Research Council's ranking of law reviews. As he notes, the original version of the list was both absurd and US-centric, awarding the Modern Law Review a B and the Cambridge Law Review a C, while giving the Connecticut Law...
(Update: See KJH's post above, particularly pointing out that the prosecutor has not formally opened an investigation, but is only "collecting information." Likewise Kevin's point that a couple of the laws of war possible violations I mention are not actually crimes under the ICC statute. Thanks, Kevin.) The Wall Street Journal reports today that the prosecutor's office of the International Criminal...
Adam has kindly allowed me to post his response -- which first appeared at Making Sense of Darfur -- to my criticism of his claim that domestic trials or a TRC would likely have been better than the IMT. Here it is, in full: Neither truth commissions nor domestic trials are as black and white as Professor Heller’s critique of my...
As usual, Laura Rozen (now at Politico) is on top of the latest international law news at Foggy Bottom. Columbia Law Professor Sarah Cleveland has been appointed Counselor on International Law in the office of State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh. According to an email circulated by the school's dean announcing the appointment, Cleveland will "help develop the State Department's...
At the risk of being told again that I am writing in “literary Klingon,” I want to return to the issue of virtual worlds and their real world implications. This time, a virtual world is being considered as a way to assist in the management of an international organization, namely NATO. According to Danger Room: NATO’s got a new plan for training...
Orin Kerr has an interesting post at Volokh noting a story reporting that NSA intercepts were used in the just announced conviction in the UK of terrorists in the liquid-mixing-chemicals case. Orin is right in saying the story deserves more notice than it will probably get. I found it particularly interesting that apparently a reason why the NSA finally signed...
I have been ignoring the latest salvos in David Bernstein's lonely war against Human Rights Watch, because they have not purported to be anything other than character assassination. But his latest effort to discredit Marc Garlasco, HRW's Senior Military Analyst, is so beyond the pale of acceptable discourse that something needs to be said. Here are the relevant paragraphs of...
