As Ken notes below in his birthday greetings, Opinio Juris is pleased to welcome back Professor Eugene Kontorovich, of Northwestern University Law School, as a guest blogger for the next week. Professor Kontorovich has done a lot of writing and thinking about legal and policy responses to piracy as well as a range of other private and public international law...
all of us here at OJ wish you a happy birthday! We're looking forward to reading your posts here, but hope you have a lovely birthday....
In the flower of his conversion, McNamara ended up supporting US participation in the ICC: I believe that the human race desperately needs an agreed-upon system of jurisprudence that tells us what conduct by political and military leaders is right and what is wrong, both in conflict within nations and in conflict across national borders. We need a clear code, internationally accepted,...
As widely reported, in Moscow yesterday President Obama and Russian President Medvedev signed a Joint Understanding for the Start Follow-on Treaty. Here's how the White House fact sheet describes it: On April 1, Presidents Obama and Medvedev agreed in London that America and Russian negotiators would begin work on a new, comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive...
For those of you who aren't F1 racing fans -- which I hope is all of you -- you might have missed the charming comments about Hitler that were recently offered by Bernie Ecclestone, the head of the league: In an interview with London's The Times newspaper, Ecclestone expressed a preference for "strong leaders," citing former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher...
The National Research Council of the National Academies has just about finalized a lengthy report on cyberattacks--Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition and Use of Cyberattack Capabilities. William A. Owens, Kenneth W. Dam, and Herbert S. Lin edited the study on behalf of a 14 member committee and a 5 member staff. It should be available in hard...
ABC reports that President Obama is considering the temporary use of executive agreements to create a news arms control treaty with Russia this winter. MOSCOW -- With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty...
I have ignored Obama's refusal to take concrete steps to end formal discrimination against gays and lesbians, because it's not really the subject of this blog. But I have followed his gradual abandonment of his campaign promise to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" with increasing concern. It seems clear that he has no real stomach for taking on the military...
Botswana has refused to go along with the AU resolution that -- in theory -- guarantees Bashir safe travel around Africa: Botswana says it will not abide by an African Union (AU) decision to ignore an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir. Countries signed up to the ICC have a duty to help arrest...
KJH has already remarked here at OJ on the contempt trial in the ICTY of Florence Hartmann. Ruth Wedgwood (SAIS-JHU and also a fellow member of the Hoover Task Force on National Security and Law) offers an analysis at the American Interest online and, like Kevin, thinks this an unfortunate move by the tribunal....
to those celebrating it. (Not everyone at OJ rains on the July 4 parade!) For those in DC, in addition to the usual stuff, you might check out the historical reenactment of Frederick Douglass's July 5 speech, as Randy Barnett notes, at its historic site in Anacostia (Professor Barnett has a very interesting discussion and commentary on the speech at...
As happens every July 5th, tomorrow’s newspapers will carry reports of attractively diverse groups of immigrants naturalizing as U.S. citizens in uplifting ceremonies, flags waving, with predictable but heartfelt welcomes from judges and elected officials. This Independence Day ritual is perhaps the only public relations play of the federal government’s immigration agencies that seems to work. It bears out all...
