My current take on Sotomayor testimony is that there is an odd discontinuity between her public speeches and articles on the one hand, and her testimony yesterday, and, to some greater degree, her record as a judge on the other. One interesting example is that old chestnut: Should a U.S. judge use international or foreign law to interpret the...
My colleague at Pepperdine Law School, Robert Anderson, has just posted on SSRN a draft article, Distinguishing Judges: An Empirical Ranking of Judicial Quality in the U.S. Court of Appeals. According to the abstract: This article presents an empirical quality ranking of 383 federal appellate judges who served on the United States Court of Appeals between 1960 and 2008....
[Kenneth L. Gartner is a partner with Lynn & Gartner in Mineola, New York and an adjunct professor at Touro Law School. He has served as a New York State District Court judge] The classic formulation of the basic premise underlying the Arab-Israeli “peace process” is “land for peace.” Its proponents thus categorize the so-called peace process as...
With nothing much else to work with, Collin Levy presses the international law angle on Sotomayor with this op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal. In a speech to the American Civil Liberties Union of Puerto Rico in April, Judge Sotomayor explained that "ideas have no boundaries," and that "international law and foreign law will be very important in the discussion...
Related to Ken's earlier post, Amos Guiora has a piece up at Foreign Policy describing the legal analysis he applied when advising the Israeli Defense Forces on targeted killings of terrorists. He argues that international law permits targeted killing when certain conditions are met: The decision to use targeted killing of terrorists is based on an expansive articulation of the concept...
I see that I'm quoted by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane in their New York Times article today, "CIA Had Plan to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders" (July 13, 2009). I'm trying hard to maintain radio silence and not blog, in order to let my shoulder heal up, but let me say something briefly about this. First, I'm delighted, of course, that...
Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy.com has written one of the best blog posts I have read in a long time: Jay-Z vs the Game: Lessons for the American Primacy Debate. Lynch combines a music obsessive's knowledge of rap with an international relations scholar's understanding of power politics. This is a story of rising challengers, sneak attacks, structural power, transition narratives,...
Two updates of note. First, the Ugandan government has said in no uncertain terms that it will arrest Bashir if he enters the country: Henry Oryem Okello, Uganda's minister for international affairs, spoke after meeting with the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in Kampala. Police "will ensure that he is arrested" if al-Bashir arrives, Okello said. Ocampo added: "It is...
I want to quickly point to a post from late last month at EJIL: Talk! that I just recently came across. Tolga Yalkin considered the argument that international investment arbitration as a system is fundamentally biased. Considering arguments set out by Professor M. Sornarajah of the University of Singapore, Yalkin wrote: Sornarajah advanced the proposition-enjoying increasing purchase in the international legal community-that bilateral and...
So far in opening statements from Sotomayor confirmation hearings, we have John Cornyn and Tom Coburn condemning the use of foreign law in constitutional interpretation. You can be sure that they will follow up in colloquys -- in Cornyn's, possibly his first. (Michael Chertoff made it one of his suggested questions on the Times op-ed page this morning;...
Amos Guiora has a new essay at Jurist about judicial review and decision-making in the executive branch. It begins: Judicial review is judicial review. It is all or nothing. Sitting as the High Court of Justice, the Israeli Supreme Court proved that once again this week. The facts of Ashraf Abu Rahma vs. The Judge Advocate General (HCJ7195/08) are simple: the Israel...
Lest anyone think last week’s pair of hearings were Congress’ last word on the question of military commission trials, the House Armed Services Committee has already scheduled it own hearing on reforming the Military Commissions Act. The July 16 witness list features the head lawyer from each of the armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines). Also, in keeping...
