Hard to know what to respond to first given all the news this past week on the Guantanamo/detention front. My own week began with participating in the fascinating and useful meeting President Obama held with some human rights advocates and academics. Since then, I have been tempted to explore the politics of a debate that now find Jack...
The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation have put together a timely conference on Counterterrorism and the Obama Administration. It starts at 9:00 a.m. next Thursday, May 28 at the Capital Visitor Center in DC. I have a feeling it won't be entirely supportive of the Obama Administration policies, but at least it will benefit from the insights of Opinio Juris blogger...
Judge Thomas Buergenthal has recently published a memoir of his life as a child surviving Auschwitz. The book was originally published in German (where it was a bestseller) and is now out in English. The book, A Lucky Child, is absolutely wonderful and inspiring. He describes in wonderful detail his slow, painful descent into the hell of...
In the category of happy news that is long overdue, it looks like Secretary Clinton is poised to expand the definition of State Department employee "family members" eligible for benefits to include same-sex domestic partners. For Foreign Service employees those benefits will include --perhaps most important -- the issuance of a diplomatic passport (the "black passport"), which carries with it...
Eugene Kontorovich, well known to OJ readers for his work on piracy and universal jurisdiction (both separately and together), has a very interesting post partly responding to discussion here at OJ on universal jurisdiction and proposed legislation on Spain on universal jurisdiction. It is up over at Prawfsblawg and is a fun, quick read. Also, here is Eric Posner's comment,...
Because I so rarely get to blog about uplifting things, I wanted to pass along the following story, concerning a group of aboriginals who, in 1938 -- when so much of the world was silent -- protested the Nazis' treatment of the Jews during Kristallnacht: William Cooper’s name does not appear on Yad Vashem’s list of the Righteous Among the Nations,...
Given all the recent talk about the future of Guantanamo, it may be of interest to readers that, Dr. Michael J. Strauss, a lecturer in international relations at the Centre d'Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris, has a new book called The Leasing of Guantanamo Bay, published by Praeger Security International. Here’s the description from the press release: Post-9/11 events at the U.S. naval...
I just wanted to pass along something I had found recently: Newseum has an interactive map that allows you to see that day's front pages from various papers from around the world. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, you can't enlarge the pages (although you can zoom-in on the map), so by-and-large only the headlines are readable. Nonetheless, this does allow you...
Now that she has the Jeff Rosen seal of approval, the safe money is on Diane Wood to fill David Souter's seat on the Supreme Court. Most of us IL types will know that Judge Wood has some strong interests in the area (she has been on the board of editors of the AJIL), but in my case at least it's...
The Wall Street Journal had a news story yesterday, "Spain is Moving to Rein in Crusading Judges" (May 20, 2009), reporting on moves in the Spanish parliament to place stricter limits on the ability of investigating magistrates - most famously, Baltasar Garzon - to undertake sweeping investigations and indictments worldwide on the basis of universal jurisdiction: Under pressure from irate foreign...
Details here. Assuming that we're talking foot soldiers, this seems a pretty thin argument for keeping the rest under wraps, even through a cost-benefit/national interests optic. The equation: How much does keeping Gitmo up and running hurt US interests v. how much damage can released detainees cause if they return to the battlefield. I'm betting that for all but the very few high-level detainees,...
A while back, a commentator (aptly named Irritated) complained about my use of acronyms in a post on treaty priorities of the Obama Administration. I understand the frustration of the uninitiated. That said, the reality is a facility with acronyms appears to have become part of the job description for international lawyers. I have no idea when or how this phenomenon...
