At the SMU conference last week on transnational governance networks, splendidly organized by Prof. Jenia Turner, a question that was much on my mind was one that was - what's the word? - obviated by the topic of the conference itself: what role for global civil society in, so to speak, running the planet? For that matter, what role for...
Julian has already written a cautionary note about expecting a new Bretton Woods out of the upcoming global economic summit. I could not agree more, and note that the Washington Post agrees in an editorial yesterday - indeed, the Post takes Sarkozy to the proverbial woodshed for a whuppin': With the global economy in crisis, and his own tenure as temporary...
[Steve Charnovitz is an associate professor of law at The George Washington University Law School. He blogs at the International Economic Law and Policy Blog.] On October 31, 2008, I made a presentation at the ASIL’s Tillar House of a proposal for an “International Court of Justice Decisions Implementation Act.” My proposal is an outgrowth of my essay in the Agora...
Adding to the fortune-telling articles concerning the policies of the incoming Obama Administration, the Wall Street Journal states that the current administration's policies will go through the transition "largely intact." However, I think it is just too early to tell. The WSJ article begins: President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that...
Turns out rumors of a new Obama Administration-developed security court may have been greatly exaggerated – or at least premature. The blogosphere was briefly abuzz yesterday after an AP wire story in the morning reported that some of the Guantanamo detainees “might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to [unnamed]...
According to news reports, President-elect Obama is going to take major steps to end President Bush's system of trial via military commissions. It sounds...
I was in Miami for the weekend speaking at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association and the International Bar Association on the topic of mass claims in developing countries. Many lawyers in the room were defense counsel for prominent corporations subject to new claims for violations of international or foreign law. There were also plenty of...
Awesome: Jews are no strangers to the idea of persecution and for years, Jewish groups have been at the forefront of the movement to save Darfur save Darfur, a region in western Sudan, which is awash in cultural genocide. Today, they join with Tents of Hope on the National Mall to show solidarity with the refugees of Janjaweed aggression. Sixth & I...
In his recent post, Julian wrote that the secret U.S. military raids in Syria, Pakistan, and other countries may be (in his view) easily justifiable under U.S. law, but that the issue of legality is much harder to answer as a matter of international law - indeed, it would have to be some theory of preemptive self-defense. Expect to see denunciations...
As discussions of a(nother) bailout for Detroit automakers continue, one question that intrigues me is whether any Opinio Juris readers drive Detroit-made cars - i.e., cars made by the Big Three US automakers? Please feel free to indicate in the comments. My wife and I own two Hondas, one of them a 1993 Honda Civic that we bought used from the...
Two items of Sudan news to report. First, the Sudanese government has lawyered up, hiring the prominent British firm Eversheds LLP to represent it at the ICC. I wonder if that means Bashir is expecting the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue the arrest warrant; although Article 19 of the Rome Statute is not the picture of clarity, it seems to allow...
Critics of the U.S. war on terrorism often deride it as a bad metaphor or an excuse to conduct controversial detentions, interrogations and military trials. But what the Pentagon refers to as the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) has many of the characteristics of a typical armed conflict, even outside of the main battlefield in Afghanistan. As the NYT reports: The...
