I want to follow up Roger's post on law professor sign on amicus briefs with a really basic, genuinely naive question. I am not a litigator and do not know very much about litigation. I have never really understood the rationale behind courts accepting amicus briefs - law professor briefs, or any other kind. I'm not putting this as a...
This past month I received an email sent to over 60 law professors inviting us to join an amicus brief. The case is before the D.C. Circuit and involves the important issue of corporate responsibility for human rights violations under international law. The email was sent at approximately midnight on a Monday night and invited a distinguished group...
Two months ago, I predicted that the Security Council would not have the votes necessary to defer the ICC's prosecution of Bashir. Nostradamus I'm not: In a last-ditch attempt to prevent ICC judges from issuing an arrest warrant for Bashir in the next few weeks, Bashir's supporters - the Arab League, the African Union, China and Russia - will use the...
I had the pleasure this past Friday to moderate a conference at Pepperdine on social entrepreneurship that featured Matt Flannery, co-founder of Kiva, one of the leading microfinance organizations on the Internet. There is so much I could say about Kiva and Flannery's remarks, but let me just highlight a few points that were raised by his discussion. First, the...
Spiegel Online has posted a fascinating interview with Rafi Eitan, a former Mossad agent who is now a minister in the Israeli cabinet. According to Eitan, Mengele was also in Buenos Aires when Eichmann was captured -- and would have shared Eichmann's fate but for the Mossad's lack of boots on the ground: SPIEGEL: Josef Mengele fled Germany for South America...
I'm up for tenure this year, which helps explain (I hope) in part my lighter-than-usual blogging of late. One of the things that has come up in the process is how my home institution (Temple) compares to other law schools in terms of the timing at which tenure and promotion are offered. Temple hires folks starting out in law teaching as...
My law school (Washington College of Law, American University), the ABA national security committee of the international law section, and the Federalist Society are putting on a one-day conference on Friday, September 19, from 10-4 pm, in DC, in case anyone is interested. I unfortunately will not be there, though I am still listed on the program, but it has...
I don't watch television, so I wouldn't actually know, but I take it there was some sort of dustup in a Sarah Palin ABC interview in which Governor Palin was asked about the so-called Bush Doctrine. I don't know exactly what the discussion was about, but I did get an email from a friend a little while ago that said,...
Over at the New York Times opinion page (but alas behind The Wall), Philip Bobbitt and John Danforth argue that with respect to national security, neither campaign has articulated the fundamental points of view that will allow people to make an informed choice in November ...
I hereby nominate all Kenyans for US citizenship: All 22 countries in a BBC World Service poll would prefer Democratic nominee Barack Obama elected US president instead of his Republican rival John McCain. Obama is preferred by a four to one margin on average across the 22,000 people polled. The margin in favour of Obama ranges from just 9 per cent in...
The legal blogosphere is all abuzz about a new study of faculty productivity at law schools outside the US News top 50. Here, according to the study, are the top 10: San Diego, Cardozo, Florida State, Richmond, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago-Kent, Missouri, UNLV, and Brooklyn. Some bloggers -- see here and here, for example -- think the study is a useful gauge...
In my original post, I recommended a number steps that Israel should take in order to contain the increasing terror activities emerging from East Jerusalem. I would like now to illuminate some of these. As noted in the original post, during the last seven years, the levels of terror activity in East Jerusalem have been significantly lower than those in the...
