One of the stories I recount in Howling in Mesoptamia relates to an episode at the Suleymania University College of Law, concerning the arrival of USAID personnel, and their hired guns, military contractors from Blackwater, or Triple Canopy, or one of the other organizations hired to protect government personnel during their travels through the country. (I didn’t ask at...
No tomatoes. Not in my taco salad today, my cheeseburger yesterday, or my Salad Nicoise the day before that. It seems that a salmonella outbreak has been linked to the consumption of tomatoes and the FDA has issued a nationwide warning to consumers to avoid eating tomatoes. The FDA warning "recommends that retailers, restaurateurs, and food service...
First of all, my thanks are due to Professor Borgen, and to all of the editors of Opinio Juris, my favorite law blog (aside from my own, of course), for giving me the opportunity to discuss these vitally important issues in this extraordinary forum. Just one small correction to Professor Borgen’s very gracious introduction: the name of my book...
We are pleased to welcome guest blogger Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Professor Hamoudi is a prolific scholar on Islamic and comparative law and also has a blog, Islamic Law in Our Times. Professor Hamoudi has also recently published Howling in Mesopotamia: an Iraqi-American Memoir, described on Amazon.com as… a groundbreaking insider's story...
I wanted to thank all of our participants for a wonderful "insta-symposium" on Boumediene. I certainly learned a tremendous amount from our guests and greatly appreciate their willingness to participate and thoughtfully engage. I wanted to end by addressing some of the comments expressed concerning the format of these insta-symposia, especially on the issue of diversity. In organizing this...
Deborah Pearlstein and Michael Newton wonder what’s left of judicial deference in the wake of Boumediene. It’s a good question: certainly if you listen to the Boumediene dissenters, the answer is “not much.” Chief Justice Roberts rails against “unelected, politically unaccountable judges” and “the rule of lawyers” in concluding that “this decision is not really about the...
I see that my alma mater, Stanford, is set to formally eliminate letter grades. Beginning perhaps as early as fall, students will receive one of four marks for their work: honors, pass, restricted credit, and no credit. Stanford will be the third major law school to eliminate grades, joining Berkeley and Yale. I have nothing against the change, notwithstanding...
After posting my initial comments, I remained troubled by Julian's criticism of the majority's treatment of Johnson v. Eisenstrager. I'd like to offer a few more reflections on that decision here. The Eisenstrager opinion was certainly based largely on territoriality and citizenship, as Julian points out. However, practical considerations were not irrelevant to the Eisenstrager majority's decision, or else the majority...
Did the Supreme Court decide anything else last week besides Boumediene and Munaf? Well, there was that important case involving foreign sovereign immunity, Philippines v. Pimentel. Luckily for us, Vincent Vitowsky of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP in New York offers this summary and analysis via a Federalist Society podcast. In Philippines v. Pimentel, the Supreme Court...
While I fully agree with Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion and Justice Souter’s concurring opinion in Boumediene v. Bush, I found it significant that neither those opinions nor the two dissenting opinions of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia found it necessary or desirable to refer to international law despite the relevance of that body of law to the earlier Guantanamo...
In what can only be described as a stunning development, Trial Chamber I has stayed Thomas Lubanga Dyilo's trial because of the Prosecutor's failure to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense. Indeed, the decision seems to indicate that unless the Prosecutor reverses course and agrees to disclose the evidence, the Trial Chamber is prepared to dismiss the charges and...
A confession: except for the basketball, I don't watch the Summer Olympics. In part, that's because I'm not particularly interested in the medal sports. The more significant reason, though, is that I simply can't stomach the rampant jingoism that inevitably accompanies the Games. Case in point — the reaction to Becky Hammon's decision to play basketball for...
