One of the unintended consequences of the movement to hold corporations liable for aiding and abetting human rights abuses is that doing so may prove to be the most effective way of holding sovereigns accountable. That is the surprising conclusion of my latest article just published in the Notre Dame Law Review. Here is an excerpt: One has...
That would be the Financial Times, under the fairly emphatic headline "Democrats Must Choose Obama." As far as I can tell, it's the only foreign newspaper to make an endorsement. (Some might consider it not really all that foreign, given its large daily US circulation — so it's not like Le Monde putting down a marker — but the...
One of my students recently took the naturalization test and was kind enough to share with me the “Quick Civic Lessons” that the government hands out to help prepare for the test. Most questions are terribly easy, but I would suspect a few are hard for the average would-be American: 15. Who Elects the President of the United States? 19....
The very first post I wrote for Opinio Juris -- more than two years ago, when I was guest-blogging -- was about the inequality of arms that exists between the prosecution and defense at the international tribunals. I recall spending hours on the post, mustering facts, honing my arguments, polishing my prose. I was proud of my first...
[Professor Elihu Richter teaches at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Medicine and Public Health and heads the Program on Genocide Prevention. This post follows up on last week's discussion of Susan Benesch's VJIL article.] I congratulate the Virginia Journal of International Law for hosting this web-based discussion with Susan Benesch and Greg Gordon (among others) on the legal aspects of incitement...
From Convictions, his argument that a Democrat president won't show any more respect for IL than Bush has, paired with an engaging episode of bloggingheads.tv with Heather Hurlbut (for those of you with busy lives, you can listen to Eric and Heather talk really fast with the new 1.4x function!). Eric takes his usual skeptical view of international law,...
John Ruggie, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations, issued a draft report last week that "presented a conceptual and policy framework to anchor the business and human rights debate." The section that particularly grabbed my attention was on corporate complicity for human rights violations. Notice the shift toward recognition of corporate responsibility...
Pope Benedict XVI's address at the United Nations General Assembly last week is definitely worth a read for anyone concerned about human rights. Here is an interesting excerpt on the natural law underpinnings of all human rights: This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation and goal of the responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme we are...
Since being unanimously acquitted by the ICTR Appeals Chamber in 2006, Andre Ntagerura has lived as a virtual prisoner in a UN safehouse in Arusha, unable to find a country that will take him. Last November, he filed a motion asking the ICTR to order Canada, his first choice, to grant him asylum. On Wednesday, the Court decided...
I realize that Bluebook bashing is something of a varsity sport among legal academics. And yes, much of the Bluebook's arcana is profoundly annoying. But you know what? I'll take that arcana over social science citation any day. I've been writing another "cognitive psychology of [insert concept here]" essay — mens rea, this time — and...
Last week State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger delivered an important speech at Vanderbilt Law School on Alien Tort Statute litigation. The speech was a fascinating analysis of the future of ATS litigation, particularly its costs and benefits. To my knowledge, the speech is the first comprehensive statement ever by a senior Administration official, Republican or Democratic, about...
I am indebted to Professor Gregory Gordon not only for his comments now, but for his own published work on incitement to genocide, and for fruitful debates that we are continuing here. As he knows, I disagree with his contention that the ICTR jurisprudence has identified or even “gleaned” as he puts it, a four-part test for incitement to genocide....
