Our friend and colleague Ken Anderson is hosting a timely and important conference at American University Washington College of Law this Friday: "Terrorists and Detainees: Do We Need a New National Security Court?" Ken and his co-sponsors at Brookings have put together a terrific line-up of speakers and commentators (including Opinio Juris alums John Bellinger and Bobby Chesney)....
The Widener Law Review has posted its symposium issue on global democracy, along with a narrated and nicely edited documentary version of the companion conference (perhaps this will be the next generation to archived webcasts - a highlights approach to facilitate later viewing. Sort of an academic version of those old NFL Films recaps of the early Super Bowls....
First, we thank Susan Franck again for her very insightful comments on our recent article, Investment Protection in Extraordinary Times: The Interpretation and Application of Non Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties. We are pleased that she agrees with us on many points and welcome the thought provoking comments she has offered. Our response focuses on the three issues...
The recent article by Burke-White and von Staden raises critical and timely issues about international economic law and treaty interpretation. The paper acknowledges challenges posed to the institutional legitimacy of investment treaty dispute resolution (which I have written about elsewhere) that are caused by different tribunals coming to different interpretations of the same or similar treaty provisions. It...
Let us begin first by thanking Opinio Juris and the Virginia Journal of International Law for the opportunity to discuss our new article, Investment Protection in Extraordinary Times: The Interpretation and Application of Non-Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties. We also thank Susan Franck in advance for commenting on the article and for what we hope will be a...
I have very little add to Professor Mallat’s enlightening comments. To the extent that I have a criticism, it is that he is perhaps too quick to dismiss his own work, upon which my scholarship is based. To be sure, Professor Mallat has focused on Sadr’s reactions to Marxism, and the role he played within the Najaf seminaries...
This is a wonderful opportunity to bring Islamic law into the legal debate in the United States beyond the superficial level at which it usually takes place. This is the more welcome for someone who has written a book on Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr as the most creative Islamic thinker of the 20th century (The Renewal of Islamic Law, Cambridge 1993),...
First, an obligatory and entirely deserved thanks to Chris Ripple and the editors of the Virginia Journal of International Law for giving me an opportunity to discuss my work on this blog, and to Chibli Mallat, the premier Sadr scholar of our time, for agreeing to comment thereon. Sadr’s work Iqtisaduna is so multifaceted and complex that any depiction of...
The Virginia Journal of International Law is pleased to continue its partnership with Opinio Juris in this second online symposium. This week, we will be featuring two articles and one essay just published by VJIL in Vol. 48-2, available here. Thank you to the moderators of Opinio Juris for making available this great forum for discussion. On Tuesday, Haider...
In the tortured debates about torture, one rarely hears something new. But last week I was having a wonderful discussion with some prominent international law thinkers and one of them said something quite thought-provoking that I had never heard before. “If you think torture is wrong then you should also conclude that humanitarian intervention is wrong. ...
My time as a guest blogger with Opinio Juris comes to an end today. I have greatly enjoyed the opportunity to post here, and to enter into discussions with the commenters. It therefore only remains for me to give my sincere thanks to the regular contributors for inviting me, and to the many commenters for their remarks, additions and corrections...
Iraq has redesigned its Saddam-era flag. (The new flag is at left.) Unfortunately, it's already been rejected by both the Sunni Anbar Awakening Council and by the Kurds:"The new flag is done for a foreign agenda and we won't raise it," said Ali Hatem al Suleiman, a leading member of the U.S.-backed Anbar Awakening Council, "If they want...
