Professional life in the national security agencies is much better for gays and lesbians today than it was twenty years ago. The old rule that homosexuality would alone disqualify an individual from receiving a security clearance has been abolished. However, on a range of benefits and equal treatment -- including adequate security training for same-sex partners -- there...
As I blogged about here, Adam Liptak has a terrific occasional series ("American Exception") in the NYTimes examining common features of the US criminal justice system that are quite at odds with the approaches of other democracies. Liptak's piece today examines the felony murder rule — a rule we adopted from the English common law, but which has in...
Apparently, the British are a little rusty when it comes to US constitutional law. They're shocked — just shocked! — to learn that the US can kidnap a British citizen suspected of a crime other than terrorism even though the US and UK have an extradition treaty:A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal...
There'll be much discussion this week in conjunction with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on Wednesday in the cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States. Most of the conversation will likely (and rightly) focus on the question of the U.S. Constitution's reach as a matter of U.S. law to detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...
Well, that was quick. Amazing what a change of administration can do:Kevin Rudd has started his prime ministership with a bang, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol as his first act of government hours after being sworn in. Mr Rudd’s signing of the climate agreement yesterday brought applause from environmental groups and delegates at the United Nations climate conference in Bali. It leaves...
This past week's Annapolis Agreement has been received with lukewarm enthusiasm by the press. Commenters have described the agreement as simply a procedural document. I'm not so sure that such a tepid response is warranted. For the moment, remove the general pessimism about the possibility of Middle East peace. Ignore spillover effects from the Bush Administration's foreign policy...
In my post yesterday on the controversy over the pending execution of Chemical Ali and his two co-defendants, I argued that the Iraqi Constitution gives the President of Iraq, and not the Presidency Council, the authority to ratify death sentences. Earlier today, I received a friendly e-mail from a US official involved in the drafting of the Constitution...
The death penalty, I think it's safe to say, has been a disaster in Iraq. The Iraqi government's early and unwavering insistence on permitting the Iraqi High Tribunal to impose the death penalty effectively ended international involvement with the Tribunal. Then the IHT executed Saddam before his conviction became final — and turned him into a martyr in...
One of the marks of what Harold Koh calls "bad" American exceptionalism is the way in which the US maintains different — frequently more punitive — standards of criminal procedural justice than the rest of the world. Last month, Adam Liptak kicked off what looks to be an interesting series of articles on just this question with this piece in...
Matt Armstrong, who blogs at MountainRunner, has a thought-provoking guest-post over at Small Wars Journal on the Smith-Mundt Act, which is commonly understood as having intended to prevent blowback of propaganda intended for foreign audiences back into the U.S. Here’s an example from the act concerning the Voice of America (VOA). Section 501(a) of the Act provides thatinformation produced...
Professor Kenneth Anderson announced yesterday that he's taking a break from blogging over at his Law of War and Just War Theory Blog. Although he says he'll continue to post occasionally, the tenor of the message certainly sounds like a good-bye. I'm saddened by that news. I've never met Professor Anderson, but his was one of the...
Bruce Ackerman has this piece in today's LA Times on whether Congress needs to participate in the approval of an agreement with Iraq to govern relations after a US withdrawal. You won't be surprised to hear that he thinks congressional action to be constitutionally required. The Administration is apparently pushing the line that the president can go it...
