Steve Ratner has a nice turn at the "Think Again" column in the latest Foreign Policy (teaser here - let this be a good reason to subscribe). Steve takes on various elements of the popular conventional wisdom on the Geneva Conventions, including the line that they are obsolete:The conventions won’t prevent wars—they were never intended to—but they can and...
This among his useful suggestions as to how to fix the errors of Bush in anti-terror policy in a Slate column last week:• Work with allies to establish an international legal framework for terrorists. Last week, John McCain called for a "new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control." This is a good idea, not because...
Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway had this op-ed in Saturday's WaPo arguing that congressional authorization for the Iraq deployment will expire with official the UN mandate for the multinational force come January 1, 2009. The piece works from the limitation in Congress' 2002 joint resolution approving the use of force only to "(1) defend the national security of the...
Russia's lower house of Parliament has passed a resolution denying that the Soviet Union committed "genocide" in Ukraine during the 1930s. The resolution states: "There is no historical proof that the famine was organized along ethnic lines. Its victims were million of citizens of the Soviet Union, representing different peoples and nationalities living largely in agricultural areas of the...
Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski declared in a speech today that the First Amendment is dead. In a keynote speech entitled “The Late, Great First Amendment” given at a Pepperdine Law Review symposium, Kozinski offered a detailed analysis of the consequences of the Internet age for First Amendment jurisprudence. I’m sure that Eugene Volokh, Jack Balkin and...
For those interested in international arbitration, the ASIL and the Institute for Transnational Arbitration will be hosting a one-day conference on Wednesday, April 9 in Washington, D.C. The topic is "Soft Law Instruments in International Arbitration." The schedule is available here. Plenty of big names from the world of international arbitration, including David Caron, Michael Reisman, James...
The ICTY has acquitted Ramush Haradinaj, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and a former Kosovo prime minister, of committing war crimes during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict with Serbia. (Official press release is here). In giving its judgment, the ICTY Chamber went out of its way to complain about how many witnesses for the prosecution were...
Please join us for a reception at the ASIL to celebrate our new partnership with Oxford University Press. The wine and cheese reception will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 10. Information about the reception is available here. We are very excited about our partnership with OUP, the details of which we will...
Here is a key excerpt from pages 36-39 of the March 2003 "Torture" Memorandum: Section 2340 defines the act of torture as an: act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody...
Is government in opposition a welcome addition to our separation of powers choices? There are a series of issues to be considered. First of all, it responds to the problem that all systems of government have—-presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary—-the problem of the very successful politician and eventual unconstrained democratic leader. If a political figure or political party is very popular,...
The American Branch of the International Law Association will again hold its annual International Law Weekend in New York, featuring numerous panels, a distinguished keynote speaker, receptions, and the Branch’s annual meeting. International Law Weekend 2008 will take place on October 16-18, 2008, at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The Weekend’s overall...
