It’s bad enough that residents of Côte d’Ivoire face a continuing civil war with northern rebels, but now comes news of a massive environmental and health crisis in its capital city, Abidjan. Today’s New York Times details how a European-owned tanker’s waste water ended up being dumped in Abidjan suburbs, poisoning its residents. Eight have died and over...
Opinio Juris is pleased to welcome Christopher Le Mon as a guest blogger for the next two weeks. Christopher is currently on assignment at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. He served as a law clerk at the International Court of Justice to Judges Thomas Buergenthal and Vladlen S. Vereshchetin before joining Shearman & Sterling...
The Princeton Project on National Security released its final report last week, entitled Forging a World of Liberty Under Law: U.S. National Security in the 21st Century. Headed up by Anne-Marie Slaughter and John Ikenberry, the project involved more than 400 participants, the list of which reads like a who's who of the new (mostly Democrat) foreign policy establishment....
Here's a recent poll from the Hudson Institute on how Americans view the United Nations. Hudson predictably plays up the negative responses (e.g., 71% believe the UN "needs to be significantly reformed"). But most of those answers were given in response to what look like leading questions (e.g., do you agree with the statement, "[the UN] needs to...
Professor Jide Nzelibe of Northwestern Law School and I have recently posted an article examining the effects of international criminal tribunals on the individuals most likely to be subject to prosecution. We argue that existing scholarship on international criminal tribunals has generally failed to offer a plausible theory of how such tribunals will deter humanitarian atrocities or any...
My blogging will be light this week, as I prepare to participate in an international conference on the Saddam trial at Case-Western. Ken Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, and I will be debating the fairness of the Dujail trial with Michael Scharf and Michael Newton. (Needless to say, Ken and I are on the "no"...
Opponents of the soon-to-be-passed Military Commissions Act establishing procedures for interrogating and trying alleged terrorists have charged that the bill would suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus. I think it would be serious thing to suspend the Writ and I am persuaded that my earlier analysis of Congress' power to suspend the Writ was incomplete and possibly wrong. But...
In an issue near and dear to my heart, the Senate continues to demonstrate its willingness to defer to the Executive Branch on questions of when and how federalism should limit U.S. treaty-making. Last week, the Senate gave its advice and consent to the U.N. Corruption Convention. This multilateral treaty, which entered into force generally in...
Today is a significant day for the selection of the next UN Secretary-General. A third straw poll among the Security Council members occurs today. It appears that South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ban Ki-moon is the choice. The New York Times has interviews of most of the candidates here, and a leading blog covering...
[Opinio Juris Note: Thanks to everyone, especially David Moore, for participating in the online workshop this week. Here is David's last post and the last contribution to what has been a very interesting and useful workshop.] Marty is, of course, right that the issue before the Court in Sosa was not whether all CIL qualifies as federal common law or...
What a difference ten years makes. Leaving aside for a moment the doctrinal analysis, there’s a striking contrast in tone in this article as compared to Curt and Jack’s pathbreaking 1997 piece on CIL and federal common law (also published in the Harvard Law Review, a pdf of which you can find here). That article betrayed a discernible...
Thank you, Peggy, and everyone else for the previous post and your kind comments. I owe any takers to a round of Moldovan wine at the next Opinio Juris Happy Hour...
