Although it gets us a bit far afield from the focus of Opinio Juris, I'm going to follow Roger and Julian's lead and blog briefly regarding the Padilla indictment. (Yes, I'm still here. Sorry to have been so quite the past two weeks, but I do plan to be more active in the days ahead!)Many months ago, there was considerable...
A copy of the Padilla indictment is available from ABC news here. The blogosphore is abuzz with the news. Discussion can be found at SCOTUSblog here, Prawfblawgs here, and Balkinization here.I'm a little surprised by the reaction I've seen so far. Isn't this somewhat analogous to the Bush Administration's response in Medellin? In that case at the last minute the...
The Washington Post is reporting that Jose Padilla, the alleged dirty bomber held for three years as an "enemy combatant", has been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring to commit terrorist attacks overseas. Interestingly, the indictment does not include the "dirty bomb" charges that were the basis for Padilla's detention as an enemy combatant. The obvious reason...
There is a wonderful story in the Washington Post yesterday about Brad Pitt becoming immersed in the intricacies of international trade. Pitt is fast becoming an outspoken advocate for Africa, and he is coming to realize how central trade is to that agenda.The tutorial was sponsored by a group called DATA (debt, AIDS, trade, Africa) established by U2 lead singer...
Creighton University School of Law has recently been awarded a $750,000 U.S. government grant to create a "a working model to establish a bilateral U.S.-Cuba property claims tribunal." The goal is to have this model in place, along with others, for eventual use to ease Cuba's post-Castro transition to democracy.The grant to Creighton has already been the subject of some...
Professor John Barrett at St. John's has reminded me that sixty years ago today Justice Robert Jackson, Chief Counsel for the United States, appeared before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal and made his opening statement. Jackson's speech is one of the greatest in the modern era of international law.The opening statement began as follows:"The privilege of opening the first trial in...
The European Court of Human Rights last week upheld Turkey's refusal to allow an adult Muslim woman the right to wear a hijab (female headscarf) to graduate school. The case is available here and the press release summarizing the case is here. In the case of Şahin v. Turkey, the claimant was a medical student at Istanbul University who came...
This hilarious video of two Chinese students lip-syncing the Backstreet Boys reminds me for the zillionth time how technology and globalization is changing China in ways we can't even imagine. President Bush, currently in Beijing, might want to take notice. Of course, the real value of this video is not its social-political significance. It's just downright hilarious and...
Thanks to Roger for pointing out this interesting poll. Here's another tidbit. The U.N.'s favorability rating among the general public continues to fall rather dramatically and pretty widely among all demographic groups, even as public support for the war in Iraq continues toi fall. Here is an excerpt from the report's section on the U.N.The public's view of the United...
A fascinating poll on "America's Place in the World" was just published by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (available here). The poll surveyed the general American public as well as opinion leaders in eight major categories. There is loads of information in the poll, but while we are on the subject of torture, it is...
Philippe Sands is at it again. In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, available here, Sands appears to be publicly pushing his idea that David Addington, John Yoo, and others he describes as "higher in the administration's hierarchy" (read: someone higher than the V.P.'s chief of staff!) should think twice about travelling abroad or they might...
Last month the WTO issued a decision (available here) in favor of the United States regarding the illegality of Mexico's beverage tax. According to the USTR press release, under the Mexican tax, "soft drinks made with imported sweeteners, such as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and beet sugar, are subject to a 20 percent tax on their sale and distribution. Beverages...
