Euan Macdonald of the Transatlantic Assembly has a much more detailed discussion of the Goldsmith memo discussed below. He usefully notes that (1) Goldsmith plainly rejects the U.S. doctrine of preemptive self-defense, at least as articulated by the Bush Administration; and (2) the Goldsmith opinion supports Blair's claim that he did have legal advice assuring him that the Iraq...
The Iraq War, and its legality (which I previously discussed here), continue to excite participants in the UK election campaign. Today, the long-sought legal opinion (or at least parts of it) from Lord Goldsmith, the UK Govt's chief legal advisor, was leaked to the press. (UPDATE: the UK administration has released the full opinion here.)From this side of the pond,...
With all due respect to the hand-wringing over whether “The Interpreter” is too pro-UN (an impossibility in America’s current political climate, but I digress), you guys have missed the boat. Witness this: I’m watching Sesame Street with my daughter this morning and the muppets are in a furor. They can’t agree on who should start singing the Alphabet Song....
Jeff V., an incoming law student, posted a series of questions to a post of Julian’s which can be boiled down as follows (a) does the ICJ have U.S.-styled clerkships and (b) how can someone learn more about careers in international law? Here are some general responses.First, concerning clerkships at the ICJ: the ICJ has not traditionally had...
This interview with a local Ugandan NGO suggests the ICC should back out of its Ugandan investigation (an issue Peggy discussed in more detail here). Here's a key exchange between a reporter from the East African and David Kaiza:Does the ICC risk escalating the [Ugandan] war?The LRA [the Ugandan rebel forces -ed.] are not the kind of people who will...
After bashing the ICJ a bit here, I thought it is only fair that I pass along ways that the ICJ can serve a useful though limited role in the settlement of international disputes.First, Malaysia and Indonesia, last seen sending out naval ships to confront each other over disputed islands, appear willing to consider sending this dispute as well to...
In a comment to Julian’s post on “The Interpreter,” Yuval Rubinstein provided a link to this article on Prof. Cherif Bassiouni of De Paul University Law School being pushed out of his job as the UN’s chief human rights investigator in Afghanistan by the U.S. government. (Thanks also to Greg Fox for separately e-mailing this article as well...
According to the always reliable SCOTUSBlog, the Supreme Court denied certiorari today in Acree v. Iraq, a petition brought by U.S. POWs who had won a judgment against the Government of Iraq for mistreatment during the Gulf War. I blogged about this case, and Prof. John Norton Moore's vehement appeal for Supreme Court cert, here....
According to this (admittedly right-wing) opinion piece, Nicole Kidman's latest movie "The Interpreter" is a piece of shameless pro-UN, pro-ICC propaganda. Now that seems perfectly all right to me, as long as it's a good movie. After all, movies like "Top Gun" and "Behind Enemy Lines" are basically advertisements for the U.S. Navy, so why can't the U.N. give...
Although the U.S. has signed the Law of the Sea Treaty, the U.S. Senate has not yet ratified it and substantial conservative opposition to the treaty continues to loom (as I noted here). Interestingly, the Bush Administration is seeking congressional appropriations for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Seabed Disputes Chamber of that Tribunal,...
While we are thinking about U.N. reform, maybe we should think about reforming or even gutting the U.N.'s chief judicial organ: the International Court of Justice.The ICJ announced this week that it has undertaken certain re-shuffling of its chambers. This appears to be pretty minor stuff (I never even knew they had a chamber for "summary procedure"), but it does...
Ken Anderson has a series of posts on UN reform here that are well worth reading and considering. (Kofi Annan lays out his "in Larger Freedom" agenda in the current Foreign Affairs here.) I plan to post some thoughts of my own later....
