In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

23 Jan

All Things Considered ran an interview this past Monday with Alex Fowler, the chief privacy officer of Mozilla (developer of the Firefox web browser), stemming from a blog post Fowler had written critiquing President Obama’s speech last week concerning NSA activities. When asked about the “most glaring reform needs” that were not addressed in the President’s speech, Fowler said: right now,...

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22 Jan

Posting has been a bit light lately and will continue to be light for a while, because I am in the process of relocating to London. If you would like to contact me, please use my new SOAS email address: kh33@soas.ac.uk. I am not sure how long I will be able to get emails at my Melbourne address....

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22 Jan

[Farshad Ghodoosi is a JSD candidate at Yale Law School.] In continuation of the discussion about the New Iranian Deal started by Duncan Hollis, I decided to take a stab at clarifying the Iranian side of the story.  The new deal, the so-called Geneva Agreement (24 Nov. 2013) and the ensuing implementation agreement (that took effect on Jan 20th, 2014), between...

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20 Jan

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa A senior UN official has given warning of the risk of genocide in the Central African Republic without a more robust international response to communal bloodshed in which at least eight more people have died. The EU is expected to send troops to help stabilize the situation. The UN...

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18 Jan

In the past fortnight on Opinio Juris, Kevin wasn't convinced by the Muslim Brotherhood's argument that can accept the ICC's jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis because it is still Egypt's legitimate government. He also discussed the OTP's motion to challenge Rule 134quater and the Trial Chamber's decision to conditionally excuse Ruto from continuously attending his trial in The Hague. Julian gave the US...

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17 Jan

From the third paragraph of President Obama's implementation of surveillance reforms (Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-28). [O]ur signals intelligence activities must take into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside, and that all persons have legitimate privacy interests in the handling of their personal information. The primary operative provision of the...

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16 Jan

The American Journal of International Law has posted electronic excerpts from its "Agora: Reflections on Kiobel", which will be published in its next issue.  As a contributor to the AJIL Agora myself, I was fascinated to see the different takes that everyone had on the decision.  For the most part, contributors seem to read Kiobel the same way: as sharply cutting...

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14 Jan

Excited to see news of a new blog by former National Institute of Military Justice head Gene Fidell on military justice systems worldwide. Here's a description: Developments in the field of military justice have been coming at an extraordinary pace for the last several years, both in the United States and around the world. Some of these developments have been...

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13 Jan

Last week at the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) annual conference I had the honor of speaking on a panel on UN Law Making, with Mahnoush Arsanjani, formerly of the UN Secretariat, Kimberly Prost, Ombudsperson for the Al Qaida sanctions regime, and Pablo Castillo-Diaz, of UN Women.  A summary of the matters discussed by the panel is available here. Our...

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13 Jan

Well, it's not exactly a secret treaty in the sense that yesterday, the news wires were abuzz about the fact that the United States, Iran and five other world powers concluded an agreement to implement Iran's earlier November deal on its nuclear program.  But, what's being held back is the actual text of the deal.  There's not many details (the...

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13 Jan

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Negotiators are still trying to reach a peace deal in South Sudan. Asia China has destroyed more than 6 tonnes of illegal ivory in a bit to discourage poaching. China and Japan have resorted to naming each other Voldemort in the latest discussion over PM Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni...

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10 Jan

Put the words “Al Qaeda” in a news headline, and you inevitably conjure a very particular idea in the mind of the American reader. “Al Qaeda” is the group that attacked the United States on 9/11. The group led by Osama bin Laden (now led, some might recall, by his successor, Ayman Zawahiri). The group we’ve been at...

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