For those following the developments in the Haiti Cholera Case, the transcript of the October 23, 2014 Oral Argument is now available. It can be accessed here: Oral Argument_Cholera Case 10.23. For my takeaway on this important hearing, please see my recent blog here. Perhaps not surprisingly, the hearing garnered significant coverage in the main stream press. At least one article suggested...
Huge news coming from the White House last night and today: the President will ask Congress for specific authorization for military action against ISIS. This is a welcome development. The White House had previously argued that military action against ISIS was already authorized under the 9/11 AUMF, the Iraq AUMF, or some combination of both. None of these arguments was particularly convincing....
Here is the question: are there any norms governing how many potential supervisors a student looking to apply for a PhD can or should approach? I get a few emails expressing interest in my supervision each month, and they generally fall into three categories: (1) proposals that are clearly directed toward me, because they discuss my work and propose topics I've written about;...
Recent news reports indicate that the Defense Department is negotiating with members of Congress over plans to augment its Defense Intelligence Agency with a Defense Clandestine Service with about 500 undercover officers. The previous proposal had called for about 1000 officers in the clandestine service, but that proposal was met with substantial criticism. This is a major development. There are multiple...
Transcript of today's argument here. Scalia, Roberts, and Alito are siding with petitioner (and Congress), Kagan and Sotomoyor are with the Government. Breyer, Ginsburg, and Kennedy didn't tip their hands clearly one way or the other. A lot of speech-related framings. Zivotofsky's lawyer argued that allowing "Israel" as a choice for those born in Jerusalem is a matter of self-identification. Kagan...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The army takeover in Burkina Faso after President Blaise Compaore's resignation has prompted protests in the capital and international condemnation. Burkina Faso's army cleared thousands of protesters from the capital and opened fire at state TV headquarters on Sunday, killing one person, as it sought to restore order...
This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Jens predicted that the Ebola crisis will become a Chapter VII issue at the UN. The theme of the UN and diseases continued in Kristen's update on a hearing on the UN’s Privileges and Immunities in the Haiti Cholera case. In other UN news, she summarized some of the issues discussed at a meeting on the Security Council's...
Everyone is ramping up for Monday's Supreme Court argument in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, with notable entries from Jack Goldsmith on Lawfare, Marty Lederman on Just Security, and Eugene Kontorovich on Volokh. They have been debating a narrow doctrinal basis (suggested by the SG and pressed by Jack) for striking down the law as a kind of passport regulation beyond Congress'...
Paul Barrett gave a talk earlier this week at Temple on his Law of the Jungle. It's a terrific journalistic account of the epic 20-year battle over Chevron's pollution of Ecuador's rain forest. For anyone with a vague awareness of the case the book supplies a highly readable cheat-sheet. I suspect like many with incidental interests in international law, I had...
The UN Ombudsperson’s office currently has jurisdiction over the 1267 sanctions regime, but the discrepancy between the due process afforded to individuals affected by that regime as opposed to other regimes has long been noted: individuals listed under the various sanctions regimes applicable to situations in Africa, and the Weapons of Mass Destruction regimes applicable the situations in Iran and...
In observance of United Nations Day on October 24, China's foreign minister Wang Yi issued a long statement expressing China's view of itself as a "staunch defender and builder of international law" (Chinese version here). As China-watchers know, China's Communist Party has just completed its "Fourth Plenum" (sort of a Party leadership strategy meeting) on the theme of the promotion of...
An interesting and significant hearing on the UN’s Privileges and Immunities in the Haiti Cholera case took place on Thursday morning, October 23, in the Southern District of New York. For plaintiffs, the hearing was a milestone because it represented the first time that they have had the opportunity to argue any aspect of their case regarding the cholera epidemic...
