This week on Opinio Juris, drone strikes unsurprisingly took center stage. In anticipation of President Obama's speech, Jonathan Horowitz contributed a guest post on their human rights impact and Ken pointed to his new essay arguing the case for drone strikes. Deborah linked to the transcript of the speech here, and pointed to two things she liked about it. Deborah also discussed the White House Fact Sheet on Use...
There's lots of serious international and national security talk to be had today following yesterday's NDU address by President Obama. But, as part of my continuing quest to track international law in popular culture, I offer readers a bit of Friday afternoon levity: 9 Photos of Jennifer Lawrence that will make you Reassess the Scope of the 1986 Vienna Convention on...
Far too much to say for one blog post, so I’ll start with two things I liked about the speech. First, bravo on the President for giving it. Would that he had done it years ago. Indeed, having heard it, it is even more of a puzzle why it took as long as it did. Still,...
Another must-read today from the White House, a one-pager titled "Fact Sheet: U.S. Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities." Here's the link. From the introduction: [T]he President has approved, and senior members of the Executive Branch have briefed to the Congress, written policy standards and procedures that...
An hour long as delivered, and full of substantive content. Transcript is here. ...
Ahead of Barack Obama's speech on national security today, in a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, US Attorney General Eric Holder admitted that the United States has killed four American citizens with drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. The British House of Commons has passed legislation for same-sex marriage; now the bill goes to the House of Lords for a vote. The...
Last December, the U.S. Senate failed to give consent to U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Since the election hasn't really changed the composition of the Senate all that much, I kind of thought this treaty was dead, or at least dormant, for a while here in the U.S. Maybe not! Groups opposed to...
Top officials from India and China met in New Delhi in an effort to ease tensions between the two countries, while a "special envoy" from North Korea visited Beijing in an effort to reinstate some diplomatic ties between the two nations. In related news, Japan has been considering restarting diplomatic talks with Pyongyang, with a focus on the abduction of Japanese...
In the latest twist on the case, Guatemala's highest court has overturned the May 10th genocide conviction against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt and reset his trial back to when a dispute broke out a month ago over who should hear the case. North Korea has released a Chinese fishing boat after having taken it from waters between the two nations. Pakistan's presumptive prime...
A senior Pentagon official told a Senate committee last week that the U.S. would be at war with al-Qaeda for 15 to 20 more years and said the military could target terrorists anywhere under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed in 2001 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. After France won some goodwill throughout Mali during the five-month offensive against...
