Kevin Jon Heller kicked us off this week with posts about the ICC’s report regarding Gaddafi’s situation in Libya and the infighting at the ICC between the Prosecutor and Libyan authorities. He also added a post about the OPCD report outlining Saif Gaddafi’s attitude about the ICC. Peter Spiro previewed the Arizona SB-1070 immigration case before the Supreme Court, discussing why...
ECOWAS will dispatch troops to both Mali and Guinea-Bissau in order to swiftly reinstate civilian rule after recent coups. In a Reuters exclusive, the US Senate, after a three-year investigation, is expected to find that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used failed to yield counterterrorism breakthroughs. As a result of ongoing clashes between Sudan and South Sudan, the United States has circulated a...
The Special Court for Sierra Leone gave its verdict today in the Charles Taylor case. The Court found Taylor criminally responsible for aiding and abetting on all 11 counts in the indictment. The Court found that the prosecution failed to prove individual criminal responsibility (no effective control over the RUF) and joint criminal enterprise. Sentencing is scheduled for May 30th. Our Kevin...
I don't have much to add to Peter's pithy and insightful take on the Supreme Court's oral argument today in Arizona v. United States. I just wanted to emphasize the difficulty the federal government had in advancing, even rhetorically, its view that the federal government has an "exclusive" role in the management of immigration policy and foreign affairs. Solicitor General...
Transcript of today's argument before the Supreme Court here. Not a lot of fireworks. The key takeaway: the Court (including some on the left) didn't seem to have much problem with section 2 of the Arizona law, which requires law enforcement to undertake immigrant status determinations in the course of stops or arrests where there is reasonable suspicion that a person...
US authorities have arrested the first suspect in the BP oil spill case for allegedly destroying evidence linked to the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Pakistan has successfully tested a nuclear-capable intermediate range ballistic missile, approximately a week after India did the same. The International Criminal Court is closely monitoring the situation in Mali, following the surge in violence since January. While...
I couldn't resist posting this rather scary video of a girl swallowed by a sidewalk sinkhole in Xi'an China. Sure, this doesn't mean China won't be a key and influential power in world affairs. But it does remind us that China is not exactly the inevitable global juggernaut it is sometimes portrayed as. This is actually not the first time...
My earlier post on executive power generated some good, thoughtful comments. I wanted to highlight Charlie Savage’s in particular (he’s the author of the New York Times article I’d mentioned, please see his comment in the section below), and take a moment to offer a few thoughts in response. Charlie’s concerns are basically twofold. The first is that I’m...
Charlie Savage’s odd article in yesterday’s New York Times prompted another exchange in the ongoing conversation about whether the Obama Administration’s assertions of executive power can be meaningfully distinguished from those of George W. Bush. Savage’s article is headlined in such a way, and otherwise seems to suggest that Obama’s recent reliance on executive orders to accomplish various policy changes...
South Sudan has recognized a market bombing allegedly carried out by Sudan as an "act of war." Meanwhile, Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir has ruled out peace talks that have been urged by the UN with its neigbor to the south, with plans to only recognize the language of "guns and bullets" instead. The ECHR Blog has a roundup of the outcomes from last weekend's Brighton Conference on...
I've got an op-ed in the NY Times today on the SB 1070 case, the title of which might have been "Let Arizona Law Die a Natural Death." In 750 words there wasn't room to engage the key doctrinal foreign relations elements of the case. This is central to the Obama Administration's case against the law: Immigration inherently implicates foreign...
Our own Peter Spiro has penned an op-ed in the NY Times about the upcoming arguments at the Supreme Court about Arizona's controversial immigration bill, SB-1070. Peter has posted on OJ about it here. Territorial disputes between China and Taiwan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei may escalate based on Chinese development firms jockeying for position in the disputed islands. Despite tensions, China has lauded...
