General

Last week, the good folks at the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society hosted a book roundtable on Taming Globalization.  In addition to John Yoo and myself, we were joined in a very lively discussion by Prof. Martin Flaherty of Fordham and Prof. Jeremy Rabkin of George Mason (with Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post as moderator).  While John...

One of the most popular arguments made against the Second Circuit's interpretation of the Alien Tort Statute in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell is essentially a policy argument: How could it be possible for Congress to have intended to allow corporations to immune from claims of serious international law violations while at the same time allowing individuals to be liable?   This...

This is our third installment of this new feature, last week's announcements can be found here. If you are organizing a conference or other event and would like to see the call for papers or the program announced on Opinio Juris please contact us. Calls for Papers The Helsinki Summer Seminar on International Law is planned for August 21-30, 2012 in Helsinki, Finland. The theme...

Continuing on last week’s discussion of the CIA’s General Counsel Speech, Ken Anderson posted about Daniel Klaidman’s guest post on Lawfare discussing the genesis of this speech. Another speech attracting attention was Deborah Pearlstein's discussion of a dinner talk by General Michael Haydn, CIA Director under George W. Bush, on interrogation and common article 3. If you’re losing track of...

I don't actually mean to express an editorial view here - my views on the role of social media, I've decided, are too mixed up for me to write a coherent post.  But I did think this was funny.  Thanks to my friend and colleague Juan Mendez and his ...

Anti-government protests (which forced the cancellation of last year's event) occurred at the start of the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix. The US Congress has communicated its intent to repatriate Canadian Guantanamo detainee, Omar Khadr, according to the NY Times. Abu Qatada has appealed the European Court of Human Rights' decision to allow his deportation to Yemen, but the UK Government claims that...

In case anyone finds it useful, over at Lawfare I have posted up links all in one place to the leading speeches by the US government’s senior national security lawyers on targeted killing, hypothetical drone programs, covert action, and related national security law issues - Harold Koh (DOS), Jeh Johnson (DOD), Eric Holder (DOJ), Stephen Preston (CIA) – and one by non-lawyer but...

UN is examining claims that China broke sanctions against North Korea. South Sudan has become the International Monetary Fund's 188th member. Sudan has threatened war against South Sudan. Spain wants the EU to file a World Trade Organization (WTO) complaint against Argentina for nationalizing 51% of Spain's Repsol's stake in oil company YPF. The US has condemned the nationalization. Colombia has sent a letter to...

I had the pleasure of attending a terrific conference at Duke this past weekend, hosted by the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. My panel addressed perennial questions about whether the courts should defer to the executive on questions of national security (on which more than you want here), but there were terrific sessions on, among other things, lessons...

If last week's post about  ASIL's 2nd Annual Research Forum at the University of Georgia Law School on October 20-21 was too short notice, don't despair. We have been informed that the deadline has been extended until Monday, April 23. The Research Forum, a Society initiative introduced in 2011, aims to provide a setting for the presentation and focused discussion of...