General

Eyes on Spies

Over the weekend, I read Amy B. Zegart’s new short book, Eyes on Spies, which deals with the persistent failures of Congress to engage in effective intelligence oversight.  (The book is in a Hoover Institution Press series that features short books — brisk and brief, readable in a single plane flight — focused on a single topic.)  I think the book is excellent and here is my review. A short bit:

“Primeval Anarchy” … I Didn’t Write This

Via The Multilateralist, a speech by Shiv Shankar Menon, a former Indian foreign minister and senior security official: "[W]hile domestic societies have evolved or are evolving towards rule of law, international society is still much closer to primeval anarchy...

BU Law School’s “Ten Years In” Conference

Congratulations to Professor Robert Sloane and BU Law School for a fine conference yesterday, “Ten Years In: Appraising the International Law of the ‘Long War’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” The conference was co-sponsored by the ASIL Lieber Society and the Naval War College. Update: Peter Margulies contributed a terrific summary of the panel sessions, posted here at Lawfare. The first panel addressed the future of COIN, and it included Professor Andrew Bacevich — not a lawyer, of course, and instead speaking as a well-known strategist, and lending an important interdisciplinary voice.  He offered a blistering critique of COIN (and pretty much every other strategic option as well, including counterterrorism via drones, I should add).  I was part of the second panel, on targeted killing and drones.  Michael Schmitt of the Naval War College offered a vigorous defense of drones as being essentially like any other weapon system, and on this occasion, at least, it was interesting to see how much agreement there was between him and Human Rights First’s Gabor Rona.

China’s Security Council Diplomacy

David Bosco, my American University colleague and author of the always interesting The Multilateralist blog at Foreign Policy, has posted an interview between him and Joel Wuthnow (Princeton’s China and the World Program) on China’s diplomacy at the UN Security Council.  Among many interesting exchanges, this comment on China’s overall role in the world: The mainstream thinking in Beijing is that China should avoid...

A Fair-Minded Non-American Legal Analysis of the Bin Laden Killing

I want to draw readers attention (if they haven't already seen it) to this excellent discussion of the international legality of the Bin Laden killing by Alon Margalit over at EJIL Talk!.  It is particularly instructive for Americans to get a better sense of the non-US views on the Bin Laden killing. It notes that the nearly uniform State support for...

Should the U.S. Offer Condolences for Drone Attacks?

Interesting story out of Charlotte, N.C. about the family of Samir Khan, one of the U.S. citizens killed in the drone attack on Awlaki last week. (h/t Michael Rubin) An official from the U.S. State Department has called the Charlotte family of al-Qaida propagandist Samir Khan to offer the government's condolences on his death in a U.S. drone attack last week...

A Response to Kevin Heller (Part 2)

In a prior post, I responded to some of Kevin Heller’s criticism of the professors' amicus brief recently filed in the Nestle ATS case.  Specifically, that post addressed issues arising from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.  Here I’ll take up Kevin’s criticism based on rulings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). To frame the...

A Response to Kevin Heller on Doe v. Nestle

Thanks to Kevin Heller for his thoughts on the professors’ amicus brief in Doe v. Nestle USA, Inc., and to Opinio Juris for affording me this opportunity to respond.  I should say at the outset that I’m making this response only in my personal capacity, not on behalf of any litigant or amicus.  While I appreciate the passion Kevin brings to...

John Yoo Gives Partial Endorsement for Awlaki Memo

John Yoo, not surprisingly, has some thoughts on the leaked secret memo on Awlaki.(sorry forgot to link his full post earlier). Let’s give partial credit where it is due.  Apparently the Obama administration argues that al-Awlaki was a legitimate target because he is a member of an enemy engaged in hostile conduct against the United States.  At least Obama has figured...

UCLA Law Forum on the ICC – Prevention Discussion Topic

UCLA Law School's Sanela Daniela Jenkins Human Rights Project has a special joint online forum with the ICC office of the prosecutor, which is currently running commentary on the question of prevention, and how the ICC can maximize its crime prevention impact.  It features contributions from a variety of experts from a variety of perspectives - Tomer Broude, Bill Burke-White,...

How Lawyers are Ruining US CyberWar Defenses

Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary of Homeland Security during the Bush Administration, has this very powerful and clear explanation of how legal rules are weakening U.S. defenses against a cyber attack. Note the slam on using international law rules to regulate cyber war. (h/t Vincent Vitowsky). Across the federal government, lawyers are tying themselves in knots of legalese. Military lawyers are trying...