In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

20 May

Silence from the White House today on how to rationalize continuing participation in Libya operations notwithstanding the expiration of the WPR's 60-day-clock.  I think this is a relatively gutsy move on the Obama Administration's part.  Why go on pretending that section 5(b) of the Resolution poses any constraint on presidential discretion? Unlike his predecessors (Bill Clinton in particular, with his pretty...

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17 May

Many thanks to Duncan for his great post on Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s (DSK) potential immunity, and for inviting me to follow up. My short answer: status-based immunity (often referred to as “diplomatic immunity”) is not available. Conduct-based immunity (also called “official acts” or “functional” immunity) is not available either. Here’s why. The only type of immunity that would benefit DSK would be...

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15 May

A busy week of grading prevented me from addressing Ken's May 6 post on battlefield geography along with the May 6 news that the US conducted a drone attack in Yemen any sooner, but there should be an important take away on the boundaries of the battlefield from the bin Laden operation. An often heard complaint about the US conduct of...

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15 May

A former research assistant of mine writes with news of a conference at Columbia Law School May 23-25 that may be of interest to our readers. I copied the announcement below. More information available here. The Center for Climate Change Law and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are co-sponsoring a conference, "Threatened Island Nations: Legal Implications of a Changing...

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13 May

Please don't make any important international news or events with any international law implications, because we're exhausted from the last week or two, and also we have a lot of papers and exams to grade.  Memo to World:  Don't do anything rash for awhile, while we catch up.  (I'm just back from a week guest-posting at Instapundit, and talk about...

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10 May

I am proud and delighted to report that my former student and current friend, Golriz Ghahraman, has accepted a position as a prosecutor at the ECCC.  I don't think I'm old enough or distinguished enough to have a protege -- but if I am, she's it.  Golriz, who is Iranian-Kiwi, is by far the most gifted student I've ever had,...

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09 May

At The New Yorker blog, a useful discussion of the legal issues in the OBL attack. As Raffi Khatchadourian writes: What was true in Iraq and in the Second World War also applies in the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Targeted air strikes are status-based operations. The drone strikes are status-based operations. Raids conducted by Special Forces to kill key...

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09 May

At the end of my last post I alluded to preemption as an obstacle to receiving an offer. Many times authors will be able to determine for themselves whether their article is novel or whether someone else had the same idea in 1986. Other times information about possibly preempting articles is more asymmetrical. My impression is that there are a...

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08 May

[caption id="attachment_15758" align="alignleft" width="276" caption=" "][/caption]So where are the happiest mothers in the world? According to Save the Children, it's Norway. Norway has the highest ratio of female-to-male earned income, the highest contraceptive prevalence rate, one of the lowest under-5 mortality rate and one of the most generous maternity leave policies in the developed world. The other countries in...

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06 May

If I were the Obama administration, I would be looking to put together an ad hoc task force of senior administration lawyers, led by Harold Koh, to defend the following propositions as matters of law. It is: okay to enter a country that is “unable or unwilling,” [temporarily recall Deeks to DOS] okay to treat it as armed conflict under jus ad...

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