One way to build political coalitions for greater use of international law in the U.S. would be to use international law to advance political goals of folks who would otherwise be suspicious of international law. So I wonder if there is some reason to think liberal internationalists would be willing to embrace the argument made in a recent book by...
Here is the letter of the EU Ambassador to the US to Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell protesting the (then) imminent execution of Teresa Lewis, among other international voices attempting to win commutation for the convicted killer. Obviously the effort failed. I'm not sure that there has been any episode in which one can establish a causal link between such international...
Chiara Giorgetti devotes a good part of her book to the reactions of the international community, and the tools available to it, with regard to the lack of a functioning government in Somalia since 1991 and the consequent ripple effects that the failure of functioning governance there has produced on other countries. The example she gives of the management of Somali...
President Obama's UN General Assembly speech this morning highlighted the place of civil society as an agent of progress: Civil society is the conscience of our communities, and America will always extend our engagement abroad with citizens beyond the halls of government. We will call out those who suppress ideas, and serve as a voice for the voiceless....
Chiara's book is quite timely and topical and fills a puzzling gap in international legal studies. The concept of failed state, mostly epitomized by Somalia after 1991, became fashionable in the United Nations in the 1990s as the Security Council discovered its muscles under Chapter VII of the Charter and broadened the notion of threat to the peace to encompass humanitarian...
The AsianSIL has a call for papers for its Third Biennial Conference which will be held August 27-28, 2011 in Beijing. The conference theme is Asia and International Law: A New Era. (Note: no "?" at the end of the theme like a conference organized by hedging U.S. academics. I can say this because I have stuck my share of question...
As President Obama prepares to head up to New York for the UN General Assembly meetings, which this year are focused around the 10 year anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), some stories are starting to appear in the papers about the UN and US relations. Colum Lynch, for example, the Washington Post's UN beat reporter, has an article asking...
The draft Resolution of Ratification for the New START treaty approved last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is now up on Senator Richard Lugar's webpage. It contains all sorts of required certifications, reports, and briefings. I can't tell if any of it is really significant by way of constraint. (Lugar claims in his press release that the required...
Alan Feuer has a very interesting article in today's NY Times about the Analytic Unit of the NYPD's Intelligence Division. Feuer piece explains To bolster counterterrorism operations after 9/11, the Police Department expanded its Intelligence Division — run by David Cohen, a 30-year veteran of the C.I.A. — with detectives who had mainly spent their careers chasing street gangs, drug lords...
Just bumped into Independent Diplomat, "The Diplomatic Advisory Group," while casting around. Along with the Public International Law & Policy Group, this seems to part of what may be the growing phenomenon of private contractor diplomacy, of the non-profit kind. I first noticed the phenomenon in the context of small island states and their use of the Foundation for...
At risk of getting flooded with emails from various publicists in the case, disputing this or that, I point readers to a good summary article of the background dispute, the allegations and responses on the issue of plaintiff lawyer behavior, and a set of new materials that have come out since Roger posted on the July video outtakes a couple...
