General

Changes in the U.S. News International Law Rankings?

Today, U.S. News & World Report (USN&WR) officially released its 2011 rankings of American law schools.  This, in turn, led the legal blogosphere into its annual love-hate dance with the "overall" rankings--pouring over every move up or down the ladder, while simultaneously denouncing the ranking's methodology and utility.  Lest our readers feel left out, I thought I'd flag the "new" International Law rankings that...

A Response to Ingrid Wuerth

Many thanks to Ingrid Wuerth for her thoughtful response to my Article. I agree with Ingrid that the importance of maintaining a uniform international standard in the interpretation of incorporative statutes may be especially salient in the context of treaties, like the Hague Rules, that address coordination problems.  I disagree, however, that the borrowed ...

A Response to John Coyle by Ingrid Wuerth

[Ingrid Wuerth is a Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University Law School] This Article by John Coyle focuses on U.S. statutes that incorporate treaties into domestic law. As John defines them, incorporative statutes may include implementing legislation for non-self executing treaties, statutes that facilitate the implementation of self-executing treaties, or congressional executive agreements; the key question is whether they give effect...

The Koh Speech and Targeting an American Citizen

Adam Serwer, a journalist and blogger at the American Prospect, makes this observation in a very interesting post (linked in Robert Wright’s NYT Opinionator column) at the American Prospect Tapped blog (via The Progressive Realist).  (My apologies for interrupting the symposium also; I'll take a backseat now!):

State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh’s speech to the American Society of International Law has mostly been read as a justification of the administration’s use of drone strikes against suspected al-Qaeda targets. With the news that the Obama administration has targetedAmerican-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki for death, I went back to Koh’s explanation for why the drone strikes are legal. It seems to me that his arguments could possibly double as a justification of the government’s authority to kill al-Awlaki without due process.

Serwer then walks back through the text of Legal Adviser Koh’s speech, applying the language about drones to the targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki.  He concludes that it could be seen as a justification for that as well.  I think that’s right, and a good observation.  

Whale Wars May Finally End? The U.S. Tries to Make a Deal

Apologies for this interruption of a great VJIL discussion on Chris Bruner's fascinating article, but I can't resist yet another post on the continuing international dispute over whaling.  The NYT reports the U.S. is trying hard to broker a deal between the anti-whaling nations (read Australia) and whaling nations like Japan. The compromise deal, which has generated intense controversy within the...

A Response to Brian Cheffins

Many thanks to Professor Cheffins for his thoughtful response, in which he highlights an important challenge in evaluating the degree of shareholder-centrism in differing corporate governance systems—the difficulty of quantifying the impact of varying legal strategies for protecting shareholders’ interests. In this reply to the issues raised by Professor Cheffins, I distinguish various metrics of shareholder-centrism and consider the degree...

A Response to Christopher Bruner by Brian Cheffins

[Professor Brian Cheffins is the S.J. Berwin Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law] As Prof. Bruner points out in his insightful Article, in the literature on comparative corporate governance, there is a tendency to treat the United States and the United Kingdom as being very similar across key dimensions. He shows convincingly that in fact...

Robert Wright Is Very Unhappy with Drone Warfare

I am unable to say much at this moment, either to Kevin's question below or to this Robert Wright "Opinionator" blog post in the New York Times, but I did want to flag it for your attention.  Wright is unhappy with both drone warfare and targeting of US citizens, and many other things besides: Students of the law might raise a...

Washington Post Praises Harold Koh Statement on Drones

The Washington Post editorializes today in praise of Legal Adviser Koh's statement on drones in his speech to ASIL on March 25.  It specifically focused on the self-defense distinction in the statement: Mr. Koh's reaffirmation of the right to self-defense -- even outside the confines of an existing armed conflict -- is particularly important. The Authorization for the Use of Military Force...

The Latest EU-Greek Bailout and Liquidity Risk

Treat liquidity risk and runs on institutions as fundamentally a question of lack of information - the lack of information on the underlying financial solvency prompting flight from uncertainty.  In that case, the question following the announcement in the press yesterday of the Greek-EU bailout is not so much what it signals about liquidity, as instead what contribution it will...

Let’s Call Killing al-Awlaki What It Is — Murder

The Obama administration has been savagely criticized for authorizing the CIA to use lethal force against Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen who is allegedly a member of al-Qaeda in Yemen.  Glenn Greewald, for example, has described the decision -- justifiably -- as "unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical."  To date, however, critics have ignored what I think is perhaps the most important...

Garzon Formally Charged for Exceeding Jurisdiction, Could Be Suspended Within Days

We knew this was coming, but still it is a big deal: MADRID — The Spanish judge who became an international hero by going after Augusto Pinochet and Osama bin Laden was indicted Wednesday for having dared to investigate what is arguably Spain's own biggest unresolved case: atrocities committed during and after its ruinous Civil War. Baltasar Garzon was charged with knowingly...