As usual, I’m likely last online to note the now-official news of Harold Koh’s nomination to be Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State. For what it’s worth, we’d seen it coming. If the Senate has any sense, the nomination will sail through. I can’t imagine a candidate more qualified. Congratulations Dean Koh! And now back...
I have received a number of emails from regulars complaining that their comments are being moderated. They are, but not on the basis of their content. Our comment system automatically flags any comment that contains a hyperlink, because spam comments always contain them. We then have to manually approve the non-spam comments, which we try to do as soon as...
Opinio Juris is pleased to welcome back Professor Dan Bodansky as a guest blogger with us over the next two weeks. Dan is currently a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, and his home institution is the University of Georgia Law School where he is the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Woodruff Professor of...
I just can't resist: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: "The Lord of the Rings" and "Atlas Shrugged." One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. Courtesy of...
The Administration’s filing last week of a brief outlining its big-picture view of which Guantanamo detainees may be lawfully detained has sparked a vigorous – and I think productive – debate among international legal experts, human rights lawyers, and listserv participants on and off the blogosphere. So let me take the occasion to throw out a few recent articles/resources relevant...
Duke Law School's Program in Public Law recently started a new blog, Executive Watch. According to the Duke Press release, it will feature "news stories and commentary about executive-branch actions, including executive orders, presidential memos, and signing statements." The blog may be of interest to our readers as, in addition to issues of domestic authority, it will address perennial topics in U.S. foreign...
A reader has left a comment to my previous post in which he alleges that Alex tipped off Bashir that the OPT was going to seek his arrest and speculates that Alex might have promised Bashir to oppose the genocide charges. I have reluctantly left the comment up, because I don't believe that it is my role as a blogger to...
Paul Krugman's Friday column has to weigh heavily on anyone with a 7-year-old boy. The parallels are clear, at least on the back end. Krugman is hardly the first to play the Norman Angell card. Angell's ill-timed proclamation of the end of war in the run-up to the Guns of August figures prominently in the opening chapter...
The Obama Administration selected Friday afternoon (go figure) to release its whammy of a brief on the standard it believes should govern the President’s authority to hold the current Guantanamo detainees. Here’s the key paragraph: The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and...
Last month, I wrote a post about the upcoming Eurovision song competition and European politics. I wanted to point out that the competition will be hosted by (and televised from) Moscow and that the Georgian entry was going to sing a disco song that teases Vladimir Putin called, ahem, "We Don't Wanna Put In." See it performed here. Anyway, in the final paragraph I...
I pass along the following call for panels from the co-chairs of American Branch of the International Law Association's International Law Weekend 2009. The theme, "Challenges to Transnational Governance," is quite timely. I encourage OJ readers to submit proposals and to attend what promises to be a great event. On October 22-24, 2009, the American Branch of the International Law Association...
I was amused to read about the kerfuffle in the UK over the supposedly rude treatment UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife received during his recent White House visit. London newspapers are howling over a string of alleged snubs by Obama to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit to Washington last week — including a squabble over presidential...
