In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

19 Nov

The Asian Society of International Law announces the "Second Biennial General Conference of the Asian Society of International Law," at the University of Tokyo, August 1-2, 2009, which takes up the important issue of Asia’s relationship with the international legal order under the main theme of “International Law in a Multi-polar and Multi-civilizational World – Asian Perspectives, Challenges and Contributions.” The...

|
19 Nov

Despite the title of his post, I do not read Chris Borgen as a natural law skeptic! He accepts the existence of norms and principles that must be explained by theories other than positivism. He is just skeptical about the standard approach to explaining the source of natural law, namely, the use of the concept of the common...

|
18 Nov

At risk of distracting us too soon from the merits vel non of natural law, I wanted to take up another piece of Mary Ellen’s account – namely, her fairly positive outlook on the prospects of domestic court enforcement of international law. Despite the subject matter’s placement in the very last chapter of the book, Mary Ellen I think rightly notes:...

|
18 Nov

In working through an explanation for the source of international law’s authority in the international community, Mary Ellen O’Connell describes the important role of positive law but also shows its limits. For example, it is very hard to imagine a serious contention that it is somehow possible to legalize genocide or slavery through the mere fact of enacting positive law....

|
16 Nov

Julien fell asleep, dreaming of honors for himself and human rights for everyone else. (The Red and the Black, vol 2, chapter 39, 'The Ball'.  The translation is a little loose, but captures the contemporary sense pretty well, wouldn't you say?  More traditionally: "Julien fell asleep, dreaming of honors for himself and liberty for everyone else."  The original ...

|
15 Nov

The State Department has posted John Bellinger's recent speech at the Fletcher School on international criminal justice.  It is well worth a read, because it quite rightly highlights the US's many important contributions -- past and present -- to international criminal justice.  That said, the speech regrettably dusts off all of the US's tired objections to the ICC: not giving...

|
15 Nov

In case you're tired of stodgy old international law, you might want to check out a new blog written by Jay Wexler, a professor at B.U., a leading law and religion scholar, and -- far more importantly -- a friend of mine from law school.  I've tried to think of how to capture the cleverness of Jay's writing, but for...

|
11 Nov

Adding to the fortune-telling articles concerning the policies of the incoming Obama Administration, the Wall Street Journal states that the current administration's policies will go through the transition "largely intact."  However, I think it is just too early to tell. The WSJ article begins: President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that...

|
11 Nov

Turns out rumors of a new Obama Administration-developed security court may have been greatly exaggerated – or at least premature. The blogosphere was briefly abuzz yesterday after an AP wire story in the morning reported that some of the Guantanamo detainees “might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to [unnamed]...

|
10 Nov

Critics of the U.S. war on terrorism often deride it as a bad metaphor or an excuse to conduct controversial detentions, interrogations and military trials.  But what the Pentagon refers to as the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) has many of the characteristics of a typical armed conflict, even outside of the main battlefield in Afghanistan.  As the NYT reports: The...

|