This past Friday I was privileged to host an intimate colloquium at Pepperdine’s Malibu Beach House that brought together a wonderful mix of torts scholars, international law scholars, and practitioners to address the nexus between torts and the Alien Tort Statute. It was an eclectic group, including renown torts experts such as Third Restatement Reporter Michael Green, Anthony Sebok,...
Richard Falk, an eminent professor of international law and politics at Princeton, was expelled from Israel yesterday while he acting as the UN Human Rights Council's special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories. Falk was expelled by Israel because Israel believed his investigation, and indeed the UN Human Rights Council itself, is irredeemably biased against Israel. This is probably...
So long as you did not speak lightly of God, or of the clergy, or of the King, or of the men in power, or of the artists patronised by the court, or of anything established; so long as you did not say anything good of Berenger, or of the opposition press, or of Voltaire, or of Rousseau, or of...
According to Sitemeter we broke the one million visit mark this week. (However, I don't think this metric includes all of you who read this site via a feed, e-mail, etc...
They're not calling it that, but on April 24, 2009, Yale Law School is sponsoring a conference, Realistic Idealism in International Law, in honor of international law-giant W. Michael Reisman. Here's an excerpt from the conference announcement: Professor Reisman is the Myres S. McDougal Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, where he has been on the faculty since 1965....
As you probably know, the hugely distinguished Professor Christopher Greenwood of the LSE has joined the ICJ, thus occasioning the following job notice by the LSE (and many thanks to the great International Law Reports blog): The Department of Law, a world-leading centre for research and teaching in legal studies and interdisciplinary approaches to law, seeks to appoint a new Professor...
The European Journal of International Law has started a blog EJIL:Talk!, which promises to be an influential addition to the international legal blogosphere. In an introductory e-mail, JHH Weiler, the EJIL Editor in Chief wrote: The decision to experiment with a blog – and an experiment it is – was decidedly not a bandwagon effect – they all have it, so should...
After several months of application kept up at every moment, Julien still had the air of a thinker. His way of moving his eyes and opening his lips did not reveal an implicit faith ready to believe everything and to uphold everything, even by martyrdom. It was with anger that Julien saw himself surpassed in this respect by the most...
Douglas Burgess, Jr., has an editorial in today's New York Times arguing that piracy should be considered terrorism in order to facilitate its prosecution. It's an interesting piece, but I have to take issue with the basic premise of his argument: Are pirates a species of terrorist? In short, yes. The same definition of pirates as hostis humani generis could also...
John Fonte had this piece in the National Review just before the election on the Obama's likely posture to international law and international institutions. It very perceptively and succinctly describes the difference between liberal internationalists (think just about everybody before Bush, with the US looking to lead the rest of the world to enlightenment, along with anyone associated with the...
Plaintiffs will apparently appeal yesterday's jury verdict in the Chevron ATS case. In the meantime, as we contemplate a new Administration, it's worth considering, how, if at all, USG views will shift with respect to litigation under the Alien Tort Claims Act (a.k.a. the Alien Tort Statute (ATS)). Although he offered his views in full advocacy mode for...
Chevron wins a big Alien Tort Statute verdict in a case involving its alleged complicity in killings by Nigerian security forces. This is no doubt an important case (though probably not as important at Andrew McCarthy thinks it is -- see "Sovereignty, Vindicated" over at NRO). On the heels of a lower-profile case last year involving Drummond that...
