In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

17 Apr

[Mark Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law.] Susan Benesch’s VJIL article is timely, thoughtful, and important. She insightfully sets out the catalytic relationship between hate propaganda and genocide. Her comparison of the methodological similarities between the Rwandan and Nazi German contexts is instructive. The mainstreaming of hate-mongering is a condition...

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17 Apr

Many thanks to Opinio Juris for the invitation to blog, to the Virginia Journal of International Law for publishing my article "Vile Crime or Inalienable Right: Defining Incitement to Genocide," and to Mark Drumbl, Chimène Keitner, and Gregory Gordon for commenting. The article argues that incitement to genocide demands keen attention because it is a precursor to genocide, and may be...

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16 Apr

Check out this article from Sunday's Washington Post. It describes a lawsuit by a company employee alledgedly waterboarded by his supervisor and sales teammates as part of a team-building exercise. Even though both the supervisor and the victim/employee disclaim any knowledge that they were involved in waterboarding, the whole event frightens me on multiple levels. First off,...

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16 Apr

Many thanks to Opinio Juris and the Virginia Journal of International Law for hosting the symposium and inviting me to participate, as well as to Kevin Heller for agreeing to comment on my article. The article addresses a fundamental question about the purposes of international criminal trials: Do international criminal trials serve primarily legal purposes, similar to the objectives of domestic...

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15 Apr

Good:The United States military said Monday that it would release an Associated Press photographer who has been jailed in Iraq without trial for two years on accusations of terrorism and kidnapping. The announcement came after two rulings over the previous week by panels of Iraqi judges, who said that the photographer, Bilal Hussein, was covered by an amnesty law and should...

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15 Apr

The checks and refund requests won't only be coming in by domestic mail. The US is one of only a handful of states that subject nonresident citizens to income tax. All nonresident citizens abroad have to file; and those earning more than $85,700 may have to pony up. It can complicate pay packages, as detailed in this...

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15 Apr

Our hope for those who are working to promote the legal concept of odious debt—whatever their political stripe or ecumenical affiliation—is that our exploration of Sack’s life will serve to lessen the focus on Sack and his theory in a way that will redound to the benefit of the movement. The emphasis on Sack’s résumé has had two negative...

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15 Apr

Those of you who follow the literature and debate about odious debts forgiveness have probably noted the frequent mention of Alexander Sack, who is credited with authoring the doctrine of odious debts in his 1927 treatise on the subject of sovereign debt partition: Les Effets des transformations des Etats sur leurs dettes publiques et autres obligations financiers. Sack is...

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