Charles Taylor's trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone is set to begin on Monday. The trial, which is expected to last between 12 and 18 months, may not be the trial of the century, but it is certainly a landmark: Taylor is the first president of an African country to be tried for serious international crimes by...
Speaking of "unpeaceful" nations, the U.S. Navy has apparently bombarded a remote, mountainous village in Somalia where Islamic militants had set up a base. As an international legal matter, I believe the U.S. intervention is unproblematic because it was made in cooperation with Somali authorities (this assumes that the "Somali authorities" in question are actually in charge). But maybe I'm wrong...
The Economist Intelligence Unit has released its new "Global Peace Index," which ranks 120 nations according to their relative peacefulness. The organization based the rankings on 24 peacefulness indicators, divided into three categories: (1) measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict, such as the number of external and internal conflicts fought between 2000 and 2005, the estimated number of...
"War is only a regrettable expedient for asserting one's rights by force within a state of nature, where no court of justice is available to judge with legal authority." Immanuel Kant Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch Do you agree or disagree with Kant's statement about war?I agreeI disagreeDon't know Free polls from Pollhost.com ...
The discovery of underseas treasure a few weeks ago would have made a great movie, or at least a Discovery Channel documentary. But, inevitably, the story has moved into the real world and that means: litigation. The government of Spain filed a lawsuit yesterday in U.S. federal court in Florida seeking to assert its ownership rights over the...
In case anyone is interested, I have posted to SSRN an essay that is part of a written symposium in honor of Father Robert Drinan and his book Can God and Caesar Coexist? The symposium also includes essays by professors Elizabeth Defeis and Mark Janis, as well as a responsive essay by Father Drinan, one of his last published pieces....
The U.N. Security Council has narrowly approved the creation of an international criminal tribunal to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. According to the BBC, Lebanon has until June 10 to ratify the tribunal. If there is no ratification by Lebanon, the the tribunal will be created. I have to say I haven't been following...
Well, not much, but even though we don’t often utter the word “law” in the same sentence as “World Bank President,” doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. Especially during a transition in leadership. The World Bank affects the rule of law through its governance initiatives at the domestic level and the web of borrower agreements at the international level. Clinton-era Bank President...
The Ninth Circuit recently issued an opinion in United States v. Smiskin interpreting a treaty with a certain Indian tribe that included an unusual reference to rules of treaty interpretation. The case involved a potential conflict between a treaty right and a statutory prohibition on transporting "unstamped cigarettes" (i.e., untaxed cigarettes). The Yakama Treaty of 1855 guarantees the following...
I've just finished reading Tom Bowers' fascinating — and disturbing — book on the failures of denazification after WWII, Blind Eye to Murder. In the final chapter, Bowers discusses the 1977 kidnapping and eventual murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the wealthy president of the Federation of German Employers and a former SS officer, by the Red Army Faction (RAF). ...
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. Not exactly Memorial Day -- not yet, at least. Today, cultural sites; tomorrow, our federal holidays. Can the black helicopters and global income taxes be far behind? For those of you who want to start your vacation planning, here's the new calendar. ...
The World Bank has a wonderful website called Doing Business that tracks the ease of doing business throughout the world. There is a tremendous amount of useful information that is worth perusing. For example, the top ten easiest places to do business in the world are Singapore, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Denmark,...
