In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

12 Apr

Paul Wolfowitz, who, according to an intriguing profile in this week's New Yorker, has made the fight against government corruption a center piece of his tenure as World Bank President, was forced to issue an apology for arranging a job for his "significant other" (a World Bank employee) at the State Department. As the NYTimes reports, Wolfowitz's favorable treatment...

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12 Apr

I have posted a new essay on SSRN, "The Limits of Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute, the First Ecocentric Environmental War Crime." The essay, which is forthcoming in the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, is co-authored with Jessica Lawrence, who graduates from the University of Georgia School of Law next month. Here is the abstract:Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of...

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11 Apr

A new association, the International Network to Promote the Rule of Law(INPROL), was recently formed under the auspices of the US Institute of Peace. INPROL’s mission…is to assist international rule of law specialists in their efforts to prevent conflict and stabilize war-torn societies. An internet-based knowledge network, INPROL provides those serving in the field the ability to exchange information...

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11 Apr

Federal courts are often requested pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782 to assist with discovery in a case before a foreign or international tribunal. Traditionally that has been understood to exclude discovery before international arbitration tribunals. But last week a federal district court cast doubt on that rule. A New Jersey district court in In re Oxus Gold...

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09 Apr

In another sign of how slow the mainstream media moves sometimes, the NYT has an article today discussing an issue that readers of this blog learned about nearly a month ago: the ICJ's strange reluctance to demand access to crucial Yugoslav/Serbian government documents in reaching their judgment in the Bosnia Genocide case. The ICJ's failure to consider such evidence,...

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09 Apr

As Julian has noted (see here and here) a federal district court in Washington D.C. last week has dealt a major blow to claims for damages for alleged torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the importance of the case, I wanted to flesh out the decision a little more and provide my own quick thoughts on the case. ...

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07 Apr

I happened to be perusing the Yale Law School calendar looking for a link to this seminar when it hit me: it's non-stop international law at YLS. In the month of March there was a featured extra-curricular lecture, presentation, or event about international or foreign law at YLS every single school day of the month: March 1: Dean...

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06 Apr

International law is often critiqued for its culture(s) of exclusion--whether it's the ability of sovereign states to shut out NGOs, the move by NGOs to block out Industry Associations, or, on more personal levels, cliques of "in" international lawyers as opposed to those who don't have the right credentials or connections. My colleague Jeff Dunoff has noted one example...

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06 Apr

Nancy Rogers, AALS President and Dean of Ohio State Law School, appears to take the law professor blogging phenomenon seriously. For those, like me, who missed her presidential address at the AALS meeting this January, she focused a large portion of her talk on the challenges and opportunities of "e-scholarship" and blogging. Here is an excerpt: I propose that...

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