Thanks to Ken for posting the link to Jeh Johnson’s important speech below, and bravo to Jeh Johnson for saying it aloud. In addition to the central passage Ken highlights, I might add this from Johnson’s speech (to reiterate, Johnson is General Counsel to the U.S. Department of Defense). “War” must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of...
Quick note further to Deborah's post on the "end-game" of the current US counterterrorism regime. In category of great minds think about the same things, if not precisely alike, the same day Deborah posts, Defense Department General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson gives a speech at the Oxford Union, “The Conflict Against Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: How Will It End?” Ben...
If you haven’t already seen it, it’s worth taking a look at this morning’s editorial in the New York Times about the Administration’s targeted killing program. The editorial follows on a series of articles in recent weeks, including the Times’ own report that the Administration was in a scramble pre-election to codify (in some form) internal processes for deciding...
As expected, the UN General Assembly Resolution granting non-member state status to Palestine passed on Thursday. Israel's UN ambassador has called it a "reward for terrorism". This article compares the votes of the European nations on Palestine's UNESCO membership last year, and this year's vote, and concludes that European support shifted towards the Palestinian authority. Private Bradley Manning took the stand...
The UNGA is expected to recognize Palestine as a "non-member" state during a vote today. Following massive protests earlier this week in Cairo, the Assembly drafting the new Egyptian Constitution has vowed to publish, and vote on, a draft today. The US is considering options to intervene more strongly in the Syrian conflict, while the EU has renewed its sanctions for another...
In Syria, rebel forces have for the first time downed a government helicopter using a surface-to-air missile they acquired during the recent capture of an army base. The EU is reviewing its sanctions on Syria, and the UK, with France's backing, is arguing for a review every three months to make it easier to arm the opposition. The head of the Palestinian...
At almost the same moment that Human Rights Watch/Harvard Law School Human Rights Clinic released its report, "Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots," which called for states to establish a treaty that would prohibit the "development, production, and use" of "fully autonomous weapons," the Pentagon (under Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter's signature) issued a DOD Directive, "Autonomy in Weapons...
Australia will abstain in the upcoming UN vote on whether to grant non-member state status to Palestine. The body of Yasser Arafat will be exhumed in Ramallah today, to determine whether his death was the result of polonium poisoning. Ehud Barak, Israel's Minister of Defence, has announced his retirement from politics. A map of China on new Chinese passports is controversial with its...
Human Rights Watch has released a new report (co-authored by the Harvard Law School Human Rights Clinic) on autonomous weapons systems that might emerge over the next several decades, titled "Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots." The report calls for a multilateral treaty that would preemptively ban "development, production, and use" of fully autonomous weapons by all states. It...
Spain is now granting citizenship automatically without any residency requirement to those who can demonstrate descent from those Jews expelled from Spain more than 500 years ago. The rule could make as many as 3 million Sephardic Jews worldwide eligible for Spanish citizenship (600,000 of them in the United States, including a number who identify as Hispanic). The details remain...
The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change kicks off today in Doha, Qatar, for a last ditch effort to negotiate new emission reductions before the current ones expire at the end of the year. The Guardian has an article about what to expect. The BBC has an article about Mahmoud Abbas'...
Posting was light this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. We hope all our US readers had a very happy Thanksgiving holiday! Peter Spiro commented on the territorialist approach in Obama's speech on citizenship during this week's visit to Burma. Deborah Pearlstein posted about the ABA's recent journalists' guide on national security law, to which she contributed a chapter...
