The Kiobel oral arguments have spawned lots of media coverage and commentary. I think this matters more than usual because the way this case plays out in the court of public opinion is going to have an effect on the justices. For instance, Dahlia Lithwick at Slate concludes that.. The skepticism of the court’s conservative bloc notwithstanding, this is a case...
Here is the second round of my exchange with Professor David Weissbrodt over at Pointoflaw. I begin by citing the following exchange during Kiobel's oral argument yesterday. SULLIVAN: ...
[Chimène Keitner is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.] The oral arguments in Kiobel and Mohamed will doubtless generate a new round of commentary on these cases. A “quick response” panel is planned for Thursday, followed by a Georgetown Law symposium on March 27 and an ASIL annual meeting panel on March 31. Since I...
... from this morning's hearing: Kiobel and Mohamad. I would be curious as to readers' prognostications of how the Justices will rule based on the oral arguments today. (Thanks for comments, interested in more. For example, where did this extraterritoriality question suddenly materialize from and does it portend something different from what was originally thought? You can also see John...
[Juan E. Méndez is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and a Professor at American University Washington College of Law.] Torture is illegal and immoral, and like slavery, we should have abolished it by now. And yet its use continues to haunt our societies. In fact, the issue of torture —...
I am participating this week in a discussion on Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the case on corporate liability under the Alien Tort Statute that will be argued tomorrow at the Supreme Court, at the Manhattan Institute's Point of Law Blog. My interlocutor will be Professor David Weissbrodt of the University of Minnesota. Here is a snippet of my opening...
In case you missed it, Rick Santorum asserted earlier this month that it's open season on old people in the Netherlands - that euthanasia accounts for 10% of all deaths and that the elderly walk around with "Do Not Euthanize" bracelets in the way of medical alerts. Nothing new on the home front: it's long been red meat for Republicans to...
Our thanks to everyone who has participated in this symposium—John Bellinger, David Sloss, Chimene Keitner, and Steve Vladeck—as well as to Matt Christiansen, who has coordinated the symposium for YJIL. It’s been such a pleasure to see the thoughtful and varied reactions to our Article. Here we take the opportunity to offer a few brief words in response...
Over at Lawfare last Friday, Bobby Chesney commented on a NY Times article reporting that military commission charges have been initiated against Ali Musa Daqduq. Chesney describes Daqduq as “a Hezbollah member involved in an attack on American forces in Iraq in which the attackers disguised themselves as American soldiers and Iraqi police and in which several captured American...
At Wednesday's debate, Mitt Romney claimed that one of the reasons Iran supports the Syrian government is that Syria is Iran's "route to the sea." Hmm: Where's Syria? Oh, yeah, it's off to the left -- past Iraq. And what's that funny blue thing to the south of Iran? Could it be...
Just two days ago, in his dissent in Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California, Chief Justice Roberts argued that Medicaid beneficiaries should not be able to pursue injunctive relief under the Supremacy Clause against California state officials alleged to have violated the substantive provisions of the federal Medicaid statute, given that the federal law neither (1) provides a...
Hathaway, McElroy, and Solow offer an overview of attempts to enforce treaties directly in U.S. courts, as well as a typology of underappreciated modes of treaty enforcement, which they label indirect, defensive, and interpretive. In so doing, they enable us to better appreciate the ways in which courts engage with treaties, while at the same time reminding us that “the...
