CIA director Leon Panetta has named a new National Clandestine Service chief, reports Peter Finn in the Washington Post today. The new chief, John Bennett, has been serving as station chief in Pakistan, overseeing in particular the expansion of the drone campaign carried out by the CIA there. One can safely take that as further evidence that the Obama administration...
Is this for real? . A Phillippines newspaper is accusing a sitting Philippines Supreme Court justice with plagiarizing articles published in law reviews on matters of international law when he authored a key opinion for the court on reparations for comfort women. The articles supposedly plagiarized include this one by Evan Criddle and Evan Fox-Descent in the Yale Journal of...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld this week the conviction of "Chuckie Taylor" for violating the U.S. Anti-Torture Act, which implements U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture. Taylor is the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, currently on trial himself in the Sierra Leone Special Court. The opinion is a good and important one...
Yes, says Daniel Hannan, a journalist and British MEP. At least under those famous Montevideo factors, now that the E.U. has recently acquired the capacity to sign treaties. I don't know if things are quite so easy. For one thing, the E.U. does not itself necessarily consider itself a state, and it is not exactly clear if other states recognize the...
I agree that the relatively slow progress in U.S. treaty-making is not all the fault of the sluggish Obama Administration. The Senate no doubt is a big obstacle to treaty-making, . Still, I think the idea that the U.S. should join treaties, simply in order to show the world that we are willing to join treaties, is a really bad...
The showdown between the ICC and its prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo over the trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo continues, as the Court ordered Lubanga's release. I assume Moreno-Ocampo will appeal (he has five days), but if his appeal is rejected, this could turn out to be a huge embarrassment for the prosecutor. In any event, it is certainly messy. Judges at the International Criminal...
This web video nearly fooled people into believing France was about to pay Haiti billions in reparations for payments Haiti made to France ensure its independence. Yes, like that was going to happen. France quickly released a statement declaring the whole thing a hoax. This hoax was so well done that it leads me to wonder what other interesting statements could...
The massive U.S. financial regulation legislation, known as "Dodd-Frank", is finally heading to President Obama for signature. In addition to containing a partial reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the bill also contains some rather stern instructions for the U.S. representative at the International Monetary Fund. The instructions are so stern that they...
The much-awaited ICJ advisory opinion on Kosovo will be released on July 22 at 3 p.m (local Hague time): On Thursday 22 July 2010, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will deliver its Advisory Opinion on the question of the Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the Provisional...
OK, I'll admit up front that this is a relatively narrow topic. But I've written a chapter on the U.S. Supreme Court's approach to treaties from 1861 to 1900 (you can download it here). The project's initial appeal was participating in this great conference last year at Santa Clara on the history of the Supreme Court and International Law. Bill Dodge, Mike Ramsey...
On her new article in the latest AJIL, "Power and Persuasion in Investment Treaty Interpretation: The Dual Role of States." Although not the expert Roger and others are on investment law, I've read this closely and think it is a blockbuster article. Anthea Roberts, currently a junior professor at LSE, is one of the brightest and best of the young-young...
At least two of the Russian spies are naturalized US citizens -- Vicky Palaez and her husband Mikhail Vasenkov (aka Juan Lazaro). In Palaez's case, at least, it looks like there was nothing fraudulent about her naturalization (presumably there's a case that her husband's was, though I haven't seen anyone make it). As part of the plea agreement, Palaez agrees to...
