Arizona's already notorious anti-immigrant measure, enacted last week and making unauthorized presence in the U.S. a crime under state law, isn't likely to last long. But the courts may have nothing to do with its demise. It's the economic hit that Arizona is clearly going to take that will bring the state around, I suspect sooner rather than later. Lost...
Too funny not to post (h/t, Gawker): (The man in the photo, for those who don't know, is Malcolm X, not Obama.)...
On a non-aggression note, Jennifer Howard has an article in yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education about Karin Calvo-Goller's baseless criminal-libel suit in France against NYU's Joseph Weiler. It's an excellent piece -- and not just because she is kind enough to quote me. Here's a snippet: If you're an author confronted with a negative book review, you have several options. You...
What should South Korea do if it confirms the responsibility of North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel? This article quotes a Korean law professor offering three options: Writing in JoongAng Daily, Kim Hyun-soo, professor of international law at Inha University, said Lee has three options if he wishes to avoid risking all-out war on the peninsula. He...
My colleague David Post and I have an op-ed in today's National Law Journal. In it, we challenge the sufficiency of existing responses to cyberattacks, whether in terms of pushing for heightened security, more criminal law enforcement or applying the laws of war (if applicable). Criminal law (and the laws of war for that matter) depends on identifying and holding...
I still think there is no chance of this happening, but Christopher Hitchens offers this narrative of how and why he is pushing for legal action against the Vatican, or maybe at least a deposition of the Pope himself. I telephoned a distinguished human-rights counsel in London, Geoffrey Robertson, and asked him if the law was powerless to intervene. Not at...
The International Whaling Commission's proposed compromise on the whaling dispute has been released (h/t Jurist). As I noted before, the proposed deal would bring all nations within the IWC framework, but explicitly permit commercial whaling for certain nations for at least the next 10 years. The numbers permitted under the proposal is a little murky, but it may include thousands...
Cross-posted on Balkinization and Scotusblog Since Justice Stevens announced his intention to retire, discussions about what his departure will mean for the Court have regularly noted his military service in World War II. The justice enlisted the day before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (and has joked about how the enemy responded to the news immediately). There is little...
I haven't really looked at it, but here is the ICJ's judgment in the Argentina-Uruguay Pulp Mill Dispute. Although the Court found that Uruguay violated certain procedural obligations, it essentially ruled in favor of Uruguay on all substantive obligations (or it simply ruled that certain issues, like pollution effects, were outside its jurisdiction). On the substantive obligations, there were three...
Current and former federal prisoners allege that the low wages they were paid for work performed in prison violated their rights under the Fifth Amendment and various sources of international law.... Plaintiffs earned between $19.00 and $145.00 per month at rates as low as nineteen cents per hour. Plaintiffs contend that by paying them such low wages, Defendants ... violated Plaintiffs’ rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution; articles 7 through 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”); a U.N. document entitled “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners;” and the law of nations.
In this fascinating profile of Jeffrey Lena, the lead (and perhaps only) lawyer for the Vatican in defending sex-abuse related lawsuits in the U.S., one also gets an update on the status of the various U.S. litigations against the Vatican. The current Supreme Court petition for consideration is Holy See v. John Doe. The Court hasn't yet decided whether to...
In all the amused press notices about George Washington's (very) overdue library books, one small detail is worth noting. The library's ledgers show that Washington took out the books on 5 October 1789, some five months into his presidency at a time when New York was still the capital. They were an essay on international affairs called Law of Nations and...
