[Michael Granne is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hofstra Law School and has recently published Defining “Organ of a Foreign State” under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 in the UC Davis Law Review.] Greetings, all! I’d like to thank Julian and the rest of the OJ team for asking me to participate here. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities...
It's Day 2 of the First Ever! (people keep emphasizing this) joint ASIL-ESIL Research Forum. Jan Klabbers who seems the chief (but by no means the only) organizer has done Helsinki proud in terms of the site and the conference structure. It's been a remarkably solid event; unlike ASIL all the speakers were required to submit abstracts AND papers as the...
Today the Second Circuit issued the long-awaited decision of Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy. The case--written by a Bush 41 appointee (Jacobs) and joined by two Clinton appointees (Leval and Cabranes)--is important for many reasons, but it is especially important in (1) accepting the possibility of corporate liability under the ATS, (2) accepting that international law rather...
Actually, congratulations to the Obama administration for having the good sense to make this appointment. My friend and Washington College of Law colleague Diane Orentlicher has joined the administration in DOS, and I don't think there's a better person in the country to fill this position: Professor Diane F. Orentlicher has been named Deputy, Office of War Crimes Issues for the...
... in my response to Eugene on the First Amendment and free speech and the HRC, over at Volokh. I'm not cross-posting it here because it is somewhat specific to Eugene's post. However, it is filled with many generalizations and unsupported assertions about what I think international law professors, taken as a community, think about free expression and the specifically...
The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Samantar v. Yousef, a lawsuit by Somalis who alleged torture and mistreatment by a former Somali prime minister. Here is the issue: Whether a foreign state’s immunity from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. § 1604, extends to an individual acting in his official capacity on behalf of a...
Here is one part of the Obama Administration policy that I can (sort of) support: an effort to reach a comprehensive sustainable peace agreement in Sudan. Although the Obama envoy, Scott Gration, is getting plenty of deserved flak from right and left for his infamous "cookies" quote about dealing with the Sudanese government, the general idea seems sound. Absent any...
Ben Wittes, who has guest-blogged with OJ in the past, has a blistering op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post, criticizing, well, just about everyone for the failure to take the policy issues of detention to Congress to craft a formal structure for addressing them. The piece has made the rounds in the blogosphere, so I won't comment except to say that...
I have to admit I really don't know for sure, but this WSJ op-ed makes me think this issue is likely to be an important one as the crisis over Iran's compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty comes to a head. According to the author, the U.S./E.U. concession that Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear technology is both wrong as...
The essential irrelevance of the United Nations to global economic policy was nicely illustrated this week by President Obama's trip from New York to Pittsburgh, site of the G-20 summit. Potentially important, even momentous decisions, on economic and financial policy were discussed and maybe even decided there, while the U.N. General Assembly meetings showcased its usual mix of wacky heads...
The Washington Post has a blistering editorial on the Obama Administration's quiet decision last week not to seek legislative authorization for the preventive detention for terrorist suspects. It is the, the Post declares, a "politically expedient and intellectually dishonest route." Like President George W. Bush, President Obama now asserts that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force gives him...
CNN has the story: "Where do you live?" Seems like a simple question, doesn't it? But the answer is not clear-cut for everyone. Take people who live in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, which is wedged between India, Pakistan and China. India and Pakistan have gone to war repeatedly over the disputed territory. Technically, it's "Indian-administered." But on Facebook, it's simply in India. Questions like this have...
