Kathleen Sullivan has filed a petition for certiorari (2009 WL 2173302) in Abdullahi v. Pfizer arguing that there is a circuit split on the question of corporate liability under international law: There is no general international common law of torts. Thus, to establish subject matter jurisdiction under the ATS for a violation of international law by a private corporation or individual,...
I received this notice that I thought our readers may find of interest: The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) is the flagship journal of one of India's premier law institutions, the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The NLSIR is a peer-reviewed journal, and is published twice a year. The latest issue - Volume 21(1) - included contributions...
Aaron Zelinsky, YLS '10, smart person and occasional correspondent with me, has an article up at HuffPo arguing for a certain parallel (a negative one) between the Lockerbie release this week and the Guantanamo detainees. Aaron argues that it was wrong for the Lockerbie bomber to have been released, and would not have been, had he been tried and convicted...
Controversy continues to surround John Yoo and the memos he wrote while a Justice Department lawyer that were used as the legal basis for torture in U.S. interrogation operations. Under the circumstances, I thought it appropriate to reprint here an email recently circulated to UC Berkeley faculty, administration and students by Dean Christopher Edley of Berkeley Law School. (Happy to...
The Journal of International Law and International Relations, published by the University of Toronto, is actively seeking submissions. Here is their call for papers: Call for Submissions Volume 6, Issue 1 (Fall 2009) Deadline for Submissions: September 21, 2009 The Journal of International Law and International Relations (JILIR) invites submissions from scholars of both International Law and International Relations for its Fall 2009 issue....
A few weeks ago, a regular reader asked why we don't do more with private international law/conflicts of law matters here at Opinio Juris. I'm not sure I had a good answer. Certainly, those who follow these topics already have some resources to turn to, most notably the European-based Conflicts of Law.Net blog. But these are important topics, and those who follow international...
Here is the official call for papers for the 2010 ASIL Lieber Society Military Prize essay. To enter a paper, you do not have to be a member of ASIL, but you do have to be a member of your "nation's regular or reserve armed forces." This particular essay contest, in other words, is for military personnel. The prize is...
I spent last week on a beach in Florida (because everyone from Philly vacations in Florida in August). I had left all my work at home, and was settling into a crime novel, David Hewson's The Sacred Cut, about a serial killer loose in my favorite city--Rome. It was a light read, so I was willing to go along with...
The ever useful and interesting Crimes of War Project website has posted a useful background web article on the debate in the General Assembly over the scope and status of 'responsibility to protect' (R2P). I've blogged at OJ about this before, citing to an Economist article summarizing the debate and some other things. The COW report, by Katherine Iliopoulos, can...
I am blogger-lite this week, with apologies to all, but ...
Last week I wrote a post suggesting that the federal "cash for clunkers" program did not violate the WTO subsidies program because it did not have the de facto or de jure effect of discriminating against foreign imports. But what about the broader Obama stimulus program? Does that pass WTO muster? This article from Bloomberg published last week...
Although this is pretty far from my usual focus, I've been interested to see the August D.C. doldrums filled in part with an interesting emerging discussion of what happens next with the U.S. and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her "great regret" in Kenya last week that the United States hadn't yet ratified the...
