The media is awash in stories about the stunningly successful rescue operation mounted by the Colombian military that freed 15 long-held hostages from FARC forces. A key part of the operation apparently involved convincing FARC rebels to move the hostages to meet with an "international mission" as the set-up for getting the hostages aboard a Colombian military helicopter and...
First, I would like to thank David Zaring again for his comments on my essay: Empiricism and International Law: Insights for Investment Treaty Dispute Resolution. I was deeply humbled to read David’s thoughts about both the utility of the essay and the direction of my current research. David’s comments, however, raise a variety of issues worthy of a bit...
[David Zaring is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania] Susan Franck’s essay makes the case for more empirical research in international economic law; a project that she has pursued – I might venture to say that she owns an important part of the field, given the unique and comprehensive data on investment arbitrations that...
[Professor Susan Franck is Associate Professor of Law, Washington & Lee University School of Law. Please find her SSRN author page here.] First, I want to take the opportunity to thank the editors of the Virginia Journal of International Law and Opinio Juris for an opportunity to discuss my recent essay, Empiricism and International Law: Insights for Investment Treaty Dispute Resolution....
Antoine Buyse at the ECHR Blog has posted an analysis of Gafgen v. Germany, a decision handed down by the ECHR on Monday concerning the admissibility of evidence resulting from statements made under the threat of torture. Here's the background:In 2003, the applicant, Magnus Gäfgen, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of J., the eleven year old son,...
I hadn't known about these cases, which I suppose were inevitable. If Iraqi farmer Suhail Najim Abdullah al-Shimari is telling the truth, he was repeatedly tortured at Abu Ghraib and other prisons near Baghdad for more than four years by U.S. military contractors paid with your tax dollars. With neither military nor civilian courts having yet to charge any private contractors...
As I anticipated a few days ago following the UN's refusal to provide the judges with meaningful access to the disputed evidence, Trial Chamber I has ordered Thomas Lubanga Dyilo's unconditional and immediate release:30. As just set out, the Chamber's Decision stayed the proceedings sine die because of the present impossibility of trying the accused fairly. It follows that the...
Sarfaty’s reply addresses a fundamental problem with conflating norms with binding legal rights. In my article, I argue that the classification of a potential human right—like participatory development—may be seen as operating on a continuum. On one end of the continuum exists a norm. On the other end exists a rule of customary international law. As a norm...
[Galit A. Sarfaty is a Fellow at Harvard Law School's Program on the Legal Profession, and a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Chicago] I would like to thank Opinio Juris and Martin Totaro for the opportunity to comment on this engaging article. The piece is an excellent contribution to existing literature on norm development and international human...
[Martin Totaro is an associate at Baker Botts in Washington, D.C. These views are his alone. Please find his SSRN author page here.] Thanks to Opinio Juris for providing an outlet for VJIL authors to express their ideas to a wide audience, and thanks to VJIL for including me as one of those authors. Galit Sarfaty has graciously agreed to respond....
In his generous response to my article, Sam Erman rightly points to the importance of understanding the intersection between the Gonzales case and other struggles over citizenship that were unfolding even as Isabel González tried to make her way to New York City from her native Puerto Rico. Ngai’s book Impossible Subjects is a good place to start in order...
[Sam Erman is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Culture and recent J.D. recipient at the University of Michigan] The scholarly attention that Burnett devotes to Gonzales v. Williams (1904) is long overdue. The case is crucial to understanding the relationship between U.S. imperialism, U.S. citizenship, and the U.S. constitutional order in the early twentieth century. She shows us how in it...
