In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Henry Ford — Not Such a Good Role Model

03 Apr

President Obama is set to give a speech later today criticizing Paul Ryan's budget plan.  That's all well and good -- the plan is a study in right-wing extremism.  But one of Obama's historical references is more than a little problematic.  From his prepared remarks (my emphasis): "In this country, broad-based prosperity has never trickled-down from the success of a...

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02 Apr

Here is an excerpt from my report on the Chevron-Ecuador Panel at this year's ASIL meetings, published over at ASILcables.org: In my view, the best way to understand Chevron v. Ecuador is as a marriage gone horribly wrong, where, as usual, the children are the biggest losers.  In this case, the “children” are theLago Agrio plaintiffs, most of whom are part...

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01 Apr

I think it's safe to say that the ECCC is in serious trouble, despite having an excellent International Co-Prosecutor in Andrew Cayley and many intelligent, dedicated staff.  As readers probably know, the international reserve co-investigating judge, Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, is resigning his position because interference by the Cambodian government is making it impossible for the Tribunal to investigate new cases.  Kasper-Ansermet...

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31 Mar

Here are some choice quotes from the ASIL annual meeting, all taken out of context for maximum effect: The real problem with cyber-security is that Viagra is too expensive. ~ Christopher Soghoian International arbitration is like a Jackson Pollock painting. There is order, but it takes an expert in fractal geometry to see it. ...

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30 Mar

[Harold Hongju Koh is the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State.] Statement Regarding Syria Harold Hongju Koh Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State American Society of International Law Annual Meeting March 30, 2012 It is my honor to speak here again at the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law. A year ago, I spoke before this audience about...

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29 Mar

Dawood Ismail Ahmed, a Pakistani lawyer and JSD candidate at the University of Chicago, has a very interesting article today at Foreign Policy on Pakistan's opposition to drone strikes.  He argues that if Pakistan really wants to put an end to the strikes, which have killed hundreds of innocent Pakistani civilians, it needs to start taking advantage of its options...

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29 Mar

Over at EJIL Talk!, Professors Joanna Harrington and Rene Provost note the passage of what Provost has dubbed "Canada's Alien Tort Statute." As for the details, the new Canadian law will now allow Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada who are victims of terrorism, as well as others if the action has a real and substantial connection to Canada, to...

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28 Mar

With all of the attention we are devoting on Opinio Juris to Chevron's "rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador, it's important not to forget that Chevron's human and environmental destruction extends far beyond Ecuador's borders.  Here are few of its other activities over the past month or so: 1. Five Chevron executives have been forbidden to leave Indonesia because of a remediation project...

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28 Mar

I am not going to respond in depth to Professor Cassel's recent post on Chevron's responsibility for the "rainforest Chernobyl" caused by its predecessor's dumping of million gallons of crude oil and billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian rainforest.  The plaintiffs' attorneys have prepared a lengthy and thoroughly footnoted reply to his open letter; interested readers can find...

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27 Mar

[Doug Cassel is Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School] Heller’s reply misses the point of my post, Suing Chevron in Ecuador: Do the Ends Justify the Means? I did not ask whether Chevron is an “innocent victim.” I asked whether the ends pursued by plaintiffs’ lawyers (environmental remediation) justify their means (making covert payments to the court’s “independent” expert from their “secret account,” writing his report and then lying about it, meeting secretly with the judge in an abandoned warehouse, etc.). I answered, “No.” Human rights lawyers cannot vindicate rights by trashing the rights to due process and fair trial. Doing so undermines our moral and professional credibility. I hold that view as a career human rights lawyer, not (in Heller’s ad hominem) as an “advocate for Chevron.” My post linked to my longer open letter, which made explicit that I billed Chevron for representing it on an amicus brief, but not for the time entailed in writing the open letter. Heller’s “other side of Chevron” consists of a series of erroneous, tendentious or unsupported accusations, based almost entirely on press statements by plaintiffs’ PR operatives. In the order he raises them:
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27 Mar

[Anthony J. Colangelo is an Assistant Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law] I summarized in a previous post my arguments that the presumption against extraterritoriality should not apply to the ATS to the extent courts use international law incorporated into U.S. common law as the rule of decision. The presumption was raised explicitly by the brief of the UK and Dutch Governments in Kiobel and will likely be raised again. This post addresses three discrete but related issues that may arise going forward:

1. Whether the ATS’s jurisdictional character alters the application of the presumption against extraterritoriality; 2. Whether “universal civil jurisdiction” is sufficiently recognized under international law—an issue that seemed to get attention at oral argument based on Chevron’s amicus brief; and 3. Choice of law, including as to corporate liability.

I’ll address each issue in turn, though I’ll say at the outset that I will also try to tie them together to open up what might be a new route for corporate liability grounded in an old legal discipline historically included as part of “the law of nations”; namely, private international law. Some of these preliminary thoughts will be elaborated and bolstered by other arguments in an amicus brief Anthony D’Amato and I intend to file in support of neither side.
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