It is my pleasure to announce that the Journal of International Criminal Justice, the leading journal in the field, has just published a special issue on the crime of aggression to commemorate its 10th anniversary. The special issue, which is edited by Claus Kreß and Philippa Webb, contains a variety of fascinating articles on aggression from a number of leading...
It won't save his job, for reasons Julian mentioned a week or so ago, but it's still good news: Spain's top court acquitted renowned judge Baltasar Garzon on Monday of abuse of power by trying to investigate Franco-era atrocities, in a case that exposed deep wounds dating back to the civil war. Six members of the seven-strong Supreme Court...
All is proceeding as my colleague Anna Gelpern has foreseen. Indeed. Years ago, she mentioned to me in passing that the markets seemed remarkably unaware, or anyway remarkably sanguine, about the question of whether local law (e.g., Greek law) or foreign law (e.g., English law) governed as the choice-of-law clause for the vast tonnage of European sovereign debt. Today, we find...
The blog is run (so far, solely) by Sonia Cardenas, the Charles A. Dana Research Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Human Rights Program at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Here is her description of the blog: This site explores universal jurisdiction, through the prism of politics and human rights. Universal jurisdiction is the revolutionary idea that...
I don't see how this is going to go as planned: More than 160 German financial services executives are willing to come to Greece in order to strengthen the Greek tax mechanism, according to a report to be published in the German magazine 'Wirtschafts Woche' ...
Reuters reports that Denmark-based Lego will soon be powered solely by the wind: The family firm that controls Denmark's Lego is buying almost a third of a German offshore wind power project in an unusual foray outside the toy business to showcase its green credentials to customers. Lego's parent company, Kirkbi A/S, will invest 3 billion crowns ($534...
The Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column yesterday made an interesting comparison between sovereign bonds and corporate bonds. It pointed out that although in ordinary times, developed country sovereign debt is typically considered safer than corporate bonds of the same jurisdiction - the risk free rate of return, and the sovereign power to be able to tax, etc....
Yesterday the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, has unanimously embraced the doctrine of foreign affairs field preemption. It will surely prove to be a controversial blockbuster case for foreign affairs law, with or without Supreme Court review. The case of Movsesian v. Munich Re addressed a California statute, section 354.4, that authorized California courts to entertain various insurance claims brought...
Readers interested in watching Ben Wittes desperately try to spin British condemnation of the U.S. approach to the war on terror need only check out his post today on Rahmatullah. As I discussed a couple of months ago, the British Court of Appeals held that Rahmatullah was entitled to be released from U.S. custody because the U.S. had rendered him...
Various right-wing commentators, Mitt Romney, and dozens of congressmen have demanded that the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, be prosecuted for genocide for advocating (in one debatable translation) the destruction of Israel. I wonder if they will be quite so passionate about demanding a similar fate for Tucker Carlson, who earlier today openly advocated the destruction of Iran by the...
The New York Times Magazine has a story that is oddly depressing, on the one hand, and counter-intuitively optimistic, on the other - a report by Russell Shorto called simply, The Way Greeks Live Now (February 13, 2012). At the macro-level, things look unremittingly bleak; even if the latest deal reached last night holds, I don't think anyone believes it...
A fascinating chart, courtesy of Juan Cole at Informed Comment: I don't have any grand political points to make -- other than to point out that Canada better watch its back....
