Here's an actual headline from Fox Nation, part of that fair and balanced news organization we all know and love: Sovereignty's a bitch, isn't it?...
Jens Ohlin has continued the conversation about IHL and IHRL at LieberCode. Here is a snippet, self-servingly chosen because I want to comment on it: It strikes me as curious that human rights activists are so quick to cabin CIL application of the IHL rules of IAC to NIAC. To my ear, it is one of the great advancements...
The following is a guest-post by Gabor Rona, the International Legal Director of Human Rights First. It is a response to a post at LieberCode by Jens Ohlin, a Professor at Cornell Law School, that argues international human rights law (IHRL) does not apply in armed conflict, because it is displaced by international humanitarian law (IHL). Prof. Ohlin’s conclusion that IHRL...
There has been much debate the past couple of days about whether the bomb attacks that have killed at least three Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010 qualify as terrorism. Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Drum on the left and Andrew Sullivan on the right say "yes"; many of their readers (see Greenwald here) and the editor of Technology Review say "no." ...
I had the good fortune yesterday to spend the afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. To my great surprise, I experienced my first encounter with treaties as art. A special exhibit on display through March 26, 2012 of the work of Sanja Iveković entitled Sweet Violence focuses on the plight of women in post-Communist...
The media has been abuzz the past couple of days about a video that shows four U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban soldiers. The military's response to the blossoming controversy has been admirable. In addition to the Pentagon quickly confirming its authenticity, the Navy has stated that it is "deeply troubled by the video. Whoever it is, and whatever the...
I want to call readers' attention to a very useful new essay written by Emory's Laurie Blank, which is forthcoming in the William Mitchell Law Review. Here is the abstract: Targeted strikes – predominantly using drones – have become the operational counterterrorism tool of choice for the United States over the past few years. Targeted killing can...
(Professor Kenneth A. Armstrong is professor of European Law at Queen Mary University, London; this comment was posted in response to KA's framing questions on European governance, and we are delighted to bring it up to the main page. We welcome short or long comments on this topic; I'll choose to bring some to general attention in a separate post;...
Last fall, I posted about possible governance effects of eurozone crisis on the EZ and, more broadly, the EU. I raised questions not as an expert on European institutions, law, or governance, but as someone with a long interest in governance and legitimacy questions for the international system. They elicited some very interesting responses, particularly from University of Connecticut’s Peter...
A certified English translation of the Lago Agrio Ecuador Appeals Court judgment, together with the original Spanish, was filed with the Second Circuit today and is available here. ...
I think there is little doubt where I stand on the merits of the Chevron litigation, so I am not going to get into the substance of the dispute here. But I have an honest question that I am hoping someone will answer. Let's assume, for sake of argument, that Chevron is correct to argue that the $18 billion judgment...
As Kevin noted yesterday, on January 3, 2012 an Ecuador Appeals Court affirmed the $18 billion judgment against Chevron in the long-running battle over environmental damage. (Available in English and the original Spanish here). According to an unofficial English translation of the sixteen page opinion, the Court dismissed all of Chevron’s arguments, including the allegations of fraud....
