Donald "Trey" Childress has the scoop: Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a mammoth en banc opinion in the case of Sarei v. Rio Tinto. All 166 pages of the court’s splintered analysis deserves careful consideration. Here is a short review of the court’s conclusions. First, the Ninth Circuit holds that the Alien Tort...
On Thursday evening I was on a panel at International Law Weekend on the evolving nature of sovereignty. Sean Murphy gave a presentation on how social networking technology may affect sovereignty, but also how "Twitter revolution" claims have been overblown. As it turns out, we are a few days away from a whole conference on this question, sponsored by (among...
On Monday, October 24, I'll be participating in a panel discussion at NYU on the The Implications of Chevron v. Ecuador for Investor-State Arbitration. The event will be held at 6 p.m. at Furman Hall 900, 245 Sullivan Street, New York. The event is sponsored by NYU Law School's Institute for International Law and Justice. Topics will include: Do...
Interesting: Today FIDH and LDH filed a criminal complaint, together with an application to join the proceedings as a civil party against persons unknown before the Court in Paris concerning the responsibility of the company Amesys, a subsidiary of Bull, in relation to acts of torture perpetrated in Libya. This complaint concerns the provision, since 2007, of communication surveillance equipment to...
David Cortright, the policy director of the Kroc Institute for International PeaceStudies at Notre Dame has posted an article to CNN.com looking at the prospect of the wide-spread proliferation of drone warfare. He begins: Drone technology is spreading rapidly. As many as 50 countries are developing or purchasing these systems, including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Even non-state actors are involved. Hezbollah reportedly...
The United States has finally decided to seize Michael Jackson's glove. Not that it has anything against Michael Jackson. The owner of the glove, however, is another matter. Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator, has a thing for Michael Jackson memorabilia. He also has a taste for other luxury items, such as Bentlys,...
Last week I wrote that the Supreme Court's docket of international law cases was thin, thin, thin. Today the Court granted certiorari in two blockbuster cases, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum/Shell and Mohamad v. Rajoub. The Question Presented in Kiobel is: “(1) Whether the issue of corporate civil tort liability under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, is...
In my previous post, I responded to Mike's attempt to explain the amicus brief's distortion of ICTY jurisprudence. In this post, I want to respond to his similar attempt to explain the amicus brief's distortion of the Rome Statute. There are two basic issues: Article 10 of the Rome Statute's relationship to customary international law, and the importance of Article...
There are numerous problems with Mike's response to my posts (here and here) about how the amicus brief distorts the ICTY's jurisprudence. Before getting to them, though, it's important to acknowledge that he and I agree about one thing: decisions of the ICTY are not primary sources of international law. That, too, is international law 101. Even here, though, the...
Jeremy Waldron continues to do incredibly interesting philosophical work on questions surrounding torture. He recently posted a short, accessible piece on moral absolutes that is a joy to read. What I love about the piece is that he embraces the absolute prohibition against torture, but then is brutally honest about how hard it is to defend that position....
Perhaps. At least they are getting their waterskis on. According to Politico, Amnesty International has filed a 1,000 page memorandum demanding that Canadian authorities arrest or extradite former U.S. President George W. Bush. “Canada is required by its international obligations to arrest and prosecute former President Bush given his responsibility for crimes under international law including torture,” Susan Lee, Americas Director...
I appreciate Mike taking the time to respond. I'll address his various criticisms in separate posts; here I want to focus on the amicus brief's claim (p. 14) that Sosa requires a norm applies in ATS litigation only if it has "undisputed international acceptance," a standard that is satisfied only if (p. 7) "the defendant’s alleged conduct [is] universally recognized...
