In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: A Reply to Professors Cohen and Wuerth

26 Jul

Harlan Cohen and Ingrid Wuerth have provided characteristically insightful comments about the overall strengths and weaknesses of the book. Cohen cautions that its “grand narrative” may make the outcomes of particular cases seem “overdetermined” and suggest that the Supreme Court is more “purposive” about its use of international law than is actually the case. Wuerth tactfully notes that the editors’...

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25 Jul

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court, edited by Bill Dodge, Mike Ramsey and David Sloss. Mike has already described the book’s purpose and organizational structure in a post from this morning. My post focuses on some of the book’s overall strengths and perhaps weaknesses. Edited volumes are hard to do...

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23 Jul

Three stories to mention.  First, Moreno-Ocampo plans to introduce WikiLeaks cables in the trial of the six Kenyan defendants: This emerged as he prepares to hand over the last batch of the evidence he will rely on in the September hearing against three of Kenya’s six post-election violence suspects. The evidence to be released on Wednesday relates to the...

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21 Jul

Bloomberg BusinessWeek offers what is slowly becoming conventional wisdom on the ICTY, at least, if not international criminal justice in general. Credit [] is due to the court, which focused on individual responsibility rather than collective guilt. This helped foster reconciliation among Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. But beyond the Balkans, it would be a mistake to exaggerate the...

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21 Jul

U.S. opponents of UNCLOS, whom I think have a number of quite sensible points, do need to explain how the U.S. is going to operate effectively in a world where all other major seafaring nations belong to the UNCLOS system.  And they have offered decent arguments.  Customary international law already guarantees navigational rights. Bilateral treaties, or even unilateral declarations, can...

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20 Jul

Nicaragua may vote on a referendum on whether to seek damages from the U.S. arising out of the 1980s civil war.  I have grave doubts about Nicaragua's ability to win such a claim (as well as its method of calculating  damages), but it might be an interesting case. Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega has proposed a referendum on whether to demand $17bn...

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20 Jul

Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation passes along this useful review of the effect of UNCLOS ratification on U.S. development of its extended continental shelf.  It argues that if the U.S. joins UNCLOS, it could be obligated to turn over as much as 7 percent of royalty revenue derived from development of its extended continental shelf to the International Seabed...

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18 Jul

Toby Landau, one of the leading arbitrators in the world, gave the keynote address at the recent ITA Workshop in Dallas and, as always, he was entertaining and provocative. One of the central themes of his discussion was how arbitration counsel fail to present a case in a manner sensitive to the needs of the arbitration panel. “Inequality...

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17 Jul

As part of his ongoing war against the New York Times, Ben Wittes has a post today entitled "Seven Errors in Today's New York Times Editorial."  I occasionally agree with Wittes' criticism of the NYT; the paper sometimes misstates the law when it criticizes the Obama administration.  But there is nothing erroneous about today's editorial, and Wittes can only claim...

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