R2P RIP? Let’s Hope Not

Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is in trouble in the UN, according to a dismayed account in this week's Economist ("An idea whose time has come - and gone?" Economist, July 25, 2009, p 58).  I'm dismayed, too. At the 2005 UN reform summit of the General Assembly, says the Economist the biggest-ever gathering of world leaders accepted the principle that they have...

Rather than comment on the refreshingly tough realism or seriously imprudent bear-baiting of Vice-President Biden's recent remarks on Russia ("Russia will bend to the US"), or whether there is an important and dangerous gap between short-term and long-term in the collapse of an imperial nuclear power even if the long-run claim is true, etc., let me instead offer a background...

David Bernstein is back with yet another attack on Human Rights Watch.  This time, Bernstein is up in arms that, in 2006, HRW retracted a claim that armed Palestinian groups had committed war crimes by using human shields -- an action that he believes proves, in light of HRW's refusal to apologize for its allegedly false criticisms of Israel, that...

Well, that's exactly what the Obama Administration did this past Wednesday.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed the 1976 ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) on behalf of the United States with the intention that her signature serve as the requisite act of accession, bringing the treaty immediately into force for the United States.  Now, the treaty does not commit the United States...

A couple of weeks ago, Sweden did something unprecedented for an EU nation -- it indicated it would proceed with the extradition of an accused Rwandan génocidaire to Kigali. Sylvere Ahorugeze, a 53-year-old former director of Rwanda's civil aviation authority, is implicated in the 1994 murder of a group of civilians in the Kigali suburb of Gikondo. He...

My thanks to Deb for her post on the Preliminary Report.  I won't rehash what she said; I just wanted to offer a few thoughts on the military commissions and the detention policy.  First, I think it is interesting that the Obama administration seems to be conceding that "material support for terrorism" is not a violation of the laws of...

British Justice Secretary Jack Straw recently proposed amending the United Kingdom's International Criminal Court Act of 2001 (which permits universal jurisdiction prosecution of atrocity crimes) to allow authorities to file cases for atrocities committed as far back as January 1, 1991. This would close a loophole that has been giving safe haven to génocidaires who enter the UK after...

In 1949, a land that had for hundreds of years been home to Muslim peoples was forcibly seized by outsiders. They implemented a policy of ethnic dislocation and colonization. While some of the Muslims, chafing under the occupation, turned to terrorism,  the recalcitrant state refused to budge even until today. And the occupied country is

David Bernstein has another snide post about Human Rights Watch today, this time concerning a presentation Sarah Leah Whitson gave about the Middle East at a panel discussion. I won't bother debating Bernstein's characterization of the presentation; you can watch it here.  I'm more interested in the ease with which Bernstein disposes of the extremely complicated international-law issues raised by...

I want to thank Opinio Juris for having me over the next couple of weeks as a guest-blogger. I noticed that Eugene Kontorovich's thought-provoking posts last week dealt primarily with the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. My posts to start will not be that focused. If I had to discern one overarching theme for...

Readers may have noticed we didn't have much to say about last week's ICJ judgment in Costa Rica v. Nicaragua, which involved disputed water rights in the San Juan river (the full judgment is here; for those interested in a short version, the ICJ Registry's summary is here).  Well, Marko Milanovic of EJIL: Talk! (and a former OJ guest blogger)...