[Vlad Perju is Assistant Professor of Law at Boston College Law School] I thank Opinio Juris and the editors of the Virginia Journal of International Law for providing this forum to discuss my recent article on Reason and Authority in the European Court of Justice. I am also grateful to Oliver Gerstenberg for kindly agreeing to comment. I start this project...
The Virginia Journal of International Law is delighted to continue its partnership with Opinio Juris this week in this online symposium featuring three articles recently published by VJIL in Vol. 49:2, available here. On Tuesday, Professor Vlad Perju of the Boston College Law School will discuss his article Reason and Authority in the European Court of Justice. Professor Perju’s article...
NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross has a great interview with P.W. Singer of Brookings (and coordinator of the Obama campaign's Defense Policy Task Force) about his new book concerning battlefield robots, Wired for War. Ken and others have written extensively about the use of battlefield robots on this blog and elsewhere, so I won't re-hash the various legal, moral,...
Yesterday Barack Obama signed an Executive Order directing an immediate review of al-Marri's status. "The Review shall expeditiously determine the disposition options with respect to al-Marri and shall pursue such disposition as is appropriate." So what should the Supreme Court do with the al-Marri case now? As I noted earlier this month, Obama essentially has the choice...
I have a new paper up on SSRN, appearing shortly in the Wayne Law Review, The Assumptions Behind the Assumptions in the War on Terror: Risk Assessment as an Example of Foundational Disagreement in Counterterrorism Policy. Here is the abstract from SSRN, with apologies from the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: This 2007 article (based around an invited conference talk at Wayne...
Philippe Sands and Dahlia Lithwick have kindly responded to my post about CAT and the prosecution of torture suspects. Here is their response: We don't believe we are in disagreement on the approach to the obligation under CAT, under Articles 7(1) and (2). The obligation is to "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution". What happens...
Although a DC resident, I couldn't persuade myself or my wife to brave the crowds or the cold to attend the inauguration yesterday, and instead watched it instead with a group of friends on hdtv. Leaving aside Chief Justice Roberts fumbling the oath (see last graph in this post for President Obama retaking the oath on January 21), some of...
Great inauguration speech by President Obama. In terms of foreign policy here are my quick thoughts. First, the speech was striking for President Obama's appeal to soft power. "Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us,...
The Obama Administration has taken over the White House, and with it the www.whitehouse.gov website. Consistent with the earlier campaign's internet-focus, visitors will find a front-page link to a new blog, The White House Blog. Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House, already has a post up, Change has come to WhiteHouse.Gov, which introduces the new blog...
There is a lively debate going on in the blogosphere about the legal impact of Eric Holder's statement that waterboarding is torture and Susan Crawford's conclusion that Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured while in custody at Guantanamo Bay. Does Holder's statement and Crawford's conclusion require the US to prosecute the interrogators who used waterboarding and the Bush administration officials who approved...
In the comments to my post below on the BBC story, Mark C has kindly provided a link to the "formal request" allegedly submitted on behalf of "millions" of Sudanese who oppose arresting Bashir. (The request also opposes arrest warrants for the rebel leaders, although perfunctorily -- protecting Bashir is its primary objective.) I hope to address the request's numerous...
Regular readers no doubt know that I am obsessed with the media's seemingly congenital inability to grasp the law and politics of the ICC. My new favorite comes via the BBC, in an article about the impending arrest warrant for Bashir: Two Sudanese groups have formally requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) not to issue an arrest for President Omar al-Bashir. He...
