It's not an exclusively American holiday - far from it. Indeed, its origins are dismayingly transnational - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month when the Armistice took hold and finally ended the Great War in 1918. And as the historian John Lukacs has pointed out in many books, the history of the twentieth century takes...
[Steve Charnovitz is an associate professor of law at The George Washington University Law School. He blogs at the International Economic Law and Policy Blog.] On October 31, 2008, I made a presentation at the ASIL’s Tillar House of a proposal for an “International Court of Justice Decisions Implementation Act.” My proposal is an outgrowth of my essay in the Agora...
I was in Miami for the weekend speaking at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association and the International Bar Association on the topic of mass claims in developing countries. Many lawyers in the room were defense counsel for prominent corporations subject to new claims for violations of international or foreign law. There were also plenty of...
Awesome: Jews are no strangers to the idea of persecution and for years, Jewish groups have been at the forefront of the movement to save Darfur save Darfur, a region in western Sudan, which is awash in cultural genocide. Today, they join with Tents of Hope on the National Mall to show solidarity with the refugees of Janjaweed aggression. Sixth & I...
In his recent post, Julian wrote that the secret U.S. military raids in Syria, Pakistan, and other countries may be (in his view) easily justifiable under U.S. law, but that the issue of legality is much harder to answer as a matter of international law - indeed, it would have to be some theory of preemptive self-defense. Expect to see denunciations...
As discussions of a(nother) bailout for Detroit automakers continue, one question that intrigues me is whether any Opinio Juris readers drive Detroit-made cars - i.e., cars made by the Big Three US automakers? Please feel free to indicate in the comments. My wife and I own two Hondas, one of them a 1993 Honda Civic that we bought used from the...
Two items of Sudan news to report. First, the Sudanese government has lawyered up, hiring the prominent British firm Eversheds LLP to represent it at the ICC. I wonder if that means Bashir is expecting the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue the arrest warrant; although Article 19 of the Rome Statute is not the picture of clarity, it seems to allow...
Today is the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, during which 92 Jews were murdered, 25-30,000 Jews were arrested and deported to concentration camps, and more than 200 synagogues and Jewish businesses were destroyed. I was in Vienna for the 60th anniversary. Late that night, I was walking through the Heldenplatz, where Hitler announced the...
Something that my international business law students often have trouble grasping is that the Chinese economy remains enormously dependent upon exports to the rest of the world and to the US in particular. On account of so much attention, often in undergraduate political science classes and elsewhere, I suspect, to the "rise of China and India," my students, and perhaps...
The Butare trial is the ICTR's largest and longest -- it began in June 2001, involves six defendants accused of genocide, and shows no signs of ending anytime soon. The trial is likely to go on even longer because two of the defendants, former Governor Alphonse Nteziryayo and ex-Mayor Elie Ndayambaje, are ill. And that comes not long after one...
Last month, I noted that the ICTR had formally reprimanded its Prosecutor for failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense in the Military II trial. Now Jerome Bicamumpaka, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the interim government who is accused of genocide, has made similar allegations: Inspired by this sanction inflicted to the prosecution by another formation of judges, Bicamumpaka...
Amidst all the global celebration regarding the election of Barack Obama there is stark news that Moscow is emerging as a serious resurgent threat to the United States. Within hours of Obama's election Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the redeployment of missiles on the Polish border. A few United States papers are covering the story, but this report...
