I noted a few days ago that the Security Council is unlikely to pass a resolution deferring the Prosecutor's investigation of Bashir, given the number of non-permanent and permanent members of the Council who are supporters of the ICC. I think that position is even more sound in light of the European Union's promise today -- on the 10th anniversary...
There is one book that I have my classes in international business as well as public international law both read (actually, I read it aloud to them and later give them a pop quiz), If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. It is the single finest book on incentives and moral hazard available, I believe: If you give a mouse a cookie,...
The following is a guest post by Aaron Zelinksy, a member of the Yale Law School Class of 2010. Wednesday marked the historic transfer of Israeli and Hezbollah prisoners at the Lebanese border. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, proclaimed that he was “very much encouraged by the exchange of prisoners” and that he hoped it would be...
It makes no sense. Israel has traded five brutal militants for the bodies of two dead soldiers and the assorted body parts of other Israeli soldiers. I am in Israel now teaching with a Whittier/Pepperdine study abroad program and coverage of the prisoner exchange is ubiquitous. I attended a special class session with our students of a presentation by Major Aharon...
Here's a surprise -- China opposes indicting Bashir: China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Beijing maintains friendly relations with Sudan and is deeply concerned and worried about the charges. He says the situation in the Darfur region is at a sensitive and critical moment. He says China hopes all sides can resolve their differences through consultation and avoid adding complications...
This is a fascinating story: the State Department, the Iranian government, and the NBA have joined forces to arrange for the Iranian men's basketball team to train and play next week against NBA teams in Salt Lake City: Iran will take part in the Rocky Mountain Revue, the Utah-hosted summer league and will play four games. The team will also observe...
Senators Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman have a joint commentary in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (July 14, 2008), promoting a federal law to discourage so-called “libel tourism." Libel tourism refers to the practice of a plaintiff suing for libel in a plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction – i.e., the UK – and then seeking to have the judgment enforced in US and other...
I missed Bastille Day celebrations in Paris on Monday – got on a plane back to DC early in the morning. But let me extend my best wishes on Bastille Day to all our French readers. And everyone else, too. My friend BP, a magazine editor in France, commented at dinner the other night that the thing about America and...
The day, a few weeks ago, when America Between the Wars arrived on my doorstop also saw the arrival of another book via Amazon ...
The Copenhagen Consensus is the brain child of self-described 'skeptical environmentalist' and statistician Bjorn Lomborg; housed at the Copenhagen Business School, it seeks to apply cost benefit analysis to the world's leading problems in development, poverty, the environment, etc., with the assistance of a range of leading economists, and come up with not just a list of issues, but a...
In today’s Washington Post, a front page article titled, “Multitude of Forces Drains the Spirit of Giving,” by staff writer Philip Rucker. Compared with the tsunami of 2004 and Katrina, the natural disasters of Burma and China have not produced anywhere near the outpouring of American charitable aid donations: In the weeks since a cyclone laid waste to Burma's delta...
I understand that Opinio Juris will be hosting a discussion of Benjamin Wittes' new book, Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror (Penguin 2008) when it is released for distribution on June 19. That is a very good thing to do. I have heard Ben present material from that book and...
