National Security Challenges for the Next Administration: AALS Panel Discussion

The Association of American Law Schools is hosting its 110th annual meeting, which starts today and goes through Sunday in New York City. The program is vast, but one item of note takes place Saturday, 9 January, from 10:30am-12:15pm at the New York Hilton Midtown, Gramercy West, Second Floor. At this event, Deborah will be moderating a panel discussion entitled: "National Security Challenges for...

Announcements New additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law: The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law website, which provides high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients around the world free of charge. The latest lectures include the Shabtai Rosenne Memorial Lecture...

Scientific American has published an article by John Wendle on how climate change has spurred the conflict in Syria. Wendle writes: Climatologists say Syria is a grim preview of what could be in store for the larger Middle East, the Mediterranean and other parts of the world. The drought, they maintain, was exacerbated by climate change. The Fertile Crescent—the birthplace of...

From CNN: For the first time in its 70-year history, the United Nations has officially recognized a Jewish holiday. U.N. employees who observe the Jewish faith will have the day off and no official meetings will take place on this date from now on, according to the Israeli mission to the organization. Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, considered the most important...

Although anything I post about Israel invariably elicits angry comments, nothing makes Israel's supposed "defenders" more angry than my posts -- see here and here -- about Breaking the Silence, the Israeli organisation that collects testimonies by IDF soldiers about their experiences in combat. I'm obviously not the only one who has noticed the anger toward the organisation; Haggai Mattar recently...

[Dr Nadia Bernaz is Senior Lecturer in Law and Dr Elvira Dominguez Redondo is Associate Professor of International Law, both at Middlesex University, London UK.] The 10th of December 2015, International Human Rights Day, was marked by the European Union General Court (EGC) quashing a free trade agreement between the European Union and Morocco, to the extent that it was to...

Last week, the ICTY Appeals Chamber reversed the acquittals of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, the former head and deputy head of the Serbian secret police under Milosevic, and ordered them retried. One of the two grounds for reversal was the Trial Chamber's adoption of the specific-direction requirement; in the majority's view (the vote was 3-2), specific direction is not an element...

[Dan Bodansky is the Foundation Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Law and Global Affairs at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He was in Paris last week for the climate change negotiations. This is his seventh and final post regarding the conference. Professor Bodansky has consulted for the government of...

Announcements The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Freie Universität Berlin are accepting applications for the third round of Doctoral and Post-Doctoral fellowships in the fully-funded joint 3-year interdisciplinary Doctoral Program “Human Rights under Pressure – Ethics, Law and Politics” (HR-UP), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Einstein Foundation Berlin. HR-UP offers young researchers a unique opportunity to conduct cutting-edge...

[Ruti Teitel is the Ernst C Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School and the author of Globalizing Transitional Justice (OUP paper2015).] I have learned a great deal from the thoughtful responses to my article (.pdf) by the participants in this symposium. Dinah PoKempner is correct to say that my article doesn’t address the merits of a “right of...