Search: jose guerena

...against Royal Dutch Shell for allegedly aiding and abetting the Nigerian government in the commission of serious human rights violations. Writing for two members of the panel, Judge Jose Cabranes held that (in my very quick and dirty summary): 1) International Law governs the scope of liability for violations of international law, hence the question of whether a corporation is liable for violating international law is itself governed by international law. 2) Under Supreme Court precedent, the Alien Tort Statute requires courts to apply norms of international law, and not...

...politically-motivated acts of violence is difficult to imagine. UPDATE: Interested readers should take a look at this essay by His Excellency Jose Luis Jesus, a judge at the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea. He concludes in no uncertain terms (pp. 378-79) that “private ends” do not include politically-motivated acts, emphasizing that such acts, though not traditionally piracy, now likely qualify as maritime terrorism under the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA Convention): This requirement seems to exclude...

...U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. How will they do that? Writing in the WSJ, John Yoo argues: “Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown.” The openness required by criminal trials is the purported harm. Why would this prosecution be any more harmful that the prosecution of Jose Padilla or Zacharias Moussaoui, for example, or Ahmad Omar Abu Ali...

...the field was characterised by controversial exchanges between (what we may refer to as) ‘realists’ and ‘idealists’ debating the relation between human rights obligations and political constraints. On the realist side, thinkers such as Carlos Nino, José Zalaquett and Jaime Malamud Goti took issue with what they saw as a an overly legalistic, idealized account of transitional justice. As actors directly engaged in transitional processes in Latin America, these thinkers took, as Nino powerfully put it, ‘a view from the trenches’, critically sensitive to the realities of power ‘on the...

Seeking to examine historical perspectives on the New Haven School, the first panel of the Young Scholars Conference was a dialogue between two generations of international law scholars. In his opening remarks, moderator Michael Reisman cautioned scholars against consigning to history the set of tools employed in the New Haven School, finding a continued utility and intellectual value in their use. Indeed, both presenters on the panel, Chris Borgen and Paul Berman, relied upon and responded to theories developed by the New Haven School in their own papers....

...discussion about International Law in the Obama Administration: The First Four Years. Donald Francis Donavan of Debevoise & Plimpton will moderate the plenary among Harold Hongju Koh, Yale Law School; Michael H. Posner, Department of State; and Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton University (Thursday, April 4). The Hudson Medal Luncheon will feature Judge Bruno Simma of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal as the Speaker/Honoree and will be moderated by Joseph Weiler of New York University School of Law (Friday, April 5). The Inaugural Charles N. Brower Lecture will be delivered by V.V....

...Milanovic and other commentors have done a good job looking at the international legal problems. For an argument concerning whether international law is evolving regarding the use of force in counter-terrorism activities, I would recommend Jose Alvarez’s Hegemonic International Law Revisited, 97 American Journal of International Law 873 (2003). Moreover, for further perspective on the domestic legal and policy issues concerning anticipatory self-defense, I want to point to a recent op-ed in the Arizona Republic by Amos Guiora (a former Israeli Defense Force Lieutenant Colonel and a law professor) and...

...outside the WTO. On this basis, can one say that the WTO standard of non-discrimination either reflects or creates a customary international law norm of non-discrimination in the treatment of goods from all countries? The answer has to be no. But why? I would suggest that the reason is that WTO members clearly intended for non-discrimination to be a benefit that accrues only to members. The WTO is, to borrow a distinction from Jose Alvarez, a “contract” treaty rather than a “legislative” treaty such as the VCLT. We know this...

SCOTUSBlog notes that the Fourth Circuit has, unusually, denied the government’s unopposed motion to transfer former enemy combatant Jose Padilla to civilian custody. Instead, it has ordered the government to brief the question of whether the Fourth Circuit should vacate its current judgment upholding Padilla’s detention as an enemy combatant in light of the new facts revealed by the government in Padilla’s civilian court indictment. It is somewhat unclear what this means, although it probably isn’t good news for the Government’s effort to keep the Fourth Circuit panel opinion (which...

...cut out. Reporters and observers heard only white noise for a few moments because a military security officer censored one of the defense attorneys, Air Force Capt. Michael Schwartz, after Schwartz alluded to the torture of his client. Just before the military cut the feed, Schwartz used the phrase “big boy pants” to refer to torture, mockingly adopting the euphemism employed by former CIA official Jose Rodriguez in an interview two weeks ago. Because fairness means pretending that you didn’t torture one of the defendants 183 times in a month....

...But with this kind of coverage at least you can have some confidence that it won’t wipe out your kids’ college funds. To that extent, it has to give the lie to the heavy recent riff on how over-legalization is scaring the best and brightest away from government service. It’s a theme in Jack Goldsmith’s book and the volume’s been turned up in the wake of Jose Padilla’s suit against John Yoo. Yoo plays it up again in this op-ed in the weekend WSJ (this on top of an earlier...

The WTO General Council yesterday approved Tajikistan’s accession package, opening the way for membership 30 days after ratification of the package by Tajikistan. The ACLU will file a petition this morning with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission over the treatment of Jose Padilla by the US government since his designation as ‘enemy combatant’ in 2001. Mali’s Prime Minister resigned after the military arrested him for not working in the interests of the country, while he was on his way to France. The United States and France differ in how they...