Search: jose guerena

10 Mar Yale Young Scholars Conference

...discuss whether a “New” New Haven School is emerging and to formulate a statement articulating what the basic tenets of that School should be. Please visit our website for a detailed schedule of events. To make this event available to a wider audience over the web, YJIL editors Jessica Karbowski and José Miñán will provide summaries of the four panel discussions planned for Saturday. José and I are excited about this opportunity to contribute to Opinio Juris, and we look forward to providing you with an account of the action!...

22 Nov A close look at the Padilla indictment

Although it gets us a bit far afield from the focus of Opinio Juris, I’m going to follow Roger and Julian’s lead and blog briefly regarding the Padilla indictment. (Yes, I’m still here. Sorry to have been so quite the past two weeks, but I do plan to be more active in the days ahead!) Many months ago, there was considerable speculation that the government would obtain a criminal indictment against Jose Padilla in the Southern District of Florida, where it was known that a grand jury was investigating a...

25 Jul AJIL Symposium: Sovereignty and Humanity

[José Alvarez is the Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at New York University School of Law and is the Co-Editor-in-Chief (along with Benedict Kingsbury) of the American Journal of International Law] As the new co-editor in chief of the AJIL, I, along with my co-EIC, Benedict Kingsbury, are very grateful to Chris Borgen and Opinio Juris for hosting this on-line symposium on the Journal’s April 2013 issue. We also thank the two authors, Eyal Benvenisti and Leila Sadat, for exposing themselves to this trial by fire. It...

10 Nov Fugutive Rewards and the FSIA

The Eleventh Circuit last week rendered a fascinating decision regarding Peru’s failure to honor a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of a fugitive. In Guevara v. Peru, Jose Guevara provided the necessary information that led to the capture of Vladimiro Montesinos, but Peru failed to pay the reward to Guevara. Guevara brought a breach of contract claim against Peru, and Peru invoked sovereign immunity. The question presented was whether the monetary reward fell within the commercial activity exception of the FSIA. As the court notes, while...

15 May Why Do Some Progressives Hate Dual Citizenship?

NYT’s Room for Debate takes up the question of dual citizenship, with contributions from Ayelet Shachar, David Abraham, Mark Krikorian, Jose Itzigohn, and myself. Krikorian is predictably and harshly disapproving, on the old “it’s like bigamy” model. Ayelet, Jose, and myself are all more or less in favor. In some ways, the most interesting contribution comes from David Abraham, a Marxist historian (I think self-identified as such) who teaches law at the University of Miami. He points out that dual citizenship is all very nice for the globalized elites, but...

23 Nov Criminal Prosecutions and Another Kind of Precedent

...the prosecution of Jose Padilla in which federal courts ignore background interrogational practices. These practices rely on other kinds of precedents—congressional and executive constraints on interrogations—to remove the practical temptation to torture. (I’m generally a fan of certain uses of pragmatism). Thus, like Eric Holder’s decision to try KSM in federal court, the responsibility for disestablishing the necessity to torture lies in the discretionary decisions of the Obama Administration. Successful criminal prosecutions of detainees, like successful legally-compliant interrogations, will go a long way to establishing practical and policy precedents that...

19 Oct Spanish Warrants Issued for U.S. Soldiers

This story will no doubt heighten trans-Atlantic tensions. A Spanish judge has issued arrest warrants for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fire on a Baghdad hotel killed Jose Couso, a Spanish journalist. According to the report, the United States has undertaken three separate investigations to determine whether the GIs engaged in any unlawful conduct. In each case they were exonerated. One would have thought that would be the end of the matter. But Spain now plans to prosecute the soldiers for unspecified “delitos contra la comunidad internacional.” By issuing these...

07 Jan The London Times Reports on Alleged Israeli Nuke Strike Plans Against Iran

...Of course, Israel doesn’t need to be socialized into accepting a norm of pre-emption; they argued in favor of that norm when they bombed the Iraqi reactor in ’82. But that action was roundly condemned by the Security Council in a resolution that that U.S. chose not to veto. Now the U.S. has not only come out in favor of pre-emption but, picking up the arguments of Detlev Vagts and Jose Alvarez on Hegemonic International Law, the U.S. has worjked through the UN Security Council to essentially support these norms...