Weekend Roundup: March 9-15, 2013

Our main event this week was a book symposium on Curtis Bradley’s new book “International Law in the US Legal System“. On the first day, the symposium focused on treaties with comments by David Moore and Jean Galbraith.  Attention turned to international delegations on day two. Julian welcomed the book’s attention to questions of constitutional structure, but disagreed that accession to the International Criminal Court would not create delegation problems. Kristina Daugirdas asked whether the presumption of non-self-execution as a solution to questions of delegation could make it harder for the US to comply with its international obligations. On day three, Bill Dodge and Mark Weisburd discussed the position of customary international law in the US legal system. Finally, Mike Ramsey and Ingrid Wuerth discussed war powers and international law, and Curtis Bradley responded to all comments.

All commentators wholeheartedly recommended the book, so maybe it can follow in the footsteps of Duncan’s book “The Oxford Guide to Treaties“, about which we had a symposium late last year, and win an ASIL Certificate of Merit.

Deborah asked whether the US needs a new authorization to use force against the new jihadist groups in North Africa and the Middle East that are only distantly related to the “original” Al Qaeda, or whether other options that are already legally available would be sufficient.

Our bloggers have been active lately: Kristen Boon posted the abstract to her essay on lex specialis and the responsibility of international organizations, while Roger’s teaching took him to the Philippines where he witnessed first hand how microfinance had helped transform a mountain village.

Speaking of affecting change,  if this post on Lawfare, pointed out by Ken, is correct, Kevin may have achieved every academic’s dream of our work (a blog post even!) affecting government policy. In a follow-up post, Kevin argued why a CIA drone operator cannot invoke the public authority defense. In other posts, Kevin continued the debate on the power to capture or kill  with his response to Ryan Goodman’s rebuttal over at Lawfare. Kevin also posted about Philippe Sands’ decision to quit the LibDems over their support to the UK’s new justice and security bill, counted the legal errors in an article in the Jerusalem Post reporting about the request by an Israeli law firm to the ICC Prosecutor to open an investigation against the Palestinian President Abbas and nine Hamas members, and updated us on Libya’s latest procedural steps in slowing down the admissibility challenge.

As every week, we listed events and announcements  and provided you with daily weekday news wraps.

Many thanks to our guest contributors and have a nice weekend!