Though it produced hardly a ripple in the news (given all the other drama on Capitol Hill this week), Senator Leahy held a hearing yesterday on the legislation he has introduced to enforce the notification provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) at the state level. The webcast of the hearing, aptly titled "Fulfilling our Treaty Obligations and...
We now know that there is broad agreement that if Texas Governor Perry goes forward with today's scheduled execution of Humberto Leal, he will be doing so in violation of law. Who has said so? Well, the U.S. government, the U.S. Supreme Court, at least three concurring judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, a significant number of members...
As discussions over the legality of the May 1 killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. forces heated up and international law and law of war experts provided a range of potential arguments for and against the lawfulness of U.S. action, we thought it would help public discussion to present the official U.S. position on the legal dimensions of the...
The Council of Europe continues to monitor death penalty practices around the world and call out friendly states that fall short of full abolition. Last week the Council passed a resolution (full text here) reiterating its support for abolition and calling on Belarus (as a potential member state), Japan and the U.S. to join the consensus of democratic, human rights...
Our friends at the International Law Association pass along the following registration information for the upcoming Asia-Pacific Conference in Taipei, which features a terrific line-up of speakersi: The 2011 International Law Association (ILA) Asia-Pacific Regional Conference will take place in Taipei, Taiwan from May 29 to June 1, 2011. The conference theme is “Contemporary International Law Issues in the Asia Pacific:...
On Friday, the State Department issued the 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, a mandatory report to the United States Congress on human rights conditions around the globe. This link to the full report is here, the remarks of Secretary Clinton is here, and a very useful q and a with Mike Posner, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights...
The American Branch of the International Law Association has a call for panel proposals for International Law Weekend 2011, which takes place October 20-22 in New York City. The theme of this year's ILW is "International Law and National Politics." The call for proposals can be found here, and includes the following information about submissions, which are due to the...
I am happy to pass along the following announcement for the forthcoming conference at Pace Law School on the use of empirical methods in teaching and writing about international law. Early registration closes this Wednesday, April 6. Here is the message from interest group co-chairs Cindy Galway Buys and Tom McDonnell: The Teaching International Law Interest Group of the...
Have you worked on post-conflict justice issues? Have you been part of a rule of law project in a conflict zone? If so, you may be of help to our colleague Professor Elena Baylis (Univ. of Pittsburgh), who is working on a really terrific empirical project on post-conflict justice. Here is the information from Elena which includes eligibility...
Greetings from Washington, where several OJ bloggers are attending the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting. Congratulations to the meeting co-chairs and organizing committee for putting together a terrific program. If you are attending the meeting or in Washington, please stop by The Bar at the Ritz-Carlton for an informal gathering of the OJ team at 7:00 pm tonight,...
I was deeply saddened to hear of Warren Christopher’s passing this weekend. He was one of the last lawyer-statesmen of his generation within the Democratic party establishment – a veteran of World War II, with service in the Johnson and Carter administrations before being named Secretary of State by President Clinton. Jim Fallows’ has a lovely tribute here, which honors...
My St. John's colleague Marc DeGirolami has a post up at Mirror of Justice summarizing today's European Court of Human Rights decision in Lautsi v. Italy. The full decision is at the ECtHR's website here. At issue in the case was the display of crucifixes in Italian public school classrooms. In 2009, the ECtHR ruled against Italy's display of the...
