In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Chris Borgen

21 Feb

My previous post mentioned battlefield robot analogs of dogs, cheetahs, pack animals, even humans. Now behold the synchronized nanobot swarm!  Here's what national security analyst John Robb had to say about the tactical benefits of a battlefield drone swarm: •It cuts the enemy target off from supply and communications. •It adversely impacts the morale of the target. •It makes a coordinated defense extremely difficult (resource allocation is...

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20 Feb

Three quick updates from the "robots and warfare" side of things (largely culled from recent Danger Room posts that caught my eye and I wanted to point out to Opinio Juris readers). I have previously posted about Big Dog, the four-legged beast of burden being developed for use by the U.S. military.  DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is now...

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18 Feb

Wired's Danger Room has a new piece about law enforcement reform and efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. In particular, it focuses on the work of U.S. and Romanian Special Operations Forces in training Afghan law enforcement. Behind the scenes across the embattled country, a special breed of U.S. soldier is working closely with a new style of Afghan police to enforce law and order in...

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16 Jan

Tomorrow, as part of its Leading Figures in International Dispute Resolution Series, the ASIL’s International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group (ICTIG) will host a talk by Meg Kinnear, Secretary General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) to discuss the ICSID system for settling investor-state disputes. The event details are as follows: ASIL Headquarters, Tillar House 2223 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington DC 20008 January 17, 2012 6:00...

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09 Jan

The choice of book reviewer might be surprising but the result, unfortunately, is not.  Yoo reviews two books: David Scheffer's memoir All the Missing Souls  and William Shawcross' Justice and the Enemy. Scheffer's book details his time working on war crimes issues, ultimately as the Ambassador at Large on War Crimes, in President Clinton's State Department. (Disclosure: we hope to have Scheffer...

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30 Nov

Well, not really today, but it was about twenty years ago that what we now call (incorrectly, at times) the "frozen conflicts"-- the separatist conflicts in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova-- weren't  frozen but were actually brushfire wars before settling into stalemates. Long-time readers of this blog may remember my interest in these conflicts, starting with the ongoing conflict in Moldova...

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18 Nov

Suzanne Nossel, who was until recently a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations and is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow for Global Governance at the Council of Foreign Relations, has been named the new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. (I should note that Suzanne is an old friend.)  Here's part of what the Amnesty press release said: Most...

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17 Nov

Professor Sean Murphy of GW Law has been elected to the ILC. The press release from GW begins: Today, Professor Sean Murphy was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to the International Law Commission (ILC). The Commission consists of 34 distinguished legal scholars, practitioners, and government officials from around the world who are elected to serve for five-year terms. Created...

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10 Nov

For those in NYC tomorrow, I wanted to note that NYU Law is hosting what promises to be an informative experts' meeting tomorrow on the International Criminal Court.  Here's the event description: How best to assure the independence of the ICC Prosecutor Friday, Nov. 11th from 6-7:30 p.m. NYU School of Law,  Lipton Hall, Faculty Club, 108 West 3rd Street, New York, New York The independence...

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19 Oct

David Cortright, the policy director of the Kroc Institute for International PeaceStudies at Notre Dame has posted an article to CNN.com looking at the prospect of the wide-spread proliferation of drone warfare. He begins: Drone technology is spreading rapidly. As many as 50 countries are developing or purchasing these systems, including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Even non-state actors are involved. Hezbollah reportedly...

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21 Aug

David Bosco has an essay at Foreign Policy arguing that the current financial and security crises, rather than weakening international intitutions, are strengthening them.  In short, there are so few options, that leaders are turning to international organizations and relying on them. But there may also be a more fundamental shift that is occurring in international economic policymaking: ...

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