Next month is the 40th anniversary of the so-called "Soccer War" between El Salvador and Honduras, made famous by an elegaic essay by Ryszard Kapuscinski. (See also this clip, in Spanish Catalan.) In the midst of heated disputes over immigration, trade, border delineation and other issues, the two countries played each other in three qualifying games for the World Cup, one held in each...
Professor Thomas M. Franck of NYU passed away on Wednesday afternoon. (NYU has a page in memoriam, here.) I assume his name is well-known to most, if not all, of the regular readers of Opinio Juris. Suffice it to say that his contributions to the field of international law are staggering, as can be glimpsed from his bio on his faculty page. But a faculty...
Following on my previous post, this is a much longer and more complete clip of the waterboarding of talk-radio host Mancow Muller. (Thanks to Roger, who found it on YouTube.) This clip includes an explanation of how waterboarding is done and includes Muller's reactions. I thought the way he explained that it was much worse than he ever would have...
Hat tip: The Faculty Lounge As if they ever go right? Anyway, this was a publicity stunt by conservative talk show host Mancow Muller, but it seems to have gone wrong in an unexpected way...
A year ago, Alex Ross, the New Yorker's classical music critic and the author of the book The Rest is Noise, wote a post on the New Yorker Online about the use of music as a psychological weapon. Ross recently posted a short update on his own blog. The original essay began with a reference to the use of music in interrogations: In Errol...
Given all the recent talk about the future of Guantanamo, it may be of interest to readers that, Dr. Michael J. Strauss, a lecturer in international relations at the Centre d'Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris, has a new book called The Leasing of Guantanamo Bay, published by Praeger Security International. Here’s the description from the press release: Post-9/11 events at the U.S. naval...
I just wanted to pass along something I had found recently: Newseum has an interactive map that allows you to see that day's front pages from various papers from around the world. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, you can't enlarge the pages (although you can zoom-in on the map), so by-and-large only the headlines are readable. Nonetheless, this does allow you...
Seed Magazine has an interesting roundtable discussion about whether or not conflicts over fresh water are a significant threat to international stability (and whether water shortages are even a cause of war). The introduction to the discussion notes the case being made that water shortages have been and will increasigly be a source of violent conflict: In 2007 an 18-month study of...
People magazine reports: Before heading to the glitz and glamour of the Cannes Film Festival in France, Angelina Jolie spent Tuesday in a courtside booth at The Hague in the Netherlands watching the prosecution of warlord Thomas Lubanga, calling it "a landmark trial for children." At one point, Jolie found herself under the watchful eye of Lubanga, the founder and former leader...
Amos Guiora has a link at National Security Advisors for his new article of domestic terror courts. He writes in his abstract: President Barack Obama has stated that among his initial priorities as commander-in-chief is closing the United States detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. One of his first actions after taking office was to suspend all legal proceedings in Guantanamo so that “the...
The "beautiful game" is what Pele calls soccer (yes, I know, "football" to the rest of the world besides the US). On April 25th, diplomats from the UN, including the Secretary-General, set aside the great game of diplomacy to play a game of soccer at New York's Chelsea Piers to support the non-governmental organization Play31. Play31's website explains that: Play31 was...
It has gone all but unnoticed in the U.S. but Russia has declared victory in its fight against Chechen rebels. Chechnya had become a byword for a place of chaos and random violence perpetrated by all sides, especially since the first Chechen War of 1994-1996. But a recent report by the Times of London concerning Russian black operations in the...
