The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has a provocative essay by Brian Weeden critiquing the idea that the U.S. should sign on to a treaty banning the weaponization of space. The author's point is not so much that he thinks there should be unregulated military use of space, but rather whether a treaty is the best way to go about...
In case you haven't seen them already, I wanted to point out that Beth Van Schaack and Hari Osofsky have a couple of posts at IntLawGrrls on yesterday's Koh confirmation hearing....
State Department Legal Adviser nominee Harold Koh's written answers to pre-hearing questions asked by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have been posted online at Senator Lugar's site. The Q&A goes for over 60 pages. I have only skimmed it and so, for now, I will simply point out questions/answers that may be of particular interest to Opinio Juris readers (and of course, I...
Catherine Powell has an essay at Huffington Post responding to those criticizing Harold Koh for his views on customary international law. She writes: Harold Koh's position that customary international law is a form of federal common law reflects the conventional view since the founding of the nation. For over 200 years, Congress, the courts, and the Executive Branch have recognized that...
In the case of Moldova, the question will be whether the protests continue and, if so, their size. While Moldova's President Voronin is term-limited out of office, based on the recent parliamentary elections, the ruling Communist Party (headed by Voronin) will stay in power. The question is whether the protests will up-end the the political status quo. I'll write a longer analysis on...
Mary Ellen O'Connell (whose recent book The Power and the Purpose of International Law was the subject of one of our book discussions) has a post at Balkinization called "Who's Afraid of International Law?" that considers the fear-mongering by some in the media concerning international law. After briefly discussing the views of the Founders, she writes: So why does Glen Beck seem to fear international law? Why...
Following-up on my post on Harold Koh's nomination, in the first part of this post I round-up some links to new stories and blog posts on Koh's nomination. Moreover, after the "continue reading" jump there is a guest post from Prof. Anupam Chander of the University of California, Davis (currently visiting at the University of Chicago). In the last day or so,...
I was very happy to hear last week the news that Dean Harold Koh of Yale, someone I have known for many years and whom I greatly admire, was being nominated to head the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser. It’s one of those picks that just makes sense: Koh is widely respected in the legal profession (among lawyers with a...
A quip that is often heard at gatherings international lawyers is "If I were [insert name of some prominent Bush Administration official], I wouldn't plan on any more vacations in Europe." Well, after all the talk of possible European prosecutions of one or more officials from the previous administration, the possibility has now taken a step closer towards becoming reality....
Pardon the title of this post being a somewhat-obscure allusion to the standard trope of movie-trailer voice-overs, but over at Danger Room, they are well under way in their Iron Eagles search: their "celebration of the most awesomely-bad videos of the military industrial complex." Videos that often mix bad animation, worse narration, explosions, and weaponry statistics. But, for my money, they have...
Financial crisis getting you down? You can always move your money to the virtual world of the Planet Calypso: Interstellar banking isn't here yet, but at least you can pretend. The publisher of the online science-fiction game "Entropia Universe," set on the planet Calypso, received a banking license from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority last week and plans to open a...
Last month, I wrote a post about the upcoming Eurovision song competition and European politics. I wanted to point out that the competition will be hosted by (and televised from) Moscow and that the Georgian entry was going to sing a disco song that teases Vladimir Putin called, ahem, "We Don't Wanna Put In." See it performed here. Anyway, in the final paragraph I...
