Brad Roth, an old friend, and well known to many OJ readers as law and political science professor at Wayne State University, delivers a heck of a punch with his new paper, set to appear in Santa Clara Journal of International Law (2009), but up in draft at SSRN, "Coming to Terms with Ruthlessness: Sovereign Equality, Global Pluralism, and the Limits...
The Economist reports this week (August 1, 2009, p 64), "Remittances to developing countries: what goes up," that remittance payments by immigrants, legal and illegal, from developed countries to developing countries has shrunk by a lot. Remittances held up during 2008 but they are a lagging indicator of economic distress, and in 2009 were shrinking radically: [T]he chances that remittances will...
My too-brief contribution to the Territoriality symposium is to send you over to Michael Innes's brief comment on cyberterritoriality. He comments there on Tim's remarks, rather than Kal's book - tangential to Kal's book, but cyberterritoriality is very important in its own domain. (Update: Apologies, Mike, for getting the attribution wrong (see Mike's comment), and I'm correcting it here.) Michael is founder...
I realize it's very down-market to interrupt the serious intellectual discussion of Kal's outstanding book with something is superficial as this - and I can't plead any important and worthy policy issue, as with Deborah's very interesting post - but I'm afraid I must ask our European readers whether the following reported rumor could possibly be true. It concerns Prime Minister...
Randy Barnett at Volokh Conspiracy mentioned today a new paper, "Anarchy and Development: An Application of the Theory of the Second Best," 2 Law and Development 1, article 4 (2009), by Peter T. Leeson and Claudia R. Wilson. Professor Barnett says he hasn't yet read it, but the abstract looks interesting. It intrigued me enough to download it (it's a...
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is in trouble in the UN, according to a dismayed account in this week's Economist ("An idea whose time has come - and gone?" Economist, July 25, 2009, p 58). I'm dismayed, too. At the 2005 UN reform summit of the General Assembly, says the Economist the biggest-ever gathering of world leaders accepted the principle that they have...
Rather than comment on the refreshingly tough realism or seriously imprudent bear-baiting of Vice-President Biden's recent remarks on Russia ("Russia will bend to the US"), or whether there is an important and dangerous gap between short-term and long-term in the collapse of an imperial nuclear power even if the long-run claim is true, etc., let me instead offer a background...
Lite-blogging Ken notes the front page WSJ story today, "Swiss Banks Freeze Out US Clients," July 21, 2009. The freeze-out is a response to UBS and its fight with the IRS, which wants information on US taxpayers (not necessarily just citizens). I have two questions, neither of which I will try to answer: First, what is the competitive advantage of a...
I see that I'm quoted by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane in their New York Times article today, "CIA Had Plan to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders" (July 13, 2009). I'm trying hard to maintain radio silence and not blog, in order to let my shoulder heal up, but let me say something briefly about this. First, I'm delighted, of course, that...
I am going to be on lite-blogging status for a while, due to a pinched nerve and muscle tear caused - everyone please take careful note - not by my athletic and extreme sports lifestyle, but by bad ergonomic habits at the keyboard. Let me assure you, at this moment you do not want to be me. However, while spending my...
all of us here at OJ wish you a happy birthday! We're looking forward to reading your posts here, but hope you have a lovely birthday....
KJH has already remarked here at OJ on the contempt trial in the ICTY of Florence Hartmann. Ruth Wedgwood (SAIS-JHU and also a fellow member of the Hoover Task Force on National Security and Law) offers an analysis at the American Interest online and, like Kevin, thinks this an unfortunate move by the tribunal....
