Good:The United States military said Monday that it would release an Associated Press photographer who has been jailed in Iraq without trial for two years on accusations of terrorism and kidnapping. The announcement came after two rulings over the previous week by panels of Iraqi judges, who said that the photographer, Bilal Hussein, was covered by an amnesty law and should...
Naomi Norberg has a fascinating post today at IntLawGrrls about the legal treatment of modern-day pirates. I just want to point readers to a recent article in The Sunday Times about British fears that captured pirates could ask for asylum in the UK:The Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the...
Michigan Law Review's "2008 Survey of Books Related to the Law" is now available on-line. Two OJ'ers have review essays in the issue: yours truly, reviewing Mark Drumbl's Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law; and Roger, reviewing Ron Krotoszynski's The First Amendment in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Comparative Legal Analysis of the Freedom of Speech. The issue also contains a...
We celebrate the birth of new blogs, so it's only appropriate to mourn their passing. Scott Horton, long one of our most gifted bloggers, is officially calling it quits. The only consolation is that, freed from the onerous burden of churning out 2,000 blog words per day (!), Scott intends to devote more time to long-form journalism and...
A couple of weeks ago, Roger suggested that "that W&L's new 3L experiential learning program will result in the general neglect of elective subjects such as international law." Mark Drumbl disagrees; here is his response:Washington & Lee Law School (where I teach) recently has elected to make the third-year of its JD entirely experiential. This means a balance of...
Finally, some good news out of Iraq:An Iraqi judicial committee has dismissed terrorism-related allegations against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him released nearly two years after he was detained by the U.S. military. Hussein, 36, remained in custody Wednesday at Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention facility near Baghdad's airport. A decision by a four-judge panel said Hussein's case falls under...
I've always had a soft spot for Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), both for his evident intelligence and for his willingness to criticize the Bush administration's bungling of all things Iraqi. After last night's interview with John Stewart on The Daily Show, though, I think I'm officially smitten: I was particularly impressed by Hagel's willingness to openly disagree -- in no...
I'm looking at you, McGuinness:A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers." Since the start of the Iraq war, there's been a raucous debate in military circles over how to handle blogs — and the servicemembers who want to keep them. One faction sees blogs as security risks, and a collective waste of...
There has been an interesting debate going on at Slate.com about whether Obama is padding his resume by referring to himself as a "law professor," even though he was formally a "senior lecturer" at the University of Chicago law school. I think the debate is rather silly myself, for the reasons Tim Wu discusses here. Nevertheless, the...
Has anyone else noticed the inconsistent -- and yes, somewhat hypocritical -- positions the Bush administration has taken toward damage awards US courts have imposed against Iraq and the Palestinian Authority? The administration is concerned that the $174 million award given to the family of a US citizen killed in Israel in 2002 will harm the Palestinian Authority's "political...
The Republic of Madagascar has ratified the Rome Statute, effective 1 June 2008. ...
The blog is part of a wonderfully interactive website dedicated to generating ideas for the next president. Here is the website's self-description:Climate change, terrorism, poverty, the spread of disease — these are just some of the global challenges that we all face. On Day One is a platform for gathering and sharing your ideas about what the next president...
