The Volokh Conspiracy is hosting a discussion of a new book on media bias entitled Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts The American Mind. Here is a snippet from the summary on the Amazon page: Dr. Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent years constructing precise, quantitative measures of the slant of...
As some readers may know, I spent four years writing television in Los Angeles -- law, cop, and terrorism shows -- before becoming an academic. When I wrote scripts, I prided myself on accuracy: although I occasionally took artistic license, I always tried to get the law and facts right as best I could. So it bothers me to no...
It's not every day that a state enacts a law that blatantly authorizes crimes against humanity, so I feel obligated to give a special shout-out to China, who intend to make the crime against humanity of enforced disappearance official government policy: Chinese police will gain new legal powers to detain suspects for up to six months without telling their families...
Time has an interesting article up about Saif's reappearance in Tripoli. The whole thing is well worth a read, but I was struck by these paragraphs about the ICC: The rebels were not the only ones whose credibility was in doubt on Tuesday. So too was that of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which has indicted...
So says Saif Gaddafi, who apparently has not been captured by the rebels after all: Muammar Gaddafi's once powerful son, Saif al-Islam, made a defiant appearance in Tripoli last night to disprove the revolutionaries' claim to have arrested him and to proclaim ultimate victory. Saif al-Islam, 39, arrived in an armoured vehicle waving two fingers in a victory sign...
CNN is reporting that Libyan rebels have arrested Saif Gaddafi, Muammar's second-eldest son long thought to be his most likely successor. Saif is one of the three suspects for whom the ICC has issued arrest warrants; the allegations include persecution and murder as crimes against humanity. And it appears that the OTP is already in negotiations with the rebels to...
Our friends at the Cornell International Law Journal have asked me to post the following call for papers. The conference looks great; I'm disappointed that it starts the last day of my summer teaching obligations. The Cornell International Law Journal is pleased to announce its 2012 symposium, Forces Without Borders: Non-State Actors in a Changing Middle East, February 17th–18th, 2012 at...
Well, at least it is in Michelle Bachmann's world: I would say it's a unified message. It really is about jobs and the economy. That doesn't mean people haven't [sic] forgotten about protecting life and marriage and the sanctity of the family. People are very concerned about that as well. But what people recognize is...
Apologies for the non-existent blogging of late -- a few weeks ago a car knocked me off my bike, breaking a small bone in my forearm and badly bruising my ribs. I didn't need surgery or even a cast, fortunately, but I haven't been able to type more than a short email until the past few days. This is probably...
I want to call readers attention to Dan Joyner's new book, Interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, just out from Oxford. I haven't had time to read it yet, but it looks fascinating -- and the cover is beautiful. Here is the summary: The 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty has proven the most complicated and controversial of all arms control treaties, both in...
I want to call readers' attention to Douglas Guilfoyle's article "The Mavi Marmara Incident and Blockade in Armed Conflict," which is forthcoming in the British Year Book of International Law. (Subscription required.) It's absolutely superb -- comprehensive, analytic, and above all fair. Indeed, its conclusions differ in important ways from those of the UN HRC report, the Turkel Commission inquiry...
David Hicks is back in the news here in Australia, because the DPP has announced that it intends to seize any royalties he receives from the sale of his book, Guantanamo: My Journey. The DPP's decision has received a great deal of criticism, for a variety of reasons: Hicks accepted a plea because the US government threatened to put him...
