Okay, that's a joke. But I'm not sure quite what to make of Global Governance Watch, a new joint project of the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society. (Bolton keynoted today's launch.) On the one hand, you just know there has to be an anti-internationalist strategem at work here, and there is some evidence to back...
NY Times reporter Eric Lichtblau has published an account of DOJ during the Bush years, Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice, which we can add to the growing shelf of books looking at the legal aspects of Bush Administration national security policy. It mostly hews to the formula: bad things done, people hurt, the Constitution trashed. The book...
They're both participants in the reconquista, illegal immigrants as the foot soldiers and now a vodka purveyor as its cartographer. Entertaining little dust-up over this ad from Absolut, depicting (very roughly) Mexico along the lines of its early 19th century boundaries. The ad was targeted at Mexican consumers, "based upon historical perspectives and ...
Steve Ratner has a nice turn at the "Think Again" column in the latest Foreign Policy (teaser here - let this be a good reason to subscribe). Steve takes on various elements of the popular conventional wisdom on the Geneva Conventions, including the line that they are obsolete:The conventions won’t prevent wars—they were never intended to—but they can and...
This among his useful suggestions as to how to fix the errors of Bush in anti-terror policy in a Slate column last week:• Work with allies to establish an international legal framework for terrorists. Last week, John McCain called for a "new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control." This is a good idea, not because...
Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway had this op-ed in Saturday's WaPo arguing that congressional authorization for the Iraq deployment will expire with official the UN mandate for the multinational force come January 1, 2009. The piece works from the limitation in Congress' 2002 joint resolution approving the use of force only to "(1) defend the national security of the...
Eric Posner has this post up on Medellin on Slate's new law blog Convictions, which wraps up with the following: There is an academic theory that holds that the type of litigation (sometimes called "transnational legal process") exemplified by the Medellin case would eventually bring the United States into greater and greater compliance with international law. But with the benefit of...
I'll venture a cautious prediction beyond the four corners of the opinion: Medellin will not be executed. I don't think it will result from anything that happens in Washington; Congress just won't have adequate incentive to help out a brutal murderer in the name of international legal obligation. The Administration might try to push for implementing legislation sufficient...
I'd like to join Roger in focusing on how the trend away from article II treaties is perfected. Oona's "informal reform strategy" suggests that the move to CEA’s (with only a few exceptional areas carved out for continuing article II treatment) can be implemented through presidential submission choices. The strategy is “both legally unproblematic and politically feasible. It...
As one of his lead initiatives as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown charged former British attorney general Lord Peter Goldsmith (he of Iraq War justification fame) with undertaking a study of British citizenship. The 134-page report was issued earlier this week (pdf here). Let's just say the early reviews have not been favorable. Two recommendations have been singled...
This episode is shaping up to be a nice little case study in constitutional method. The question: is McCain a "natural born citizen" for constitutional purposes notwithstanding his birth in the Panama Canal Zone. (See background story in the NYT here.) The controversy will never get to the courts -- among other jurisdictional thresholds, who has standing?...
Judith Resnik gave an interesting talk on local foreign policymaking at Peggy McGuinness’ terrific Missouri v. Holland symposium week before last, based an article she has forthcoming in the Emory Law Journal (proofs here). She catalogues all the (mostly good) ways in which localities are emerging as international actors. Some of the themes echo others' work (see for...
