Author: Roger Alford

The best lines in President Obama’s speech last night were at the beginning: It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory -- hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to...

Opinio Juris is pleased to announce that James Tierney will be guest blogging with us for the next few days. James is the outgoing Executive Articles and Book Reviews Editor for the University of Chicago Law Review. He will blog about his perspectives on the law review submission process, with particular attention given to international law scholarship in...

In the ever-expanding world of international law scholars who become influential deans, George Washington University School of Law announced today that Paul Schiff Berman, Dean at Arizona State, will be the new dean at GWU. "GW Law School is obviously already one of the top law schools in the country, but it is far more than that,” Mr. Berman said....

I read with great interest Professor Bainbridge's post a few weeks ago about self-publishing legal scholarship. The discussion Bainbridge linked to in that post by Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler about self-publishing (and expanded upon here) is even more interesting. (Eugene Volokh's posts from 2009 are also quite useful.) Self-publishing of fiction appears to be the wave...

There's a great article by Professor Adam Goodheart in the New York Times describing how Union Major General Benjamin Butler, a lawyer by training, used the laws of war to help end slavery in America. When three fugitive slaves presented themselves to Butler at Fort Monroe, he had to quickly decide what to do with them. The Confederate...

Assume that a U.S. agency modifies its interpretation of a federal statute to respond to an adverse WTO decision. In so doing, consistent with the Charming Betsy doctrine, its interpretation is brought into conformity with WTO jurisprudence with respect to one stage--the investigation stage--of the administrative proceeding. But the agency does not alter its interpretation of the federal...

I had a wonderful time at the ASIL annual meeting last week, and greatly enjoyed the panel discussion with Mary-Rose Papandrea and Simon Chesterman. One of the principal points that I was trying to convey in my presentation was the government’s legitimate interest in protecting the individual privacy interests. As I said in that presentation, “The government recognizes...

I just received Anuradha Kumar's book "Human Rights: Global Perspectives" from interlibrary loan. Perhaps they should increase the salary for book binders. [caption id="attachment_15191" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption=""][/caption] ...

On March 7, a federal court in New York issued an anti-suit injunction order enjoining Ecuador plaintiffs from enforcing the $9 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron. The injunction applies to all Ecuador plaintiffs and their counsel, including "directly or indirectly funding, commencing, prosecuting, advancing in any way, or receiving benefit from any action or proceeding, outside the Republic of...

We are pleased to introduce to you today an online symposium discussing Hastings Law Professor Chimène Keitner's article, Rights Beyond Borders, published in the Yale Journal of International Law. Her interlocutors will be Marko Milanovic of the University of Nottingham and Pierre-Hugues Verdier of Virginia Law School. ...

“Karin Calvo-Goller has undoubtedly invested much time and effort into this book, which – but for regrettably sloppy editing – might well serve as a first systematic introduction to the procedural issues confronting the ICC. What is still missing is a book that might help to resolve these issues.” It’s not the best book review one could hope for, but neither...