Other blogs have posted information on the new and lateral faculty hires this season. See Concurring Opinions here for lateral hires and Legal Theory Blog here for entry level hires. But none of this information provides details on the legal specializations of any of these hires. So we would like to provide our readers with information on...
Last month I posted a story about a decision coming out of Indiana that required the non-custodial parent to be subject to supervision during parental visitations. The reason the court issued the order was due to fears that the American-Egyptian father would flee with the child to Egypt and never return. The comments generated by the post were some of...
There is an interesting story in today's New York Times about the prosecution of a man in Montenegro for a murder he allegedly committed in New York in 1990. According to the report, authorities in 1990 found Mary Beal in pieces, stuffed in garbage bags that were strewn in Brooklyn near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, the police...
One hundred eighty-eight years ago today, on February 22, 1819, the United States and Spain signed the Adams-Onís Treaty (also known as the Florida Purchase Treaty or the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819) by which the United States acquired Florida from Spain and the two countries settled their boundary dispute regarding the western territories. Thanks to the treaty we became...
There is a fascinating case brewing at ICSID concerning new laws established by the South African government to redress historical, social, and economic inequalities in the mining and energy sectors. Luke Peterson of Investment Treaty News has the details: European-based investors in South Africa's mining industry have mounted an international arbitration against the South African Government alleging that that country's...
Last week, the Southern District of New York offered up a nice, succinct, high quality opinion on treaty interpretation that does a wonderful job of looking at plain meaning, object and purpose to interpret an ambiguous phrase in the Montreal Convention. There is nothing exciting about Baah v. Virgin Atlantic Airways (2007 WL 424993)--it related to injuries suffered from hot beverages...
Last week the D.C. Circuit rendered an alarming decision ruling that multinational forces in Iraq could not transfer an American citizen held in Iraq to an Iraqi court for criminal prosecution for alleged terrorist activities he committed while in Iraq. In Omar v. Harvey, an American-Jordanian dual national was arrested in Baghdad in October 2004, together with four other...
Human Rights First has launched an initiative known as Prime Time Torture that seeks to address the issue of torture on television. It laments the fact that "it used to be that only villains on television tortured. Today, 'good guy' and heroic American characters torture — and this torture is depicted as necessary, effective and even patriotic." I...
For the first time ever I am using Google Books as a resource in my current legal research for my forthcoming article. You have probably read about the Google Books project before, but if you are like me you have not yet incorporated it into your research. Based on my recent experience, I would strongly recommend that you do...
The Lockerbie trials continue to raise interesting issues of international law and practice. The latest wrinkle is whether the criminal conviction of Al-Megrahi by the Lockerbie court can have preclusive effect in the United States pertaining to plaintiffs' ATA and TVPA claims. In a decision of first impression, a federal district court in Hurst v. Libya ruled that...
The D.C. Circuit has resolved numerous terrorism cases under the Flatow amendment to the FSIA. But last month's decision in Perles v. Kagy offers a new twist to the cottage industry of terrorism cases. It involves a fight for the spoils of the terrorism litigation between the plaintiff attorneys. Steven Perles is the attorney who brought the successful claims against...
Amazing images from Radical Cartography. Click to enlarge. Europe has an area of 4.0 million square miles, compared to 9.4 million square miles for North America (3.5 million of which is the United States). ...
