John Kerry gave an interesting speech at Pepperdine University this week on the intersection of faith and politics. You can read the speech here or watch it here. He raised a number of important questions that are worth sharing. The Washington Post said of the speech that Kerry described "his religious life in greater candor and detail...
We have rarely if ever seen a week like this one at the United Nations. President Chavez condemning Bush as the Devil Incarnate and President Ahmadinejad calling for the return of the Apocalypse. Here is an excerpt from Chavez's speech: The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human...
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave an interesting speech at the American Sociological Association last month on comparative experiences of women in the judiciary. The speech provides a useful perspective on how the United States Supreme Court fares compared with peer national and international tribunals on this issue. When President Carter took office in 1977, only one woman (Shirley Hufstedler) sat...
A federal court last week rendered an important Alien Tort Statute decision in the case of Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc. The decision is available here. The Southern District of New York granted Talisman's motion for summary judgment. I found the opinion thoughtful, detailed, and well-reasoned. The core allegation was that Talisman conspired...
It was sixty years ago on this day that Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Let Europe Arise" speech in Zurich, Switzerland. His hope was that a "United States of Europe" would return Europe from the Dark Ages. There are numerous ways to judge the success or failure of the European Union. But in terms of Churchill's original...
There is a must read piece on Guantanamo in the New York Times magazine yesterday by Tom Golden. Golden interviewed more than 100 military and intelligence officials, guards, former detainees and others. I came away from the article with the impression that there are continuing struggles between intelligence investigators interrogating the detainees and the commanders who are seeking...
Amnesty International has just released a report concluding that Hezbollah is guilty of war crimes for its indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. The report is available here. Here is an excerpt from the press release: "The scale of Hizbullah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, and statements from the leadership confirming...
Pope Benedict XVI's message this week condemning violence and holy war as against the natural order of things was quite interesting. The full text is not yet available in English (here it is in German), but reportedly the Pope quoted from a 14th- and 15th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus in his speech. "The emperor comes to speak about the...
Nobel. Fields. Pulitzer. Booker. Templeton. The disciplines of physics, chemistry, medicine, peace, literature, economics, mathematics, history, journalism, photography, and religion all have their prize. Law has no such award. Why is there no comparable prize for advancement in the field of law? Is it something about the discipline of law that does not justify such an...
Where were you that morning? I was in Geneva. I was working with Charles Brower and Pieter Bekker on a hearing before the United Nations Compensation Commission. Across the table from us were nine Iraqis arguing that Iraq should not be required to pay compensation for the millions our client spent protecting their employees from Iraqi missiles...
Over at "Pennumbra", UPenn's new law review pocket part, Professors Avi Bell and William Burke-White have an interesting debate available here on the continued relevance of the United Nations. Burke-White argues the UN is indispensable, while Bell argues it is dispensable. Check it out. ...
Bobby Chesney (former guest blogger at Opinio Juris), Steve Vladeck (of Prawfsblawg) and Tung Yin (the Yin Blog) have just launched a new national security law blog titled National Security Advisors. Here is their description of the blog: Few areas of law or policy have been as important as national security during the five-year period following 9/11, and none have...
