In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

26 Jul

To relatively little notice, the proposed European Constitution has garnered several more approvals this summer, following the well-publicized French and Dutch rejections in late May/early June. Latvia, Cyprus and Malta ratified it by parliamentary vote on June 2, June 30, and July 6, respectively. And, in the first popular referendum since the French and Dutch elections, on July 10 voters...

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26 Jul

I want to welcome Elizabeth Kandravy Cassidy to Opinio Juris. Elizabeth is an American attorney currently living in Geneva who will offer a comparativist perspective to our musings. She has taught comparative and constitutional law overseas (Univ. of Namibia) and employment, gender and family law in the US (Princeton and Seton Hall). Over the next two weeks she will be...

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25 Jul

For months, the Bush administration has relied on its own legal analysis (bolstered now by the DC Circuit's opinion in Hamdan) that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to detainees in Guantanamo. Nonetheless, President Bush claimed in 2002 that, despite this legal conclusion, all detainees in custody at Guantanamo and elsewhere would be treated "humanely" and consistent with the principles...

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22 Jul

In the midst of the pre-confirmation feeding frenzy over Judge John Roberts, it is worth considering (okay, wildy speculating about) how he would approach the use of foreign judicial opinions, legal sources and the more complex questions about how international law is brought into effect through the federal courts. If, as the FT op-ed by David Garrow suggests, Roberts will...

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19 Jul

The Iraqi Special Tribunal, constituted to try Saddam Hussein and members of his former government, announced Sunday that the first case against Saddam had been referred for trial. The referral is akin to indictment in the US criminal justice system, and will allow the trial to be scheduled. The first case involves Saddam's massacre of over 150 Shiites in Dujyal...

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18 Jul

Marty Lederman has posted this excellent analysis of the Hamdan case over at Balkinzation.com. As Julian pointed out in his original post, the DC Circuit's conclusion that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the current conflict with al Qaeda is vulnerable on appeal to the Supreme Court. Lederman probes deeper into the question of whether Common Art. 3 of...

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16 Jul

It looks like Justice O'Connor is not going to slow down much in retirement. As this article notes, she spent last week attending a conference of the Central and Eastern European Legal Initative (CEELI) in Istanbul. Apparently, Justice O'Connor is passionate about building and promoting independent judiciaries in the former Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union. Interestingly, she herself...

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16 Jul

As I predicted back in April, a panel of the D.C. Circuit unanimously rejected constitutional and treaty-based challenges to a trial of alleged terrorists by military commission. The decision reversed a lower court's finding that the whole military commission system is a violation of the Geneva Convention. The D.C. Circuit's key holdings:The Sept 11 Resolution for the Authorization of the...

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15 Jul

This week Japan granted undersea gas drilling rights to an area also claimed by China. This is a separate dispute from Japan's attempt to convert a rock into a Tokyo address. But it is another serious irritant in what is an increasingly contentious and dangerous relationship.Why can't Japan and China agree to submit their dispute to the ICJ like Benin...

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14 Jul

The papers this week have been filled with discussions of the ten-year anniversary of the Serb massacre at Srebrenica. Two articles well worth reading are Christopher Hitchen's post at Slate, and this one in the Economist (sub. req'd). I also read with great interest the comments to Julian's post on the broader question of deterrence and international criminal law. While...

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