In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

06 Jul

One of the ways to heighten student and faculty interest in international, comparative and cross-cultural legal issues is to examine those issues through the lens of traditional domestic topics. Nothing seems more "local" than criminal defense. The newly published Second Edition of "Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense," edited by Linda Friedman Ramirez, an attorney in Florida, should put...

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05 Jul

I will be in Vienna from July 9-16 with some time on my hands. If any Opinio Juris readers live in the city and would like to meet up for coffee, feel free to write me at my Auckland e-mail address: k.heller@auckland.ac.nz. Hope to hear from you! ...

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05 Jul

Say this for the Australians — at least they're willing to admit that their participation in the Iraq war is about oil:The government has admitted the need to secure oil supplies is a factor in Australia's continued military involvement in Iraq. Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said today oil was a factor in Australia's contribution to the unpopular war, as "energy security"...

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04 Jul

Here is a festive report about one of the early historical records of a Fourth of July celebration, as recounted in the Virginia Gazette on July 18, 1777: Yesterday the 4th of July, being the Anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America, was celebrated in this city with demonstration of joy and festivity. About noon all the armed...

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03 Jul

I have often criticized the ridiculously light sentences given to a number of U.S. soldiers convicted of serious war crimes in Iraq. I guess I should have been more careful what I wished for — the DOJ announced Tuesday that it is seeking the death penalty against Steven Green, a soldier accused of killing an Iraqi family and raping...

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02 Jul

Here's an op-ed from Jack Goldsmith and Jeremy Rabkin in today's WaPo lamenting the Bush Administration's decision to support ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty. The piece fits a sovereigntist template: describe formal capacities of a new international institution, spin out way in which in theory it could restrain core US discretion, and voila — signing on...

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02 Jul

Remember the historic U.S.-Soviet summits from the 1980s? You could almost feel the Cold War thawing and the global warming in international relations. That's why I love this quote from Sarah Mendelson at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): Q: Why do you think the American public should be interested in this summit? Mendelson: I...

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02 Jul

Dominic Ongwen is one of the five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who have been indicted by the ICC. Like the others, Ongwen is charged with numerous crimes against humanity, including the forcible recruitment of children "as fighters, porters and sex slaves to serve the LRA." The indictment makes a strong case that Ongwen is guilty of the...

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02 Jul

I spent my last weekend in Sweden camping and hiking on the island of Tjörn on the west coast of Sweden, just north of Gothenburg. When I came to the idyllic sailing village of Skärhamn, I knew this was where I would spend the night. So 300 meters from the Nordic Watercolour Museum, I found an ocean-view spot...

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30 Jun

They are:Sydney Opera House, Australia Old town of Corfu, Greece Red Fort Complex, India Bordeaux, France Volcanic island of Jeju, South Korea Iwami Ginzan silver mine, Japan Parthian fortresses of Nisa, Turkmenistan Samarra archaeological city, Iraq Rideau Canal, Canada Mehmed Pasa Sokolovic Bridge, Bosnia-Herzegovina Teide National Park, Spain Primeval beech forests of the Carpathian, Ukraine Lope-Okanda, Gabon Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape, South Africa Twyfelfontein, Namibia Diaolou villages in Kaiping, ChinaI hope that the new...

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30 Jun

Today is the fifth anniversary of the Rome Statute's entry into force. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued the following statement:1 July 2007 marks the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The creation of the Court represents one of the major achievements in international law during the past century....

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29 Jun

A few blogs have recently been posting on security issues in Oceania. Since this is a topic we rarely cover, I wanted to point out a couple of posts that I found informative and enlightening. Coming Anarchy, which has organized the series of posts, has a piece on Oceania’s regions: Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. (The post is actually by guest...

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