The case of Powerex v. Reliant Energy Services presents a delicate procedural question regarding appellate jurisdiction and the FSIA immunity protections. Bottom line: Do federal appellate courts have jurisdiction over FSIA questions (i.e., whether a corporation is a foreign state entity) when an appeal is jurisdictionally barred? The answer from the Supreme Court today is no. The case...
On October 16, 1975, the first full day of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, five journalists — two British, two Australian, and one New Zealander — were killed in the border town of Balibo. The official Indonesian position has always been that the journalists were accidentally killed in a crossfire as they attempted to film Indonesia's invasion of the...
In addition to Julian's comments from last week about the Supreme Court's opinion in India v. New York, I just had one other quick thought about Justice Thomas' majority opinion. It should be underscored that the majority's approach to statutory interpretation appeared quite comfortable in relying on international law. It is not exactly a Charming Betsy case, because...
Sudan announced yesterday that it would agree to a U.N.-led peacekeeping force operated in cooperation with the African Union. The U.N.-led force of 19,000 will eventually be deployed in 2008. No one is getting overly excited about the prospects of this U.N.-led force, and I don't think it is quite yet the solution to the Darfur crisis. Still, it is...
I doubt it, but this report from AP suggests otherwise. If it really turns out to be a problem, it seems like the only fix at this point is an amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. That's going to take a while, though. ...
I just stumbled across this article that was posted on an ecommerce website eight months ago about strategies for countering bad news from your foreign business operations (like accusations of complicity with torture and murder, etc.). The piece begins like this:That a labor union at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Columbia was accusing the company of hiring paramilitary groups...
In what human-rights groups are describing as a landmark case, a military court in Rostov-on-Don has convicted four Russian soldiers — three in absentia — of murdering six unarmed civilians in Chechnya:The case has been followed closely in war-scarred Chechnya, where many are outraged that no one has been brought to justice for the January 2002 killing of a driver...
Human Rights Watch provides more information on François-Xavier Byuma's "trial":Byuma, who heads an organization for the defense of childrens’ rights known as Turengere Abana, had previously investigated allegations that Imanzi had raped a young girl. Imanzi was briefly detained and questioned but never prosecuted for rape. At a first hearing on the genocide charges, Byuma was present, but refused...
In its last remaining international law-related decision for this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today (India v. City of New York) that foreign sovereigns are not immune from domestic lawsuits seeking to establish the legal validity of tax liens on real property. The case turns on the interpretation of the "immovable property" exception to the general rule of...
A number of key Southern African countries have agreed on a proposal that would result (eventually) in a nine-year moratorium on sales of ivory. The agreement was made during the latest meeting of state-parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). There are of course many complex details to consider, none of which I will do...
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times (subscription req'd) has figured out the solution to the Darfur crisis, as well as the other humanitarian horrors in Africa: Western military intervention. One essential kind of help that the West can provide — but one that is rarely talked about — is Western military assistance in squashing rebellions, genocides and civil...
Speaking of the several states, this map gives a neat perspective on just how large, economically speaking, the individual states of the United States would be if they were independent countries. For instance, as economic entities, California would be as large as France, Texas would be as large as Canada (many Texans would be shocked to hear that they...
