Opinio Juris is very pleased to announce that John Bellinger will be guest blogging with us for the week of January 15. As our readers well know, Bellinger is the State Department Legal Adviser, the top lawyer at the Department of State. In that capacity he is the principal adviser on all domestic and international law matters to the Department...
I have a new essay on SSRN, entitled "Retreat from Nuremberg: The Leadership Requirement in the Special Working Group's Definition of Aggression." Here is the abstract:The International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression is contingent upon the Assembly of States Parties adopting a definition of the crime. To that end, the Special Working Group on the...
In keeping with my recent spate of hopeful posts, it's my pleasure to mention that Israel is poised to appoint its first-ever Muslim minister:An Arab-Israeli legislator of the centre-left Labour Party is to become Israel's first-ever Moslem minister, Israeli news channels reported Wednesday night. Labour Party head Amir Peretz has decided to appoint Raleb Majadele from the central Arab-Israeli town of Baka el-Garbia as science,...
On Sunday, U.S. forces attacked what the Defense Department is characterizing as “’principal Al Qaeda leadership’ operating in the southern part of Somalia." DOD’s information on the attack is pretty sketchy, but the official Defense Department news story indicates that the targets were “terrorists who may have struck the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.” [Update: The New...
An impressive array of academics (including Anne-Marie Slaughter and John Ikenberry) and think-tank heavyweights (Ivo Daalder among them) are lining up behind the idea of institutionalizing an alliance of true democracies to advance effective and legitimate global governance. It's a central recommendation of the final report of the Princeton Project on National Security (which includes a draft charter for...
Ostensibly as a "concession" to the Democratic-controlled Congress, William Haynes II has withdrawn from consideration for a position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The Democrats filibustered his nomination in 2004, but Bush renominated him last year. Opposition to Haynes, who was General Counsel of the Department of Defense, centered on his responsibility, as...
His comment here in the Guardian, in which he (in effect) takes up the possibility of life imitating art, in this case, the dramatic visions of prosecuting Tony Blair for the crime of aggression in committing British troops to Iraq. Sounds far-fetched, but Sands is articulate as always. ...
One of the under-reported stories of the past four years is the tragedy of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. That the near collapse and human decimation of one of Africa’s most beautiful, prosperous and resource-rich countries has been relatively ignored at the UN and in Washington and the European capitals is, perhaps, the unfortunate result of a confluence of distracting world...
If you are in southern California next weekend there will be a conference at Pepperdine on Friday, January 19 on the subject of "The War on Terrorism: Examining the Roles of Congress, The President, and the Courts." Panelists include Akhil Amar (Yale), Neal Katyal (Georgetown), Eric Posner (Chicago), John Yoo (Boalt Hall), Janet Alexander (Stanford), and Michael Paulsen...
One of the basic issues regarding Bush's intention to escalate the war in Iraq by committing 20,000 more troops is where the additional troops will come from. As Colin Powell has pointed out, the U.S. military is "about broken" — "[t]he current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds...
There was a fascinating case coming out of Indiana last month concerning the issue of profiling a person who is a serious risk for international child abduction. In Shady v. Shady, much of the case reads like a typical divorce and custody proceeding. But the interesting twist is that the custodial parent, Sheanin Shady, requested an order from...
The IHT has officially dismissed Saddam from the Anfal trial. The trial will continue against Saddam's six co-defendants, which include his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, the infamous "Chemical Ali." ...
