In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

16 Feb

Last week, the Southern District of New York offered up a nice, succinct, high quality opinion on treaty interpretation that does a wonderful job of looking at plain meaning, object and purpose to interpret an ambiguous phrase in the Montreal Convention. There is nothing exciting about Baah v. Virgin Atlantic Airways (2007 WL 424993)--it related to injuries suffered from hot beverages...

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16 Feb

As the BBC reports, "a meeting in Washington of global political leaders has reached a new agreement on tackling climate change." The meeting included representatives from the key non-Kyoto Treaty countries, the U.S. and China. So have we finally reached a breakthrough on global climate change policy? Nope. At least not yet. The meeting in Washington D.C....

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15 Feb

The role of reputation in international law and international relations is incredibly hard to quantify. Among assertive unilateralists in the US, it is often argued that dents to American reputation that result, for example, from deviations from well-established international human rights standards, are outweighed by the need for other states to deal with the U.S. Internationalists, on the other hand,...

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15 Feb

Last week the D.C. Circuit rendered an alarming decision ruling that multinational forces in Iraq could not transfer an American citizen held in Iraq to an Iraqi court for criminal prosecution for alleged terrorist activities he committed while in Iraq. In Omar v. Harvey, an American-Jordanian dual national was arrested in Baghdad in October 2004, together with four other...

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14 Feb

Human Rights First has launched an initiative known as Prime Time Torture that seeks to address the issue of torture on television. It laments the fact that "it used to be that only villains on television tortured. Today, 'good guy' and heroic American characters torture — and this torture is depicted as necessary, effective and even patriotic." I...

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13 Feb

Although many New Yorkers wouldn't blink an eye if it happened, NY City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is worried that the United Nations may move its headquarters away from New York City, according to this report. Bloomberg is trying to meet with Secretary of State Rice to get her help on this matter. If the U.N. leaves town, where would...

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13 Feb

Prof. Jon Adler of Case Western is liveblogging Human Rights Watch's Kenneth Roth as he delivers a lecture at Case Western Reserve University Law School. He addresses many topics, but here is one we tackled here on this blog last summer. Roth defended HRW against charges of bias in its reporting on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. According to Roth, HRW’s allegations...

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13 Feb

The International Herald Tribune has a copy of the deal reached in the six-party talks involving North Korea’s nuclear disarmament. Putting aside its content, as a treaty lawyer, my immediate question was what kind of commitment is involved? Is this deal intended to be a legally binding agreement or a statement of political commitment? The Vienna Convention...

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13 Feb

Although details are still forthcoming (see the early AP report here), it looks like North Korea has agreed to some kind of deal to shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program. It sounds like a pretty good deal for the North Koreans, who get lots of energy assistance in exchange for promising...

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13 Feb

Is there really much suspense about the likely outcome of the ICJ's decision in the genocide application brought by Bosnia against Serbia? Not much. Indeed, there are signs that the governments in question already know the result and (the losing ones at least) are preparing their arguments against the ICJ's legitimacy and authority. The Republika Srpska, the Bosnian...

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12 Feb

Now that he's officially declared, what do we know about where Barack Obama stands on international law? Not much, of course, given his limited legislative experience. (Anyone know if he took any IL courses at Harvard Law?) Here is his report card from various advocacy groups with IL-related agendas (see also this). Ivo Daalder takes Obama as...

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