Quick story. A friend of mine who teaches at a prestigious law school in Israel said to me recently that he experiences tremendous pressure to publish law review articles in English rather than Hebrew. He said for reputational reasons his academic peers in Israel strongly prefer English-language publications over Hebrew-language publications. That makes sense to me for...
As I noted a few weeks back, PrawfsBlawg is hosting a research canons series, where readers can post thoughts on the most useful resources within a given discipline for new scholars seeking to gain a foothold in that field. Today, they're seeking input on international law. I've posted a few of my general public international law favorites over...
Andrew Guzman has these interesting thoughts on the subject over at the International Economic Law and Policy Blog. He wonders why the field is so dominated by trade law. Among his answers, I suspect that it's driven by the relative institutionalization of trade law relative to other components of IEL. A related possibility is that trade law...
Here is an excerpt of a letter from a Marine stationed in Iraq that was recently published in Time magazine. As Time put it, "His honest but wry narration and unusually frank dissection of the mission contrasts sharply with the story presented by both sides of the Iraq war debate, the Pentagon spin masters and fierce critics." Rather than...
I usually avoid commenting on Gitmo issues, deferring to those who have far more competence in national security issues than I. But I can't help but point out how sad this story makes me: The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for...
The announcement of a successful test of a nuclear weapon by North Korea (update: articles by NYT, WaPo, Guardian, and the text of the North Korean announcement) raises the question: did such a test render North Korea in violation of international law? As is often the case, the briefest questions can be the most challenging to answer convincingly. ...
Professor David Sloss of Saint Louis University has provided this commentary on the Military Commissions Act. David has published widely in the area of foreign relations law. We are pleased to welcome his comments here: The Military Commissions Act of 2006 contains a number of provisions that raise intriguing constitutional and statutory interpretation questions. This comment will focus on...
Here is the mock trial problem of People v. Campbell about schoolyard terrorism: People v. Campbell is the trial of Casey Campbell, a senior at Park Lane High School. Casey is alleged to have placed a bomb in a trash can near the school’s cafeteria. The defendant is charged with placing a bomb on school grounds, attempting to explode a device...
The Associated Press has just reported a North Korean announcement that the country successfully performed its first test of a nuclear weapon yesterday evening EDT. Neither the United States, South Korea, nor Japan have officially confirmed that the test did indeed occur. However, statements by South Korean intelligence officials and an official South Korean seismic monitoring center that...
The Pew Research Center did an interesting poll last week that underscored the importance of international issues for the mid-term elections. The poll revealed that 51% of voters say "national issues" matter more than local concerns in their vote for Congress. Just 23% say local issues will be more important than national issues to their vote. And...
The Boston Globe is running a multi-part story on how the Bush Administration is channeling increasing amounts of foreign aid through faith-based organizations, allegedly breaching the church-state divide in the process. However the constitutional doctrine applies (with the wild card of extraterritoriality), one can find an obvious silver lining here: creating a core Republican constituency for foreign assistance. That’s...
The story here, without many details. (HT: Orin Kerr at VC.) This adds Harvard to Michigan and Hofstra as schools that require IL in the first year, but Harvard's move obviously increases the probability of a cascade (look at what's happened in the wake of Harvard College's decision on early admissions). Several others schools include IL-related courses...
