In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

07 Aug

Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich has this thought-provoking op-ed in today's New York Sun arguing that the current proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon violates a bedrock principle of international law: That nations cannot gain territory through the aggressive use of force. Here's an excerpt: The most surprising aspect of international proposals for a ceasefire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict is...

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06 Aug

The AALS National Security Law Section is soliciting papers for the 2007 AALS meeting. The winning paper will be published in the Journal of National Security Law and Policy. The topic: “Prosecuting Leakers and Leakees: The End of National Security Muckraking?” For those of you interested, full details on submissions and the selection process can be found here. ...

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06 Aug

Following up on Julian's post below, Uganda has announced that the ICC has agreed not to prosecute the five LRA leaders, including Joseph Kony, as long as the final agreement reached between the government and the LRA does not "condone impunity." Interestingly, Uganda also claims that it only initiated peace talks with the LRA because it could not find a partner...

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04 Aug

The much-feared and much-despised Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has declared an immediate and unilateral cease-fire in its long-standing brutal civil war in Uganda. This is good news but it hasn't really solved the looming problem of ICC indictments of four top LRA leaders. Peace talks have apparently been stymied because of these ICC indictments and the ICC Prosecutor...

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03 Aug

I have recently been appointed the Book Review Editor -- along with Peter Ramsay, who is a member of the law faculty at LSE -- of the New Criminal Law Review, formerly published as the Buffalo Criminal Law Review. Here is the publisher's description of the journal's mission: Focused on examinations of crime and punishment in domestic, transnational, and international...

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03 Aug

There is a fascinating story in the Jerusalem Post about the possibility of German soldiers defending Israel from Hezbollah attacks as part of a NATO force. Israel has recently signaled its openness to a NATO defense force, and Germany is obviously a leading member of NATO. Would it be a good idea to have German soldiers defending Israel? The...

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03 Aug

Okay, it's official. We have lost the Iraq war: In an unannounced move, the House cafeteria has removed the terms "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" from its offerings, and has reverted to using the dishes' more common names, "french fries" and "french toast." Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who had implemented the change in 2003 in a fit of hollow...

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03 Aug

The International Crisis Group has a new report on the risk of widespread violence in the Niger Delta called “The Swamps of Insurgency: Nigeria’s Delta Unrest.” The executive summary and full report download are available here. Following is a short description from the ICG:The Nigerian government and international oil corporations must change direction if they are to reduce...

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03 Aug

Who knew that a single treaty-provision could get so much attention? Well, post-Hamdan, we’ve certainly seen a lot of discussion of whether the Supreme Court was correct to view Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions as applicable to the President’s military commissions. And, the debate continues as Congress weighs whether and how to accept the Supreme...

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02 Aug

As Julian noted Monday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have announced an agreement on collaboration in the fight against global warming. The text of what was agreed can be found here. It’s titled, “United Kingdom and California Announcement on Climate Change and Clean Energy Cooperation,” followed by a mission statement in which California (CA) and...

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