The Second Circuit recently rendered an important decision on the meaning of the "immovable property" exception to the FSIA. The case of City of New York v. Permanent Mission of India involved the propriety of imposing real property taxes on the permanent mission of India. New York law exempts real property owned by a foreign government if it is used...
While international legal reponses to human testing are on my mind, I'll note that Pfizer has mysteriously been held in violation of international law for its "The Constant Gardener"-like drug testing of a new meningitis-fighter on Nigerian children. Mysteriously, because a) Pfizer isn't a state, and states are in theory, but often not in practice, the sole...
We have a new guest-blogger starting today — Adil Haque, a recent graduate of Yale Law School who is currently clerking for Judge Newman on the Second Circuit. Adil's expertise ranges from criminal law theory to international criminal law to Islamic law, and he has already amassed a publication record any new assistant professor would envy. His latest...
The New York Times reports that the United States has decided to restore full diplomatic relations with Libya and remove it from the list of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism. Condoleezza Rice called the moves "tangible results that flow from the historic decisions taken by Libya's leadership in 2003 to renounce terrorism and to abandon its weapons of...
The question of the use of international authorities by courts is interesting – but what about when Congress does the same thing? Consider the controversial new rule by the EPA on the use of human subjects in pesticide testing. Congress required the agency to promulgate the rule “consistent with … the principles of the Nuremberg Code with respect...
The tragic impacts of Yugoslavia’s dissolution linger on, as do efforts at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes in furtherance of so-called ethnic interests, whether Serb, Muslim or Croat. But, the underlying tragedies aside, you’ve got to wonder about the BBC’s story today that Croatia’s football champions, Dinamo Zagreb,...
Twenty-five years ago today, on May 13, 1981, an assassination attempt was made on the life of John Paul II. Days like today make me think of the counterfactual. Can you possibly imagine what the world would be like today without John Paul II? Peggy Noonan in her recent book, John Paul The Great, eloquently summarizes the...
The U.S. is commonly denounced as stingy in economic development circles for failing to donate more foreign aid. Although the U.S. government spends about $19.7 billion a year in foreign aid, more than the next two countries combined, this amount is small relative to the size of U.S. GDP. One response to this criticism is to point to private U.S....
On behalf of all of us at Opinio Juris, I am pleased to annouce that the first annual Opinio Juris on-line symposium, "Challenges to Public International Law," will be held this fall. The details below will be posted on our sidebar for future reference. Opinio Juris Online Symposium 2006: Challenges to Public International Law Theme Statement As...
The High Court in London ruled yesterday that the resettlement of native islanders from their homeland in the Indian Ocean was unlawful. The case of Bancoult v. Secretary of State is available here. The islands of the Chagos Archipelago are of no small significance to the United States and the United Kingdom. The United States leases the only inhabitable...
It's occasionally interesting to run cite counts for the leading cases in their fields. Doing so can tell you where the action is - or at least, the action in federal courts. I don't teach or write in traditional foreign relations or public international law, however, so the cases I examined may not be a very complete set....
