State Department Legal Advisor John Bellinger appeared before the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva to discuss the U.S. policy and practice as it relates to torture. A transcript of Bellinger's remarks is not yet available. An eleven page questionnaire presented by the Committee Against Torture is available here. Some of the questions are extraordinarily interesting and,...
The Fifth Circuit recently rendered an important decision relating to international arbitration. The case of Bridas v. Turkmenistan (“Bridas II”) addressed the confirmation of an arbitration award. An Argentine corporation, Bridas, had contracted with a Turkmenistan government entity. The arbitrators rendered a $495 million award against the Turkmenistan government entity as well as against the Government of...
Hi, everybody. I'm no comparativist, but Zacarias Moussaoui is in the news, and I wonder if we can learn anything about the wise criminal prosecution of our enemies by comparing them to domestic criminal defendants. When I think about the Moussaoui trial, I think circus, not least because of the tenuous claims of the prosecution trying to portray...
Opinio Juris welcomes our friend and colleague Professor David Zaring of Washington & Lee Law School as a guest blogger for a couple of weeks. Professor Zaring's scholarship focuses on adminisrative law, with a particular emphasis on transnational networks and intergovernmental regulation. His SSRN page is here. Some of you may know David's sharp and insightful blogging from guest...
It is rare that the U.S., Japan, Europe AND the U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan all agree on something, but here it is. The aforesaid countries, plus the S-G, are locked in a serious struggle with a group of 77 developing countries over control of the U.N. budget. (See here for Amb. Bolton's summary of the problems) The developed countries...
I'm late to this notice but Foreign Policy Magazine has put out a "Failed States Index" ranking nations on 12 political and economic measures of instability. Not surprisingly, Sudan tops the list. Iraq is fourth and Afghanistan is tenth. The factors FP used include such obvious characteristics as demographic pressure, level of human flight, etc. This is...
As Zacarias Moussaoui was escorted from the courtroom today following the jury’s verdict, he declared “America you lost, I won!” “America you lost, I won!” What an odd declaration. But in a strange way he is right. He won. But not what he thinks he won. What did he win? Well, he won...
One of my earliest encounters with international law was in graduate school when I studied the use of international legal discourse in the 1895 U.S. crisis with Great Britain over the Venezuela/British Guyana boundary line. In researching the U.S. diplomatic statements of the time, I discovered John Bassett Moore’s 8 volume, Digest of International Law. From it, I quickly learned...
Cesare Romano, currently of NYU (moving to Loyola-LA this summer) and the Project on International Courts and Tribunals, and Lenore Jones Peretto of Duke University have launched the African International Courts and Tribunals Website. Following the format of the amazingly comprehensive PICT website, this is a terrific resource for all transnational courts in the region, including the ICTR and...
Ken Anderson has an interesting article responding to Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner's book, The Limits of International Law. Anderson largely resonates with Goldsmith and Posner, but argues for the incorporation of values into the interest-based analysis. "In order for the Goldsmith and Posner theory to have content therefore, it requires some limit on the meaning of...
My vote for the most important international case for the month of April is the Canadian softwood lumber case. The case was one of the largest and oldest trade disputes in U.S. history, a dispute that spawned over 20 different litigations in multipla fora, spanned over two decades, and had over $5 billion at issue. The dispute threatened to dramatically...
It’s a busy time of year for international lawyers. For those of us who work as academics, we’re busy writing and grading exams. For those working for governments, international organizations and NGOs, the spring season of treaty negotiations and meetings is in full swing. This week, for example, negotiators and other interested stakeholders are in Geneva for the Second Conference...
