Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. This day brings my thoughts back to the Holocaust restitution movement, which I have followed closely for ten years. Some have questioned the propriety of Holocaust restitution as the final chapter in the history of the Holocaust. But I have little qualms in concluding that Holocaust restitution has been a good and noble...
A fascinating and extremely important trial began yesterday at the Hague. The defendant, Gus Kouwenhoven, is charged with committing various war crimes against Liberians and violating a UN arms embargo. Kouwenhoven, who is Dutch, was the general manager of the Oriental Timber Company, Liberia's largest timber company while Charles Taylor was in power. While in that...
Frequent contributor Patrick O’Donnell has given me a heads-up that Brian Urquhart, the former Under-Secretary General of the U.N., has a review essay in the current New York Review of Books on recent books related to international law. He discusses two different editions of Philippe Sands’ Lawless World, Michael Byers’ new book on the law of the use of force...
Japan is at it again. As I've noted before, Japan has devoted lots of attention to Okinotorishima, a bunch of rocks about the size of a king-sized bed. If it is an island, Japan has a much, much larger exclusive economic zone (where it can assert certain fishing and undersea development rights). China is not buying this view, and for...
The push to finalize the Doha Round of Negotiations for the World Trade Organization has hit another roadblock. Following on earlier reports that negotiators would miss an end-of-April deadline to produce texts setting forth an agreed framework for agricultural and industrial tariff reductions, this week witnessed the cancellation of Ministerial-level meetings. In its place, U.S. and E.U. negotiators have opted...
The recent visit of Hu Jintao to the U.S. highlights an interesting game of mirrors being played by the U.S., China, the EU and others concerning the norms of good behavior of members of the international community. A few months ago, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick called on China to be a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. Commentators...
Last week, the D.C. Circuit issued an important opinion applying the always controversial "political question" doctrine to dismiss a case challenging U.S. foreign policy actions as a violation of international law. The D.C. Circuit's development (and revival even) of the political question doctrine signals serious obstacles to attempts by litigants to challenge foreign policy actions of the U.S. government in...
Read the following product names and choose who they belong to: Juicy, Juicy Couture, Choose Juicy, Juicy Pop Princess, Be Juicy, Wear Juicy, The Joy of Juicy, Juicy Girls Rule, Juicy Wear, Juicy Pop, Juicy Gossip, Juicy Tubes, Juicy Rouge, Juicy Tubes Pop, Juicy Vernis, and Juicy Crayon. Of course, any high-couture fashionista knows that the first eight are owned...
Following on his visit to the U.S., President Hu Jintao of China is visiting Africa this week—his second state visit there in three years. As is the case with many such high-profile visits, they are only the tip of the iceberg, Chinese trade and energy officials have recently put a great amount of effort into building up relations throughout Africa....
The Pentagon is in the throes of developing an new and more aggressive plan for military operations in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). According to the Washington Post, the new (classified) plans cover [A] wide range of overt and clandestine military activities — such as man-hunting and intelligence gathering on terrorist networks; attacks on terrorist training camps and recruiting...
The U.N. and Lebanon are close to a final agreement on the establishment of a what would be a very unique international criminal tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, AFP reports. In fact, it is Lebanon that is pressing the U.N. to act quickly (rather than the other way around). As the...
I just finished reading Larry Solum's article on Blogging and the Transformation of Legal Scholarship available here. Solum wrote the piece for the Harvard Law School conference on blogging, and without a doubt it is the best piece I have ever read anywhere on the subject of blogging and legal scholarship. Solum argues that blogs can function in two...
