The ICJ is holding witness testimony this week in its ongoing public hearings on the Application of the Genocide Convention to Serbia and Montenegro. As the ICJ's press release points out, there have only been nine cases involving witness testimony in the ICJ's entire 50-plus year history, so this is a rare event. It is also semi-removed from...
The U.S. government indicted 50 top members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or FARC) yesterday on charges of conspiracy to manufacture and export illegal narcotics to the United States (the full indictment is here). FARC is a left-wing paramilitary group dedicated to the overthrow of the Colombia government. They have been battling the Colombian government since the 1960s and...
I realize the article isn't about international law. But really, what's the point of blogging if you can't occasionally shill your own work? In any case, a final version of the article, which will be published later this year by the Michigan Law Review, is now available at SSRN. Here's the abstract: Empirical research indicates that jurors routinely...
Cardinal Roger Mahony of the archdiocese of Los Angeles has poured new wine into the old wineskin of civil disobedience. If a proposed immigration bill becomes law, he announced he will instruct the priests in his archdiocese to disobey the law and face the prospect of criminal prosecution. He clarified his position in an op-ed in the New York Times. ...
I couldn't agree more with Roger about the CPT response. I'm particularly appalled by the verb the CPT uses to describe what happened to the hostages — "released." Not "rescued." Not "freed." "Released" — as if, like Roger says, the Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness simply had a change of heart and let them go. I understand being opposed to...
The remaining three members of the Christian Peacemakers Team ("CPT") who had been kidnapped by insurgents in Iraq are now free. As reported here, they were rescued by U.S. and British troops without firing a shot. The CPT's response? No mention of the efforts by the U.S. and British troops to free their colleagues. No word of...
The House of Lords has upheld the decision of a British high school to prohibit one of its students from wearing a head-to-toe jilbab dress to school. The full text of the House of Lords decision in R v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School is here. The House of Lords was interpreting Protocol 1 to the European Convention...
The Santiago Times reports that a Chilean judge has indicted 13 retired army officers, including one general, on murder charges in connection with the notorious 1973 "Caravan of Death," in which 75 jailed dissidents — many of whom had voluntarily turned themelves in — were killed by a gang of soldiers that roamed the country by helicopter in the weeks...
According to the Times (UK) Online, the Vatican sponsored a conference last weekend aimed at rehabilitating the Crusades as wars fought with the "noble aim" of reclaiming the Holy Land for Christianity: At the conference, held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian, recalled that the Crusades were “a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian...
Time for more self promotion...
The Washington Post had a confusing piece this weekend about the State Department's efforts to block compensation claims of the 52 American hostages held by Iran. The story attempts to paint a picture of the Bush Administration in general, and the State Department in particular, displaying callous disregard for the claims of the hostages against Iran. Quoting Rep. Brad Sherman,...
On a much lighter note, the LA Times has an update on just one of many sources of tension in the China-Taiwan relationship: pandas. China has been offering the pandas as a goodwill gift to Taiwan, but Taiwan's pro-independence government won't take them, suggesting an acceptance would be a "Trojan Horse" reducing Taiwan's psychological defenses. China has been playing up...
