A dispute is brewing between the Rwandan government and the ICTR over the fact that one of the Tribunal's appointed defense attorneys is himself on Rwanda's "most wanted" list of genocide suspects. The attorney, Callixte Gakwaya, is counsel for Yusuf Munyakazi, a former businessman who is accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Cyangugu and neighbouring Kibuye...
Milan Babic, a key player in the Serbian efforts to create Serb enclaves in Croatia, has committed suicide. He pled guilty in 2004 for persecuting non-Serbs and sentenced to 13 years. In so doing, he avoided four other charges for murder, cruelty, and wanton destruction of villages. He also testified against Milosevic in 2002. Details from the BBC are...
I have just posted on SSRN a symposium piece titled Exploring the Limits of International Human Rights Law, a comment to the book "The Limits of International Law," by Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner, which I discussed earlier here and here. My essay argues that the value of the rational choice/instrumentalist approach that Goldsmith and Posner set out as their...
It is a curious aspect of American philanthropy that we focus almost exclusively on gifts to the needy rather than low-interest loans. That is beginning to change. There is a new movement toward community investment in which you can offer your money as an extraordinarily low-interest loan to meet core community needs. Calvert Foundation in Bethesda Maryland is a leading institution...
David Kaye, a State Department lawyer who is on leave as director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at Whittier Law School, wrote to tell me that Edward R. Cummings, a long-time lawyer at the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser has passed away. Ed was not the type of guy who is often mentioned on blogs....
Crisis Watch has issued its March report, which summarizes developments in 70 situations of actual or potential conflict and assesses whether the situations have worsened, improved, or remained the same during the previous month. According to the report, 8 situations worsened and 2 improved. Worsened Nigeria: Security deteriorated with upsurge in religious and political violence. Protests by Muslims against Danish...
As reported here, during a particularly technical portion of the oral argument in the Texas redistricting case this week Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was seen dozing away. Both flanking Justices Souter and Alito looked at her sleeping but did nothing. I would suspect that Justice Alito was thinking something along these lines: Whose snores these are I...
As reported by the Guardian — but largely ignored by the U.S. press — the U.S. government agreed Monday to pay $300,000 to an Egyptian man detained in New York following the 9/11 attacks and held in solitary confinement for 10 months without charge. The settlement is the first of its kind. The man, Ehab Elmaghraby, was one of 762...
President Bush was in India yesterday where he addressed the topic of outsourcing. Following a speech at the Hydrabad Indian School of Business, he had this to say: "People do lose jobs as a result of globalization, and it's painful for those who lose jobs. But the fundamental question is, how does a government or society react to that. And...
Overshadowed by the war on terrorism, the U.S. war on illegal narcotics continues apace. This war is not just metaphorical. It involves substantial deployment of military and diplomatic assets throughout the world, as the State Department's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy report indicates. The U.S. has poured billions of dollars into narcotics interdiction or eradication overseas. Drugs dominates the...
Arnaud de Borchgrave, one of the deans of international journalism and now an editor-at-large for UPI, has filed an essay based on a recent meeting of foreign leaders from the government, media, and international organizations. The worst geopolitical blunder in 229 years of American history? That was how participants at a recent off-the-record conference held in Monaco viewed the U.S. decision...
U.S. opposition may result in a delay on the current proposal to replace the U.N. Human Rights Commission with a new Human Rights Council, Reuters reports. Although, as I pointed out, the U.S. only has five votes in the General Assembly, it does have other levers of influence. Britain, for instance, is supporting a delay and members of Congress...
