Today it was announced that former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark will join the defense team for Saddam Hussein. This is good news. It should dispel any notion anywhere in the world that this is not a serious trial with top-notch defense counsel. In the words of Robert Jackson, this should "dispose of the contention that ...
Federalism can be a tricky issue when it comes to foreign relations. On the one hand, states of the U.S. may not enter into treaties as foreign policy is the reserve of the federal government but, on the other hand, if a U.S. state breaches international law, it is the country as a whole that is responsible under international law.This...
Palestine moved one step closer to peace with the opening of the Rafah crossing to Egypt. With no international airport open, the Rafah checkpoint is the international gateway into Gaza.President Abbas was celebrating yesterday at the opening ceremony: "I think every Palestinian now has his passport ready in his pocket. Let them come to cross at this terminal whenever they...
Syria has agreed to comply with the demands of Security Council resolution 1636 and will cooperate with the Hariri investigation by allowing five Syrian government officials to be interviewed in UN offices in Vienna. This ends, for now, the Syrian stalemate with the Council, and avoids a follow on resolution that would likely have slapped sanctions against Syria. The...
Less than a week after the U.S. surrendered to a NAFTA tribunal's order to eliminate U.S. duties on Canadian lumber, Canada brazenly announced yesterday that it would add a $1.28 billion subsidy to existing supports for the Canadian lumber industry. In other words, just as the U.S. dropped its duties in a good faith gesture, Canada has decided to whack...
Recently declassified documents at the National Security Archives show how President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were concerned that U.S. nuclear strategy was basically only a single option: Mutually Assured Destruction. The documents show how a mix of moralism, strategy, bureaucratic politics, and even Watergate drove the National Security Council to grapple with the idea whether there could be a limited...
Pinochet has posted bail and now remains free. See details here. The BBC has the best coverage of the indictments, one for tax evasion and the other for kidnapping. The coverage includes links, a profile, related articles, and background information. A full list of all news stories about the Pinochet indictments is available from Google here. As of Friday morning...
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, one of the truly great and distinctive national holidays of our country. The only obligation of Thanksgiving is that we celebrate and give thanks for the bounty that is ours. George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation is a regular fixture at Thanksgiving celebrations in many homes throughout the country. As noted here, it was...
After months of whining by high-level Canadian politicians, the U.S. Commerce Department announced yesterday that the U.S. will comply with a NAFTA tribunal's decision requiring the reduction or elimination of U.S. duties on Canadian lumber. The U.S. refusal to eliminate these duties had been one of the main sources of friction between the U.S. and Canada and potentially threatened the...
An Australian national convicted by Singapore of drug running is facing execution next week, causing much justifiable angst in Australia. Some are advising the Australian government to seek a provisional measures order from the ICJ to stop the execution. As Australia's Prime Minister announced today, however, such an appeal to the ICJ would be "pointless" because Singapore hasn't done anything...
It is hard to believe that a decade has passed since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords that brought an end to the war in Bosnia. The peace in Bosnia certainly came too late for many (260,000 lost their lives in the war, over a million were displaced), but it did finally end the bloodshed. The implementation force for...
The ABA Section on International Law and Practice has just published the 2004 Year-in-Review. It is the best one-volume summary describing the developments in international law for the past year. It always comes out much too late, but it is a great resource. The reference begins at 39 International Lawyer 169 (2005).Chapters include antitrust, environmental, trade, commercial...
