In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

02 Mar

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...

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02 Mar

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...

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02 Mar

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...

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02 Mar

Here are the preliminary results of my survey of the new and lateral faculty hires in international law. Please contact me if you have more information or clarifications regarding this list. Auckland Kevin Jon Heller (International Criminal Law) from Georgia Boston University Robert Sloane (International Law) new hire Cincinnati Jacob Katz Cogan (International Law) new hire Fordham Grainne De Burca (EU Law) from European University in Florence Florida State Lesley...

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02 Mar

It may not be the most important international dispute of our time, but a storm is brewing over which country — China or Scotland — invented golf. From the International Herald-Tribune: Did the Chinese invent golf and export it westward centuries before any Scottish shepherd ever thought of making a game out of his forlorn fate? Say something quickly in a...

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02 Mar

According to a China Daily report, all death-penalty appeals in China will be held publicly as of July 1, 2006. The move, initiated by the Supreme People's Court, is designed to decrease the number of wrongful convictions by making the appeals process more transparent. Under Chinese law, city-level intermediate courts initially hear cases that could lead to the death penalty....

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02 Mar

Today in San Francisco there is a meeting of business leaders to discuss corporate social responsibility. It is part of the U.N. Global Compact, the largest volunteer initiative to promote ten universal principles relating to human rights, labor standards, environment, and anti-corruption. Part of that discussion will address the recently published McKinsey survey of business executives on business and society....

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02 Mar

With all the recent talk of electronic surveillance, the NSA, and FISA, I want to point out a sidebar to the history of surveillance and cryptography. Three encoded Nazi messages—products of the famed Enigma encryption system—that had gone unbroken since WWII are being deciphered by a group of amateurs using networked computers via the Internet. The first message...

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02 Mar

As we relaunch Opinio Juris at our new site, we are all extremely pleased to welcome our newest permanent blog contributor, Professor Kevin Heller. Since we began our blog just over a year ago, Kevin has been a valuable commentator, informal adviser, and friend to Opino Juris. As our readers have noted, he has been a terrific guest writer...

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