The Supreme Court today rendered an important decision in Gonzalez v. O Centro Espirita concerning religious practices that are in violation of statutory and treaty obligations relating to controlled substances. The discussion of the treaty obligation is quite short: Before the District Court, the Government also asserted an interest in compliance with the 1971 United...
Brandt Goldstein at the Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today addressing the current debate in the legal academy regarding the relative merits and demerits of law reviews and academic blogs. But in an interesting twist, he challenges the legitimacy of law reviews as much as engaging the current debate about the role of academic blogging. Here is an...
A few days ago I mentioned a report that prosecutors had produced written orders by Saddam ordering the execution of 140 Shiites in Dujail in 1982 -- the proverbial "smoking gun." As it turns out, the documents are not so damning after all. According to the AP, the prosecution produced two documents at trial Feb. 13-14: one that...
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has published an excellent article on the Administration’s attempts to thwart critics of its use of what can only be called torture on detainees in the War on Terrorism. It focuses in part on the experiences of Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora in trying to end such practices. The article is long and it...
A New York federal court has dismissed the complaint by a Canadian who alleged he had been "rendered" to Syria by U.S. government officials in order to be tortured. Maher Arar had sued former U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft as well as a number of other U.S. officials alleging he has a right to damages under the Torture Victim Protection Act...
I'd like to welcome Professor Bill Dodge as a guest blogger at Opinio Juris. Bill teaches at UC Hastings College of Law and is an expert on international business and economic law, in particular the emerging law of NAFTA Chapter 11 disputes. He is co-author of one of the leading casebooks on transnational business law, and has also written extensively...
To follow up on Peggy's post about David Irving, it's worth noting that Article 6 of the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime contains the following controversial provision:1. Each Party shall adopt such legislative measures as may be necessary to establish the following conduct as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally and without...
London Times correspondent Roger Boyes has posted these interesting observations about the goings on in the Vienna courtroom where Briton David Irving pled guilty this morning to the criminal charge of denying the Holocaust. Irving faces up to ten years in jail for speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he claimed that the Holocaust never happened:It's...
This story coming out of Britain is quite amazing: "Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today...
The chief prosecutor in Saddam Hussein's trial said yesterday that Saddam could be executed "within months" if he is convicted -- which seems increasingly likely. Article 27 of the IST Statute provides that all sentences "must be executed within 30 days of the date when the judgment becomes final and non-appealable."The prosecutor's statement contradicts the assertion of some commentators...
The Washington Post has published a wonderful article on the Chinese government's failing attempt at Internet censorship. The overwhelming impression of the article is that, try as they might, the Chinese government is not going to be able to effectively censor information on the Internet. There are so many channels of information that the Chinese censors are flailing.The article is...
According to SwissInfo, the United Nations is upset with Switzerland for amending its Code pénal militaire suisse to restrict the country’s ability to prosecute war crimes committed abroad. Article 2 of the Swiss Military Penal Code provides that military tribunals have jurisdiction over civilians or members of foreign forces who commit violations of international law during armed conflict. ...
