In an unfortunate rotation, the African Union's annual summit is being held in Khartoum, Sudan this year. This is unfortunate because the host always is nominated for the leadership of the group, but that would mean the AU this year would be headed by perhaps its most unsavory member: the government of Sudan.This minor leadership battle is a larger challenge...
Speaking of war crimes trials, according to press reports, Ra'uf Rashid Abdul Rahman, a judge on the Iraqi Special Tribunal, will be elevated to Chief Judge to replace Rizgar Muhammad Amin, who submitted his resignation from the court a week ago. Last week the Iraq government announced that Amin would be replaced by Said al-Hammash, another judge on the tribunal....
Yesterday's NYTimes ran this piece about the recently released minutes of Winston Churchill's wartime cabinet meetings. Here are the notes about Churchill's reluctance to try Nazi war criminals and his preference for execution without trial:As early as July 6, 1942, Churchill was clear about what to do with Hitler. If Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him...
Kal Raustiala has a recent article to be published in the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law on Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner's "The Limits of International Law." Here is the abstract:Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner's "The Limits of International Law" is not an uplifting read for most international lawyers, who are trained to think international law makes an...
This week I'll be one of a number of guest-bloggers over at PrawfsBlawg. This is an opportunity for me to post about stuff not directly related to international law. But never fear, I will continue to be posting here as well. Should be fun. Please check in....
Nice puff piece in the L.A. Times about Randol Schoenberg, the lawyer who brought the claim on behalf of Maria Altmann to recover five Gustav Klimt paintings. Interesting read on the gamble that Schoenberg took in bringing the case and the unlikely success story of a complete win for his client. I have posted about the litigation here and here....
Or so the plaintiffs in Ficken v. Rice (D.D.C. Jan. 17, 2006) argue. Interesting strategy. If a university committee denies your child's application for financial aid, just make a federal case out of it. And for good measure, include Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice as a defendant and claim a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child...
Cool! A U.S. Navy vessel has boarded and captured a suspected pirate operating off the coast of Somalia. As Roger noted a while ago here, pirates recently chased a cruise liner in the same waters. It looks like the U.S. Navy is on the case.But what legal authority does the U.S. Navy have to board and capture a suspected pirate...
The trial of Abu Hamza in London is a subject that is riveting the English press, but amazingly is largely ignored back here in the United States. Hamza is an imam at London's Finsbury Park mosque who is accused of encouraging terrorism, death, and murder of non-Muslims. He is on trial for 15 charges, including nine counts for soliciting murder,...
Rebecca MacKinnon at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and regular blogger at RConversation, is doing some fascinating work on promoting and cataloguing the use of global blogging to provide an alternative means of information in repressive regimes. She calls it "bridge blogging." If the government controls the media in a particular country such as China or...
Randol Schoenberg has provided an English translation of the arbitration award by the Austrian arbitral panel regarding the claim by Maria Altmann against Austria for five Gustav Klimt paintings. An English translation is here. I published a post about the decision earlier this week, available here. Here is the dispositive language:1. The Republic of Austria acquired ownership of the paintings...
As the NYT reports, the U.S. Justice Department has released a memo defending the legality of the controversial NSA spying program. The NYT (of course) barely describes the memo and then devotes half of the article to quotes by legal experts who say it is unpersuasive. Dean Robert Reinstein speaks of a scholarly consensus that the NSA program is illegal.Unbelievably,...
