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01 Mar

[caption id="attachment_11512" align="alignleft" width="120" caption=" "][/caption] It’s an honor to have two so distinguished scholars comment on my article. As always, I learn from reading their commentary and I thank each for his insights. Two quick reactions. First, Professor Johnson raises an interesting semantic question (which I do not address in the article): If a state “unsigns” a treaty, is it still a...

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01 Mar

[caption id="attachment_11525" align="alignleft" width="68" caption=" "][/caption] [Larry Johnson is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School.  From 2006-2008, he served at the United Nations  Headquarters as the Assistant-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs.]  Professor Michael J. Glennon in his post warned American policy-makers to be wary of a “time bomb” that could explode in May – the adoption of a vague, new crime of aggression...

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01 Mar

[caption id="attachment_11521" align="alignleft" width="120" caption=" "][/caption] [Anthony Clark Arend is a Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University]. When the Obama Administration came into office over a year ago, it was faced with a daunting task. The previous Administration had run rough-shot over international law dealing with the use of military force.  A man that would be Attorney General would call...

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01 Mar

[caption id="attachment_11512" align="alignleft" width="120" caption=" "][/caption] [Michael J. Glennon is Professor of Law at The Fletcher School at Tufts University] The article addresses a question that is particularly important for the United States. The Obama Administration has begun to express a renewed interest in the International Criminal Court (ICC), after almost a decade of distance between the Court and the United States....

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27 Feb

Both Humblelawstudent and Stuart Taylor have criticized my previous post.  Both misunderstand the federal torture statute and the concept of torture in important -- and unfortunately all too common -- ways, so it is worth explaining their errors in a separate post. Let's begin with HLS.  He claims that, contrary to my assertion, "the statute requires the interrogator to actually...

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27 Feb

Our own Ken Anderson is one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful legal scholars on the question of targeted killings by the United States. And he has noted here and the Volokh Conspiracy, he has developed a complex analysis of the U.S. policy toward targeted killings, which grounds such killings in the international law of self-defense rather than the law...

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27 Feb

David Luban and Stuart Taylor are having an interesting exchange at Balkinization over whether the CIA's use of waterboarding qualifies as torture under the federal torture statute, 18 USC 2340.  Luban accuses Taylor of embracing "the fundamental trick used by the torture lawyers: pretending that the legal definition of 'torture' is something technical rather than 'colloquial'," when...

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26 Feb

[caption id="attachment_10102" align="alignright" width="101" caption=" "][/caption] This coming Monday and Tuesday, Opinio Juris will be hosting its fourth online symposium in partnership with the Yale Journal of International Law. Each day, we will be hosting a series of posts revolving around Articles published in YJIL’s most recent Vol. 34-2, which is available for download here. On Monday, Michael J. Glennon of the Fletcher School...

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22 Feb

I am sitting in the Indianapolis airport as I write this, heading home from a conference on the Milosevic trial.  The conference was easily the most enjoyable I've ever attended -- I vastly prefer small, specialized conferences to mega-events like the AALS or ASIL.  The attendees were a superb mix of academics, former OTP investigators and analysts, and defence attorneys. ...

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21 Feb

Over at Discover.com, Brian Lamb reports on a lecture by Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, an American Jesuit who is a research astronomer for the Vatican Observatory (and has archived blog posts here). On the issue of asteroid mining (which we tangentially touched upon in this discussion on legal issues related to mining the Moon), Lamb describes the opening of  Brother Consolmagno's argument: Can...

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20 Feb

After five years, the U.S. Department of Justice has finally released its report of its internal investigation into the legal advice provided by its attorneys that became known as the "Torture Memos."  The lead investigator was the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) which issued a report recommending referring John Yoo and Jay Bybee to their state bars for disciplinary proceedings....

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19 Feb

One small followup on Sarah Cleveland's articulation of an "Obama-Clinton" approach to international law. In her UVA address, she notes that more treaties have been deposited and ratified in the past year than in any other year in U.S. history.  This is no doubt true, but it is odd that she (or the Obama-Clinton Administration) would take credit for it....

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