In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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29 Sep

Society has historically ---unjustifiably and blindly---granted religion immunity. That immunity has been expanded to include religious extremism; doing so, presents an imminent danger to civil society. In many ways the failure to adequately protect society falls squarely on the shoulders of society; the refusal to directly address religious extremists is purely self-imposed. Religious extremists manipulate society’s sensitivities which, in large...

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29 Sep

We are very pleased to host for the next three days a discussion of Amos Guiora's new book, Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security(Oxford 2009).  Amos is probably well known to many readers of this blog, a professor at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law and a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Israel Defense Forces Judge...

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29 Sep

As a member of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law, I was asked to give my reactions to the International Law Commission’s release, on first reading, of a set of proposed articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. (For the ILC’s report containing these draft articles and commentaries, see here). I was probably asked to undertake this...

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28 Sep

Ben Wittes at Lawfare and Adam Serwer at TAPPED traded posts today on the government's motion to dismiss the ACLU/CCR lawsuit.  I think the exchange -- particularly Wittes' response to Serwer -- illustrates perfectly why discussions about national security between conservatives and progressives always seem to have a Pinteresque quality.  Here is the point to which Wittes responded: I think it's...

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28 Sep

In the same month that I traveled to Barcelona, I went to Paris to attend a conference organized by Paris I Professors Emmanuelle Jouannet and Hélène Ruiz Fabri and Professor Mark Toufayan of the University of Ottawa. According to its organizers, the purpose of the symposium, on “The Third World Today: Assessment and Perspectives,” was to “evaluate the situation of...

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27 Sep

The IISD’s paper on transparency I mentioned this morning demonstrates why the investment regime is globalization’s Rorschach test. Recent scholarship (most prominently the work of one of the participants at Barcelona, York University Professor Gus Van Harten (see, e.g., “A Case for an International Investment Court,” available here) contends that investor-state arbitration is nothing like the commercial arbitration between private...

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27 Sep

The opportunity to guest blog on Opinio Juris is most appreciated. It is almost like having the ASIL Presidency forum all over again.  My first topic emerges from a conference hosted by the Canadian-based Institute for Sustainable Development in Barcelona in July 2010. The Institute invited a number of practitioners and scholars to address the topics of transparency and independence in...

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25 Sep

Bobby Chesney has graciously responded at Lawfare to my post about detention in non-international armed confilct (NIAC). Unfortunately, I think Chesney's response not only misconstrues what Steve Vladeck and I have been arguing, but also demonstrates some important misconceptions about IHL. To begin with, we need to understand exactly what we are arguing about. As Steve pointed out in one of...

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23 Sep

Between 1998 and 2000, I worked in Somalia for the UN Development Program. This experience very much informs my view on how international system deals (or does not) with state failure. As it is known, Somalia has been without a functioning government for the past 20 years. And Somalia is often referred to as the main example of State failure. In...

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22 Sep

State failure is an almost intractably thorny question for international law. Its intractability is both practical and conceptual. It is practical because state failure – defined by Giorgetti as ‘the prolonged implosion of governmental structures and the ensuring incapacity of the government to provide political goods to its internal and external constituencies’ – poses tremendous political, social and humanitarian challenges...

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22 Sep

Failed and failing states are relatively new phenomenons that have not yet been recorded in the international law radar screen. However, the rise of piracy off the coast of Somalia, and increased instances of terrorism and international organized crime underline their relevance in the international legal system. In my book, A Principled Approach to State Failure: International Community Actions in Emergency...

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