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...
[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...
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. ...
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...
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....
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....
I had the good fortune of participating in a symposium last week sponsored by the University of Virginia Law School's John Bassett Moore Society. Entitled "The Obama Impact", the symposium explored the impact of the new administration on international law and policy. I have already shared my views on this subject here and I took the opportunity during my visit...
Cross-posted at Balkinization This is a post about politics, not law. How could it be otherwise in engaging the public debate these days over the chronic cluster of post-9/11 terrorist detention, interrogation and trial issues? Demagoguery by Mitch McConnell and his Republican cohort over the Administration’s exactly right and entirely unremarkable decision to bring criminal charges against would-be underwear...
The Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS), in partnership with ASIL and the One Earth Future Foundation, have released a report entitled: "Suppressing Maritime Piracy: Exploring the Options in International Law". It is a useful report, and it is the product of a very smart and knowledgeable group of international law experts including friends of this blog like...
[Daniel Abebe and Jonathan S. Masur are Assistant Professors of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Their Article may be found here.] On July 8th and 9th, 2009, the New York Times published two seemingly unconnected articles about China. One focused on China’s rejection of an agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, while the other concerned clashes...
[David H. Moore is a Professor at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University] The Supreme Court’s decision in Medellin v. Texas has understandably generated substantial debate on the status of treaties in domestic law. Medellin has significant implications for three other areas of foreign relations law as well: Alien Tort Statute litigation, the domestic legal status of customary international...
[Kevin Kolben is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Business School] This Article argues that the move to human rights discourse and international legal institutions by labor scholars and labor movements, particularly American scholars and movements, deserves more reflection, debate, and perhaps reconsideration. Its thesis is grounded primarily in an intuition borne of personal experience. After graduating from college, I worked for several...
