In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Featured

13 Nov

[caption id="attachment_5503" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Malé, Maldives"][/caption] This week's news out of the Maldives is the sort of story that makes international lawyers salivate. It has something for everyone, bringing together issues of democracy, transitional justice, climate change, the law of the sea, not to mention good, old-fashioned sovereignty.  On Tuesday, Mohamed Nasheed was sworn in as the archipelago's new President, ending...

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12 Nov

 [Steve Charnovitz is an associate professor of law at The George Washington University Law School. He blogs at the International Economic Law and Policy Blog.] On October 31, 2008, I made a presentation at the ASIL’s Tillar House of a proposal for an “International Court of Justice Decisions Implementation Act.” My proposal is an outgrowth of my essay in the Agora...

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11 Nov

Turns out rumors of a new Obama Administration-developed security court may have been greatly exaggerated – or at least premature. The blogosphere was briefly abuzz yesterday after an AP wire story in the morning reported that some of the Guantanamo detainees “might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to [unnamed]...

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11 Nov

I was in Miami for the weekend speaking at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association and the International Bar Association on the topic of mass claims in developing countries. Many lawyers in the room were defense counsel for prominent corporations subject to new claims for violations of international or foreign law. There were also plenty of...

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10 Nov

Critics of the U.S. war on terrorism often deride it as a bad metaphor or an excuse to conduct controversial detentions, interrogations and military trials.  But what the Pentagon refers to as the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) has many of the characteristics of a typical armed conflict, even outside of the main battlefield in Afghanistan.  As the NYT reports: The...

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08 Nov

Amidst all the global celebration regarding the election of Barack Obama there is stark news that Moscow is emerging as a serious resurgent threat to the United States. Within hours of Obama's election Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the redeployment of missiles on the Polish border. A few United States papers are covering the story, but this report...

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07 Nov

The General Assembly and Security Council have just announced the election of two current and three new members of the International Court of Justice. Here is the key excerpt of the press release: The General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations yesterday elected five Members of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a term of office...

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05 Nov

Great speech. Amazing day. Whether or not you supported Barack Obama, one cannot deny the achievement America made last night. Martin Luther King has always been one of my heroes and I cannot help but wonder what he would have said had he lived to see this day. If there are tears of joy to shed...

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04 Nov

Those of us in the U.S. are off to the polls, so I thought we could try doing an open thread today for comments and suggestions to the new President, whoever that is, concerning America's foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on international law.  Obviously there has been alot of talk about getting out of Iraq, putting a definitive end...

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02 Nov

"Chucky" Taylor, son of former Liberian President (and current war crimes defendant) Charles Taylor, was convicted Friday in Florida federal court of committing torture when he was with his father in Liberia. What makes Taylor's conviction news (although only news overseas, apparently, since it didn't make any of the leading U.S. newspapers) is that it is the first conviction under the...

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