Yesterday Barack Obama signed an Executive Order directing an immediate review of al-Marri's status. "The Review shall expeditiously determine the disposition options with respect to al-Marri and shall pursue such disposition as is appropriate." So what should the Supreme Court do with the al-Marri case now? As I noted earlier this month, Obama essentially has the choice...
I'm not familiar with these things, but it strikes me as a bit odd that the Obama Administration is leaking draft versions of its executive order on Guantanamo. Just release it, already! You are the President now! In any event, the draft order does take a fairly hard line on closing Gitmo, but it leaves itself plenty of wiggle room. ...
Philippe Sands and Dahlia Lithwick have kindly responded to my post about CAT and the prosecution of torture suspects. Here is their response: We don't believe we are in disagreement on the approach to the obligation under CAT, under Articles 7(1) and (2). The obligation is to "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution". What happens...
One other added benefit of the upcoming Obama years (and there are likely to be few) is the end of the dishonest or at least inaccurate charges about the radical nature of the Bush Administration's views on executive powers. The most annoying one that I've heard a million times from Keith Olbermann but also from otherwise intelligent and respectable constitutional...
I admit I am not exactly looking forward to the Obama years. Still, it did warm my heart a bit to hear the new U.S. commander-in-chief endorse the continuation of the war on terrorism in his inaugural speech yesterday. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network...
There is a lively debate going on in the blogosphere about the legal impact of Eric Holder's statement that waterboarding is torture and Susan Crawford's conclusion that Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured while in custody at Guantanamo Bay. Does Holder's statement and Crawford's conclusion require the US to prosecute the interrogators who used waterboarding and the Bush administration officials who approved...
In the comments to my post below on the BBC story, Mark C has kindly provided a link to the "formal request" allegedly submitted on behalf of "millions" of Sudanese who oppose arresting Bashir. (The request also opposes arrest warrants for the rebel leaders, although perfunctorily -- protecting Bashir is its primary objective.) I hope to address the request's numerous...
It’s an absurd question, of course, to ask why the environment is more important than human rights. But it’s actually true: protecting, say, endangered sea turtles is far more important than protecting against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of individuals. At least that is the conclusion if one is examining the question from an international trade perspective. The...
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Monday in the terrorism victim asset attachment case of Iran v. Elahi. (Transcript here). The case is extraordinarily complicated but it boils down to a question of statutory construction. Elahi was one of a handful of terrorism victims who received payment from the United States government under the 2000 Victims...
According to the Guardian, the ICJ may soon have a chance to opine on the numerous legal issues arising out of the current Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. The UN general assembly, which is meeting this week to discuss the issue, will consider requesting an advisory opinion from the international court of justice, the Guardian has learned. "There is a well-grounded view...
[Susan Benesch is a Fellow at the Center for Applied Legal Studies at Georgetown Law Center and a former guest blogger here at Opinio Juris.] Simon Bikindi, the Rwandan pop star whose two-year trial at the ICTR was apparently the first attempt to criminalize music in international law, was just convicted of incitement to genocide but not, after all, for his...
Look closely at this photo of a parachute containing ransom money landing on a hijacked vessel in Somalia. Taken by the U.S. Navy, the photo, and this unusually insightful Time piece, details what I sort of predicted a couple of weeks ago. The ballyhooed international effort, sanctioned by the UN Security Council, to suppress Somali pirates is going nowhere, mostly...
