We don’t insist that our major-league ball players come from the cities that they play for. Why should we demand any more from Olympic athletes? The Beijing Games includes more athletes with tenuous ties to the country whose flag they followed into Friday’s opening ceremonies. There are some who have jumped states in search of better-funded Olympic programs. Others couldn't...
Russia's intervention in Georgia is the latest, and most obvious, example of the peculiar role that Russia plays in the various so-called frozen conflicts in former republics of the USSR. As international security expert Dov Lynch has put it, Russia can be thought of as a “mediator-cum-supporter-cum-combatant.” Why has Russia undertaken such a foreign policy in Georgia and what, if anything,...
The Olympic Games are an intense environment for disputes. They draw unbelievable scrutiny and international attention, with the media on site dedicated to report even the hint of a controversy. The athletes at their center are competing in the most important event of their sporting careers, with the highest possible stakes. In this charged atmosphere, the Court...
[caption id="attachment_4216" align="alignleft" width="300" caption=""][/caption]Opinio Juris is pleased to announce a panel of international sports law experts as guest bloggers during the Beijing Olympics. Throughout the Olympic Games they will discuss international sports law and provide expert commentary on any Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) arbitrations that take place. Matt Mitten, Maidie Oliveau and Antonio Rigozzi are...
As Marty points out in his post, whether convicting Hamdan of "material support for terrorism" (MST) violates the Ex Post Facto Clause will be a major issue in Hamdan's appeal. Having now read Judge Allred's decision carefully, I strongly disagree with his conclusion that it does not. Judge Allred's framing of the ex post facto issue (p. 3) is unobjectionable: "the...
Well, the Hamdan verdict is in: guilty on five counts of material support to a terrorist organization, but significantly for cases to come - not guilty on the far broader charge of conspiracy. The Times’ story is here. Sentencing to follow this afternoon. This is hardly the end of the story. There will certainly be appeals. But...
I was hoping that the discussion last week would address not only who could be tried by a military commission, but also for what crimes someone could be tried. That issue flared up again yesterday in the Hamdan trial, when the presiding military judged refused to instruct the jury that any attempt by an "unlawful enemy combatant" -- a status...
Almost buried amid the last-minute flurry of litigation over Medellin's pending execution tonight at 7 p.m. EDT, Texas has made a potentially important but ambiguous concession to the ICJ. It has agreed to support federal habeas petitions in the future for Mexican citizens arguing that a failure of consular notification had caused prejudice to their criminal conviction and death sentence....
As I've mentioned before, I'm completing a short, popular, non-academic, policy book on US-UN relations. The genesis of the book, however, was the run-up to the UN reform summit, the General Assembly summit (and accompanying final document) of September 2005. My editors have been beyond patient in waiting for me to finish this not-very-large project. But I must say that the...
We are pleased to host this week a discussion of Benjamin Wittes’ book Law and the Long War. Ben's book is a comprehensive analysis of how September 11th did--and did not--change National Security Law, the disparate group of legal mechanisms related to counter-terrorism. It is also about what the role of law in counter-terrorism should be. It is a book that is sure...
Ordinarily I do not blog on articles or discussions that seem to me entirely muddle-headed; life is too short. However. (Admittedly irritating digression: Life is particularly too short here at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, where I am spending a few weeks finishing a book manuscript on US-UN relations in the next administration, whosever it happens to be. The weather in Palo...
We are very happy to announce that, as of Monday, Deborah Pearlstein of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs will be joining Opinio Juris as our newest (OK, only by two weeks) member. A scholar and practitioner in national security law, Deborah served from 2003 to 2007 as the founding director of the Law and Security Program at Human Rights...
