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...
Hold the presses! President-elect Obama will issue an executive order in his first week in office requiring the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay to be closed...
Kudos to John Garvey for focusing on "institutional pluralism" as the overarching theme of this year’s AALS. As he noted in introducing the theme, “This year’s theme focuses on the values of our institutional differences. Institutional pluralism is a good thing for our students in the same way choices are good for consumers in other fields…. A community...
Bravo to everyone who's spent the past months and years pressing the Bush Administration Justice Department to release more of its legal opinions supporting "war on terror" policies. Looks like all that work (by more folks than I can reasonably name in this space) finally paid off. This morning one can find in the "What's New" section of the...
Philippe Sands gave an extensive interview on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday. Sands is already on record with his view that torture has occurred as a part of U.S. detention policy at GTMO and that high level officials are responsible for these acts. Although I'm not sure he had much new to say, his careful and eloquent arguments make for easy listening. ...
