In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Europe

12 Feb

That's the allegation made by Dr. Karin N. Calvo-Goller, a senior lecturer at the Academic Center of Law & Business in Israel, against Joseph H.H. Weiler, a professor at NYU who is the Editor-in-Chief of the marvelous European Journal of International Law.  In 2007, globallawbooks.org (GLB), a book-review website associated with EJIL that Professor Weiler also edits, published a negative...

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21 Jan

The proposed anti-homosexuality legislation introduced by Ugandan parliament back-bencher David Bahati is creating an international outcry. The bill--introduced as a private member's bill without government support--would impose the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," defined as "sex with a minor or a disabled person, where the offender is HIV-positive, a parent or a person in authority over the victim, or...

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13 Jan

The Trial Chamber has granted certification to appeal its decision upholding the Registry's selection of Richard Harvey as stand-by counsel. Here are the relevant paragraphs: 10. With regard to the first limb that must be met before certification to appeal can be granted under Rule 73(B) of the Rules, the Chamber notes that the Decision Denying Motion to Vacate concerned the...

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05 Jan

As its title suggests, When Cooperation Fails has two distinct aims.  The specific empirical aim is to provide a definitive and theoretically informed account of one of the most bitter and politically charged international disputes of the past two decades, between the United States and the European Union over the regulation of genetically modified foods and crops.  Our theoretical aim,...

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24 Dec

The Trial Chamber has -- completely unsurprisingly -- rejected Dr. Karadzic's motion challenging Richard Harvey's appointment as stand-by counsel.  As I explained in a previous post, that challenge was based on three grounds: (1) Harvey's appointment violates Article 21(4) of the ICTY Statute, which provides that a defendant has the right “to communicate with counsel of his own choosing” and...

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24 Dec

Sixty-six years ago today, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed a national radio audience to discuss his recent meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference. Stalin secured commitments to open up a second front against Germany. Roosevelt secured a commitment from Stalin to support an international security organization. 1943 was the turning point in the...

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17 Dec

I want to interrupt our Copenhagen focus to briefly flag a conversation that's on-going over at EJIL: Talk!  My Temple Law colleague, Jeff Dunoff, along with Joel Trachtman (The Fletcher School) recently put out a new work--Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance (Cambridge, 2009), which is the focus of EJIL's latest on-line symposium.  Here's a description of the book project in brief: Ruling...

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08 Dec

Der Spiegel has an excellent story on the possibility that a Eurozone country might default on its sovereign debt, with economic, political, and legal consequences that could be anything from serious to dire.  The country is Greece: Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. The government has borrowed more than...

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03 Dec

[This is a guest post by Professor Greg Gordon of the University of North Dakota.  Professor Gordon is the Director of the UND Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies, an expert on international criminal law and a past guest blogger at Opinio Juris.] Earlier this week, Spanish National Court Judge Balthazar Garzon initiated money laundering proceedings against the widow...

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02 Dec

I will write on this at greater length in a couple of days after a few of the key parties have made their arguments. For now, I just want to note that the oral proceeding transcripts will be available here. In the Tuesday morning session (which is all that has been posted at the time of this writing), Serbia set out...

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30 Nov

Americans who defend the legality of the invasion of Iraq almost invariably point to the fact that Britain's Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, also approved the invasion.  That argument has always been questionable; rumours have long circulated that Lord Goldsmith did not believe that the invasion was legal, but was pressured by Downing Street into approving it anyway. According to an explosive...

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