The New York Times has a thoughtful piece by Adam Liptak this weekend on the Obama Administration’s difficult choice in its forthcoming brief in the Supreme Court case of al-Marri v. Pucciarelli. Essentially, the Obama Administration will have to choose between continued detention, deportation to a third country, or prosecution. Each choice is perilous. If...
Comments like this one, made not by some obscure commenter but by David Bernstein, a law professor at George Mason and a member of The Volokh Conspiracy, in response to my Dershowitz post below: Herein the phoniness of international law. Humble Law Student has raised several significant questions with Heller’s analysis, including whether it matters under international law, as it surely...
Alan Dershowitz published an editorial yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that argues Israel's attacks on Hamas in Gaza are "perfectly proportionate." I have no desire to argue the substance of that point, in part because views on Israel and Palestine are largely impervious to facts or argument (on both sides), but largely because the concept of proportionality is so...
The blogosphere is all atwitter with news that the CIA has been using Viagra to bribe Afghan chieftains into revealing information about the Taliban. I was going to point out that, however successful the erections-for-info exchange might be, it is worth wondering to what extent the practice facilitates rape, marital and otherwise. But it appears Cara at Feministe has beaten...
Medecins Sans Frontieres has published their list and report of the top-ten humanitarian disasters of 2008. Africa suffers its disproportionate share: Massive forced civilian displacements, violence, and unmet medical needs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, and Pakistan, along with neglected medical emergencies in Myanmar and Zimbabwe, are some of the worst humanitarian and medical emergencies in the world,...
Two interesting articles today about countries that want the ICC to get involved in their internal problems. First, the Indian government apparently wants the Court to prosecute Pakistanis who are responsible for masterminding terrorist attacks, including the recent attack in Mumbai: "[h]ighly placed government sources have told TIMES NOW that decks are being cleared by New Delhi to get the...
Richard Falk, an eminent professor of international law and politics at Princeton, was expelled from Israel yesterday while he acting as the UN Human Rights Council's special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories. Falk was expelled by Israel because Israel believed his investigation, and indeed the UN Human Rights Council itself, is irredeemably biased against Israel. This is probably...
Thanks to Matt for his very thoughtful comments. I agree with almost all of them, so will take this opportunity to amplify on some of the issues he raises. First, Matt “wonder[s] whether administrative detention is so underdeveloped, or so expansive a concept, that it doesn’t make sense to think of it as a single model at all.” I agree with...
I thank YJIL and Opinio Juris for the opportunity to comment on Monica Hakimi’s article, “International Standards for Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond the Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide.” Monica’s important paper will contribute to a raging debate likely to grow more intense as President-elect Obama moves to shut down Guantanamo and put U.S. detention policy on sounder legal footing. ...
Thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this symposium. I read the blog regularly so know to expect a lively and interesting discussion. My article addresses the international legal rules for detaining “non-battlefield terrorism suspects”—i.e., suspected terrorists not captured on a conventional battlefield or in the theater of combat. Despite the extensive literature on the rules that govern the “war on terror,”...
As was widely reported, the United States and Iraqi negotiators (finally!) concluded negotiations last week by signing the text of a U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Both sides now need to go through their respective domestic approval processes before exchanging the necessary notifications to bring the SOFA into force. In Iraq, that process includes parliamentary approval, which is not a slam dunk if...
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...
