In association with the International Commission of Jurists

North America

17 Nov

US Navy vessel confronts Somali pirates, 2006.  Photo credit Chief Petty Officer Kenneth Anderson, USN, open access DOD (no, not me, but we Ken Andersons really get around). Somali pirates strike again, this time hijacking a Saudi-owned tanker off the coast of Kenya. The running stand off with the hijacked ship carrying arms and a Ukrainian crew continues; Russia announces that...

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15 Nov

As most readers likely know, Germany recently arrested Rose Kabuye, the President of Rwanda's chief of protocol, on behalf of France, who intends to prosecute her for being involved in shooting down then-President Juvenal Habayarimana's plane, the event that triggered the Hutu-led 1994 genocide.  It appears that Kabuye actually wants to be prosecuted, because it will give her -- and...

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15 Nov

I sharply criticized New York Times reporter William Glaberson - the Times's chief Guantanamo reporter - last week for, among other things, failing to take note of Benjamin Wittes and the centrality of his book, Law and the Long War.  I am happy to report that Glaberson has a new article out in today's NYT, this time interviewing a wide...

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15 Nov

Today is the global financial crisis summit in Washington DC, with attendance by leaders of the G20.  Bloomberg reports that the most likely results are: agreement to a global fiscal stimulus aimed supporting aggregate demand while waiting for monetary stimulus (i.e., interest rate cuts by central banks) to take effect;  reform of the IMF to put it at the center of addressing...

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14 Nov

Friends often ask me what my favorite treaty is (OK, none of my friends ask me this, but they should).  I'd have to say the 1909 U.S.-Canada International Boundary Treaty (BWT) ranks right up there -- for nearly a century it has dealt, mostly successfully, with all sorts of questions relating to the shared water resources of the U.S. and Canada,...

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10 Nov

As discussions of a(nother) bailout for Detroit automakers continue, one question that intrigues me is whether any Opinio Juris readers drive Detroit-made cars - i.e., cars made by the Big Three US automakers?  Please feel free to indicate in the comments. My wife and I own two Hondas, one of them a 1993 Honda Civic that we bought used from the...

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06 Nov

While Peggy, Peter and Ken have provided more overarching views of the impact of Obama's election and his coming presidency, those readers ready to get into the weeds of what Obama will do when it comes to international law should check out his responses to an ASIL survey done back when the primaries were still in full swing.  You can access...

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04 Nov

The New York Times ran a front page story from its lead Guantanamo reporter yesterday.   (William Glaberson and Margot Williams, research assistance Andrei Scheinkman, "Next President Will Face Test on Detainees: Some at Guantanamo Called Serious Risks," NYT, Monday, November 3, 2008 (behind reg. user wall), A1; plus a referenced data base of detainees used to analyze the detainee...

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02 Nov

"Chucky" Taylor, son of former Liberian President (and current war crimes defendant) Charles Taylor, was convicted Friday in Florida federal court of committing torture when he was with his father in Liberia. What makes Taylor's conviction news (although only news overseas, apparently, since it didn't make any of the leading U.S. newspapers) is that it is the first conviction under the...

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25 Oct

Of course law school associate deans and admissions people are focused on the internals of this data, but even in the midst of crashing law school endowments, lowered giving, and so on, can we assume at least that law school itself is counter-cyclical to the economy overall?  When the economy tanks, students and recent grads take refuge in professional schools?...

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24 Oct

Today, Friday, October 24, is United Nations Day.  If you are in the United States, however, your reaction is more likely to be - huh?  What United Nations Day?  This is not a feature of a right-wing blackout to prevent takeover by the 'black helicopters' - neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post (I checked the paper copies,...

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