The International Court of Justice issued a "provisional measures" order today in a dispute between Thailand and Cambodia over a World Heritage temple located near or on the boundary between the two nations. The request for provisional measures was brought by Cambodia, which sought the withdrawal of Thai troops from around the temple. The ICJ granted this request, but went...
The U.S. government has recently announced it will recognize the Benghazi authority as the "legitimate" government of Libya. But is it departing from international practice or the international law relating to statehood and recognition in order to do so? I have to admit I haven't followed the recognition of state vs. the recognition of government issue very closely (OK, not at...
As part of his ongoing war against the New York Times, Ben Wittes has a post today entitled "Seven Errors in Today's New York Times Editorial." I occasionally agree with Wittes' criticism of the NYT; the paper sometimes misstates the law when it criticizes the Obama administration. But there is nothing erroneous about today's editorial, and Wittes can only claim...
The following is a guest-post by Mark Kersten. Mark is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of the (excellent) blog Justice in Conflict. His research examines the nexus of conflict resolution and the pursuit of international criminal justice. Trying to Get to the Bottom of the “Peace versus Justice” Debate...
Professor Ingrid Wuerth’s article on foreign official immunity is thorough, thoughtful and provocative, and it’s a privilege to make my first OJ appearance commenting on it. There is much to agree with in her analysis, and at the same time some questions to raise. Just over a year has now passed since the Supreme Court decided, in Samantar v. Yousuf, that...
Thanks to Opinio Juris for inviting me to comment on Foreign Official Immunity Determinations in U.S. Courts: The Case Against the State Department, Professor Ingrid Wuerth’s timely and insightful article. The springboard for the article is Samantar v. Yousuf, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not apply to individual government...
I am very pleased to be able to comment on Ingrid Wuerth’s recent article, Foreign Official Immunity Determinations in U.S. Courts: The Case Against the State Department. As readers of this blog are aware, the Supreme Court held in Samantar v. Yousuf that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) generally does not apply to suits against individual foreign officials, and...
We now know that there is broad agreement that if Texas Governor Perry goes forward with today's scheduled execution of Humberto Leal, he will be doing so in violation of law. Who has said so? Well, the U.S. government, the U.S. Supreme Court, at least three concurring judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, a significant number of members...
The article, Foreign Officials Immunity Determinations in U.S. Courts: The Case Against the State Department, considers the executive branch’s power to make foreign official immunity determinations that are binding in U.S. courts. As many readers know, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act governs the immunity of foreign states in U.S. courts. This statute does not apply to the immunity of individual foreign...
I'm under the pump because of a deadline, but I wanted to call readers' attention to a short editorial at OpenDemocracy.net written by Victor Kattan about the PLO/PA's intention to ask the UN General Assembly to recognize Palestinian statehood in September. Victor discusses a variety of interesting diplomatic and legal aspects of that intention, including the possibility that the PLO/PA...
Last week Julian Ku and I had the pleasure of working with Business Roundtable and a wonderful group of international law scholars--Rudolf Dolzer, Burkhard Hess, Herbert Kronke, Davis Robinson, Christoph Schreuer, and Janet Walker--on a Second Circuit amicus brief addressing the propriety of antisuit injunctions under international law. The amicus brief addresses an appeal of Judge Kaplan of the...
The D.C. Circuit held this week that torture by non-state actors was not actionable under the Alien Tort Statute. The case, Ali Shafi v. Palestinian Authority, arose from the alleged torture in the West Bank by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO of a Palestinian national who was an Israeli spy. The Shafis argue that “the [Palestinian Authority's] conduct...
