Professor Cecilia Marcela Bailliet of the University of Oslo has a very useful post over at IntLawGrrls on possible criminal punishment for right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik. Contrary to what has been reported elsewhere, according to Bailliet it is possible that Breivik could get life in prison for the death of 76 persons in last week's shooting. Here's...
David Hicks is back in the news here in Australia, because the DPP has announced that it intends to seize any royalties he receives from the sale of his book, Guantanamo: My Journey. The DPP's decision has received a great deal of criticism, for a variety of reasons: Hicks accepted a plea because the US government threatened to put him...
Three stories to mention. First, Moreno-Ocampo plans to introduce WikiLeaks cables in the trial of the six Kenyan defendants: This emerged as he prepares to hand over the last batch of the evidence he will rely on in the September hearing against three of Kenya’s six post-election violence suspects. The evidence to be released on Wednesday relates to the...
Or so it would seem, based on this analysis from the European Center for Law and Justice, a right-leaning public interest law firm. A proposed new law in Poland appears to ban abortion under any circumstance, thus replacing the current law, which allows exemptions for the mother's health and for cases of rape and incest. If, as the ECLJ argues,...
Having just returned from Asia, which is awash in disputes over territorial sea rights and exclusive economic zones, the U.S. domestic debate over ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention seems almost quaint. Unlike pretty much every country in East Asia, the U.S. does not have any serious boundary or other kind of dispute that is likely to be...
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...
