The government's new "cash for clunkers" program has been wildly successful. Under the program, consumers may receive up to $4,500 towards the purchase of a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle. What is surprising is the impact this it is having on consumer spending patterns regarding domestic vs. imported vehicles. According to press reports, more than 70% of the...
Deleuze once commented in a discussion with Foucault that "[a] theory is exactly like a box of tools. It has nothing to do with the signifier. It must be useful. It must function. And not for itself. If no one uses it, beginning with the theoretician himself (who then ceases to be a theoretician), then the theory is worthless or...
Until his arrest by the Rwandan military earlier this year, General Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi and former chairman of the Congolese Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP), had been considered one of the key destabilizing figures in eastern Congo. Back in 2004, Nkunda and his rebel troops took control of the South Kivu town of Bukavu,...
As part of his latest attack on Human Rights Watch, David Bernstein insists -- again -- that HRW "absolutely refuses to apologize or retract" when it is "wrong about Israel." He also claims that, "[t]hough challenged," I have "yet to come up with another, legitimate example of HRW officially responded to legitimate criticisms from pro-Israel sources the way it responded...
Excellent news -- and a major blow to the AU's promise of impunity for Bashir, given the symbolic and practical importance of South Africa for the continent generally: SOUTH Africa will arrest Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir if he visits the country, despite an African Union decision to ignore a war crimes warrant against him, the foreign ministry said yesterday. Civil society...
Iran and Syria have a new neighbor! ...
Raustiala’s book is about the scope of constitutional protections applied abroad. I did not find much in the book addressing whether the Constitution imposes limits on the extraterritorial exercise of federal power. Why is that? We have a robust and well-developed Interstate Commerce Clause jurisprudence, but we have precious little guidance as to the scope or even...
Great book Kal. Kudos and adulations. I have a question of clarification. One of the interesting things about Raustiala's discussion of the modern application of territoriality is the uniqueness of Guantanamo. He writes, "Guantanamo's unusual legal status is reflect in [its] history, and is underscored by two factors. One is the lack of any status...
On July 22nd, the tribunal arbitrating the dispute between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/ Army over the Abyei region rendered its final award concerning boundary delimitation (and, effectively, oil resource exploitation rights). (Links to the webcasts of the oral proceedings here.) The Washington Post reports: Sudan's fragile peace overcame a major hurdle Wednesday when a legal panel...
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is in trouble in the UN, according to a dismayed account in this week's Economist ("An idea whose time has come - and gone?" Economist, July 25, 2009, p 58). I'm dismayed, too. At the 2005 UN reform summit of the General Assembly, says the Economist the biggest-ever gathering of world leaders accepted the principle that they have...
Recently, advocates for asylum seekers fleeing severe and state-sanctioned domestic violence in their home countries appeared to score a significant victory. In the case of a woman who requested asylum based on fears she would be murdered by her common-law husband in Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security filed a brief in April (unsealed recently as reported by the...
Rather than comment on the refreshingly tough realism or seriously imprudent bear-baiting of Vice-President Biden's recent remarks on Russia ("Russia will bend to the US"), or whether there is an important and dangerous gap between short-term and long-term in the collapse of an imperial nuclear power even if the long-run claim is true, etc., let me instead offer a background...
