The BBC is reporting that President-elect Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo within the next two years. The report is based on this Time Magazine article declaring him (big surprise!) their "Person of the Year." I am not 100% sure Obama has really made this pledge, but it certainly can be read that way. In response to the question as...
The UN Security Council has passed unanimously a US drafted resolution authorizing attacks upon pirates, whether by land or sea. It is one of those rare security issues in which the great powers, and many small ones, have been willing to come together, at least in granting authority. As the Washington Post reports: The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize nations...
This past Friday I was privileged to host an intimate colloquium at Pepperdine’s Malibu Beach House that brought together a wonderful mix of torts scholars, international law scholars, and practitioners to address the nexus between torts and the Alien Tort Statute. It was an eclectic group, including renown torts experts such as Third Restatement Reporter Michael Green, Anthony Sebok,...
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...
A number of readers have e-mailed to ask why, given my interest in all things ICTY, I have not said anything about the Karadzic case. The answer is relatively simple: I have been serving for the past two months as one of Dr. Karadzic's primary legal advisers, which raises a number of complicated issues vis-a-vis blogging. On the one hand,...
Treat this as the latest round in the Guantanamo discussion ...
I don't imagine there is any reader of OJ who is not aware of the suffering and devastation caused by malaria. So this is welcome news. A vaccine against the parasitic disease malaria cut illnesses by more than half in field trials and could be safely given with other childhood inoculations, two studies have reported. The vaccine, which will begin a...
International Anti-Corruption Day is sanctioned by the UN as a day to increase awareness of corruption and its effects upon governance and public life. I realize that today's events in Chicago raise the possibilities of some heavy-handed irony - but actually, I'm pleased in a quite un-ironic way. If one has to have the phenomenon of this day for this,...
Over at the Harper's blog, Scott Horton has posted a Q& A with Mary Ellen O'Connell about her book "The Power & Purpose of International Law." (OJ hosted a discussion of Professor O'Connell's book last month, accessible here.) Among the interesting exchanges is this discussion of the U.S. relationship to the ICJ and rejoining the Optional Protocol of the...
Douglas Burgess, Jr., has an editorial in today's New York Times arguing that piracy should be considered terrorism in order to facilitate its prosecution. It's an interesting piece, but I have to take issue with the basic premise of his argument: Are pirates a species of terrorist? In short, yes. The same definition of pirates as hostis humani generis could also...
Update, Friday, December 5. Eric Posner was kind enough to cite me on this and some other posts referenced under the Guantanamo tag. Eric might well be right in saying that this is premature; I am blogging about this, but will look more seriously (i.e., assign a research assistant to dig out What They Said Under Bush, What They Said...
Last month the Supreme Court rendered its latest installment on the issue of judicial supervision of national security. Winter v. NRDC has received surprisingly little attention, but it strikes me as an important example of judicial deference to the Executive Branch in military affairs. This language in particular is noteworthy: We “give great deference to the professional judgment of...
