(Update: At the end of this post, I put a note from Eugene Kontorovich on his new paper on piracy, apparently still a discussion draft and not yet on SSRN, but apparently available from him if you contact him at Northwestern.) In the midst of so much newspaper op-ed, blogosphere commentary on the piracy issue, Ruth Wedgwood - who has been...
All news is local, I guess, even in this supposedly globalized age. So it is not surprising that it took an attack on a U.S. ship with a U.S. crew to focus the American public's attention on the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia. But as readers of this blog can attest, the piracy issue has been flagged, addressed,...
(Update: It appears that the ship has been retaken, by the crew, according to the NYT. There have also been some reports that at least one pirate is in custody, or anyway control, of the crew. Here, then, is my question. If one of the (alleged) pirates has been taken into custody, what should legally follow? The US has been...
It is a rare thing indeed to find a published mediation decision involving a matter of such profound importance as the settlement of 9/11 litigation. Last month, Judge Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York published an order accepting the mediated settlement of 95 claims against the airlines for approximately $500 million. The order and accompanying mediator...
My long slow slide into complete disenchantment with the Obama administration continues. Comes now, via my two favorite national-security law bloggers, Glenn Greewald and Scott Horton, a truly terrifying tale in which a nameless and faceless Department of Defense committee attempts to put Clive Stafford Smith, one of the world's great human-rights lawyers, in jail for...
Over at Volokh, Eric Posner has a very interesting post today on the Koh nomination. Here is a snippet: Foreign-law opponents, take heart! Koh is not a cosmopolitan who seeks to sacrifice American sovereignty to foreign gods. He is a liberal who wants to move American law to the left. International law serves as a handy vehicle, to be used or...
The more things change, the more things stay the same -- at least with this administration: He had become the most vocal opponent of the trial of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr, taking on a position more akin to politician than lawyer and launching a two-year public and media campaign that landed him on the front pages of newspapers and inside...
Tod Lindberg, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and editor of Policy Review (and, full disclosure, good friend of mine) has a new article out in Commentary, "The Only Way to Prevent Genocide." The article argues that while "creative diplomacy" can make a difference, in "the end, it may all come down to the willingness of the United States to...
Back in February, I noted that the ASIL Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward the International Criminal Court had adopted a set of recommendations for how the Obama Administration could take steps to engage with the ICC in new, more positive ways than the preceding Bush Administration. As part of the ASIL Conference last week, the Task Force released a...
I recently posted an invite to a Chatham House international law discussion group about the new African Court on Human Rights. The event was obviously a rousing success, as the following report by Sonya Sceats indicates: Last Monday night (23 March 2009) at Chatham House we were very privileged to host a fascinating discussion about Africa's new regional human rights court,...
Oy vey iz mir. The blogosphere is positively abuzz (see here and here) with the news that the ICTY Trial Chamber has used my post about meeting Dr. Karadzic to supports its recent decision that he speaks English for purposes of the Statute and Rules of the Tribunal, a decision that relieves the Prosecution of the obligation to translate its...
The Institute for War and Peace Reporting's article today about Darfur is entitled "Darfuris' Mixed Feelings Over Bashir Warrant." When I first saw the title, I thought that the article was going to discuss Darfuris who believe that the warrant will undermine the possibility of a lasting peace in the region. My bad: “We are really very happy about the arrest...
