Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner have an interesting op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal (November 25, 2008), "Does Europe Believe in International Law?" I believe it is behind the subscriber wall, but it offers a series of instances in which, in effect, Europe says one thing and does another. In fact, Europe's commitment to international law is largely rhetorical. Like the...
I was asked to respond to Bret Boyce’s recent article, published in the Yale Journal of International Law and entitled “Obscenity and Community Standards.” My one sentence summary of his thesis is this: Pornography is private sexual expression with which legislatures and courts should not interfere. Although this article was published in a forum dedicated to international law, it doesn’t...
My congratulations to Professor Hakimi on a very intelligent article, with which I am largely in sympathy, and also to Matt Waxman for his response. I'm on the fly, without access to documents or the ability to search the web, so forgive the broad brush nature of this comment and question, but let me put it anyway (I'm depending on...
Thanks to Matt for his very thoughtful comments. I agree with almost all of them, so will take this opportunity to amplify on some of the issues he raises. First, Matt “wonder[s] whether administrative detention is so underdeveloped, or so expansive a concept, that it doesn’t make sense to think of it as a single model at all.” I agree with...
I thank YJIL and Opinio Juris for the opportunity to comment on Monica Hakimi’s article, “International Standards for Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond the Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide.” Monica’s important paper will contribute to a raging debate likely to grow more intense as President-elect Obama moves to shut down Guantanamo and put U.S. detention policy on sounder legal footing. ...
Thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this symposium. I read the blog regularly so know to expect a lively and interesting discussion. My article addresses the international legal rules for detaining “non-battlefield terrorism suspects”—i.e., suspected terrorists not captured on a conventional battlefield or in the theater of combat. Despite the extensive literature on the rules that govern the “war on terror,”...
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting has an interesting report today on the Ugandan government's efforts to prosecute Kony and other LRA members in a special domestic court. According to the IWPR's report, the problem is not the lack of political will, but the potential retroactivity of the legislation necessary to make the Rome Statute's core crimes -- war...
Anyone who still doubts that the ICC's pursuit of Bashir is unnerving the Sudanese government should take a gander at this article: An interview with published by Sudan official news agency (SUNA) with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband yesterday is fabricated, according to a statement by the British embassy in Khartoum. “The statements that SUNA news agency attributed to the Foreign Secretary...
My friend and colleague Daniel Bradlow, professor of law and director of the international legal studies program at Washington College of Law, as well as SARCHI professor of development law and African economic relations at the University of Pretoria, has a new short opinion essay on how Africa should respond to the global financial crisis and the deliberations of the...
As was widely reported, the United States and Iraqi negotiators (finally!) concluded negotiations last week by signing the text of a U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Both sides now need to go through their respective domestic approval processes before exchanging the necessary notifications to bring the SOFA into force. In Iraq, that process includes parliamentary approval, which is not a slam dunk if...
The AP is reporting that the Trial Chamber lifted the stay "after the prosecution agreed to let judges review confidential material it received from the United Nations." No additional information is available yet; it will be interesting to see what the Chamber does about the documents that are still protected by confidentiality agreements -- an issue I discussed here. UPDATE: According...
US Navy vessel confronts Somali pirates, 2006. Photo credit Chief Petty Officer Kenneth Anderson, USN, open access DOD (no, not me, but we Ken Andersons really get around). Somali pirates strike again, this time hijacking a Saudi-owned tanker off the coast of Kenya. The running stand off with the hijacked ship carrying arms and a Ukrainian crew continues; Russia announces that...
