I will remain agnostic until I can read the actual report, but a new article in the Sudan Tribune seems encouraging: The African Union (AU) panel that was tasked with balancing peace and accountability in Darfur has made an implicit endorsement of the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutions despite unfavorable disposition to the issue by African leaders and also called for...
Tomorrow (Friday, October 23rd), the S.J. Quinney College of Law of the University of Utah will host a symposium entitled Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security. You can watch the symposium online via a link on this page. Here's the brief description: Based on Professor Amos N. Guiora’s new book, Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security (Oxford University Press, 2009),...
[caption id="attachment_10243" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Elena Baylis"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_10102" align="alignright" width="101" caption=" "][/caption] Thanks to Opinio Juris and to YJIL for giving me the opportunity to comment on Tara Melish’s article, From Paradox to Subsidiarity: The United States and Human Rights Treaty Bodies. I have long been a fan of Tara’s work, and so it’s a pleasure to have the chance to respond to...
Jonathan Adler, a blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy, has asked me what I think about the editorial that Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, published yesterday in the New York Times criticizing the organization's coverage of Israel. My basic response: although I disagree with much of what Bernstein has to say, his criticisms must give anyone pause, because...
[caption id="attachment_10236" align="alignleft" width="120" caption="Tara Melish"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_10102" align="alignright" width="101" caption=" "][/caption] [Ed. This is a slightly different, updated version than the one posted earlier today.] Let me begin by thanking Opinio Juris and the editors of the Yale Journal of International Law for hosting this online symposium, and especially Professor Elena Baylis for her willingness to provide comments on my recent article,...
One of the pleasures of teaching at Washington College of Law is that so many of your colleagues are involved in so many real world public international law activities. They include our dean, Claudio Grossman, who in his capacity of chair of the UN committee against torture, today addressed the General Assembly. (I'll try to provide a webcast link; can't...
I had resolved to avoid blogging about Bernstein's endless series of attacks on Human Rights Watch, but I couldn't let the following pass without at least some acknowledgement: At what point does the MSM stop treating HRW as a neutral source on human rights in the Middle East, and start treating it like the left-wing, anti-Israel, anti-Western organization it has openly...
Making Sense of Darfur will be holding an online symposium over the next few weeks dedicated to analyzing what is likely to happen in Sudan in 2010 and 2011. Here is how it's described by Alex de Waal, with whom I rarely agree but always respect: Sudan faces two momentous events in the next fifteen months. The first is the general...
(Please note that a commenter has rightly corrected me on two points, which I correct below) Former State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger (and former OJ guest blogger) spoke today at Hofstra's biennial Legal Ethics Conference. His talk was typically engaging, honest, and interesting (it will not be news to many of our readers that Bellinger was an internal dissenter on...
Martin Holterman and Marko Milanovic have been kind enough to respond to my post on the ICTY's attack on Dr. Karadzic's right of self-representation, so it's only fair that I respond to their responses. To begin with, Martin writes that "[g]iven the precedent of the Milosevic case, and undoubtedly many others with which I am less familiar, I think we can...
The Obama Administration is becoming famous for their Friday night news dumps (deficit reports are always on Fridays). So here is another one sure to anger some parts of their base, but which is carefully buried while everyone is watching the Yankees beat up on the Angels. The Obama administration has formulated a new policy for Sudan that proposes working with that country’s...
Curtis Bradley and Jack Goldsmith have a nice piece in Green Bag on foreign sovereign immunity as applied to current and former government officials. The article tees up the issues that will be presented in Samantar v. Yousef. Here is a key part of their argument: We agree with those courts that have concluded that suits against individual foreign...
