International Human Rights Law

My thanks to Peter for his invaluable comments and to Opinio Juris and the Yale Journal of International Law for making this exchange possible. I am particularly grateful for Peter’s extraordinarily insightful critiques, which I think go a long way toward helping me develop the model that I propose in Protecting Rights Online. Peter’s first critique identifies one of the primary...

Let me begin by thanking Opinio Juris and the Yale International Law Journal for hosting this online symposium. In “Protecting Rights Online,” Professor Molly Beutz Land has written a highly interesting article that seeks to bridge the disciplinary and doctrinal divide between the human rights and access to knowledge (A2K) movements. The article is well-written, accessible and provocative. It has...

Although the human rights and access to knowledge (A2K) movements share many of the same goals, their legal and regulatory agendas in the area of Internet governance have historically had little in common. While state censorship online has been a principal concern for human rights advocates, this issue has not been a central focus of the A2K movement. Likewise, human...

Catherine Powell has an essay at Huffington Post responding to those criticizing Harold Koh for his views on customary international law. She writes: Harold Koh's position that customary international law is a form of federal common law reflects the conventional view since the founding of the nation. For over 200 years, Congress, the courts, and the Executive Branch have recognized that...

Still more disappointment from Bush 44: The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight. In...

More disappointment from Bush 44: Lawyers and judges working on Guantanamo Bay legal cases are showing signs of exasperation at President Barack Obama's administration, which they accuse of slowing federal judicial procedures for detainees. Two federal judges tasked with examining cases by five Guantanamo prisoners contesting their detention -- a right to habeas corpus granted by the Supreme Court in June 2008...

Many thanks to Derek Jinks for his kind words on the article and deeply incisive comments. I will do my best to reply sequentially to the provocative issues he’s raised. 1. I agree that conceptual overlap of ad bellum and in bello does not necessarily pose a problem for IHL. Indeed, as Jinks says, some discrepancy based on the nature of the...

I would first like to thank David for his thoughtful reply to my initial post. I will address his three main points briefly and in order. First, David raises a very fair set of questions regarding the choice and emphasis of my case studies. I deliberately chose three networks that were widely seen as successful in the literature, so that they...

It’s a pleasure to be able to comment on Pierre-Hugues Verdier’s excellent, if critical, article on networks. I respond as a defender: in my view, networks have notched some impressive achievements, and at their best, have become primary vehicles of international governance. From bank capital adequacy to mutual recognition on drug regulation to accounting standards, their list of...

I would first like to thank Opinio Juris for hosting this online symposium on my recent article, Transnational Regulatory Networks and Their Limits. Opinio Juris has quickly become an invaluable means of keeping up with current developments in international law, and I am delighted to have this opportunity to share my thoughts with you. In essence, the article sounds a cautionary...