In association with the International Commission of Jurists

National Security Law

15 Dec

Ashley Deeks, a fellow at Columbia and a former member of the Office of the Legal Adviser, has posted an essay on SSRN -- forthcoming in the Virginia Journal of International Law -- entitled "Unwilling or Unable: Toward an Normative Framework for Extra-Territorial Self-Defense."  Here is the abstract: Non-state actors, including terrorist groups, regularly launch attacks against states, often...

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05 Dec

I am very grateful to Kal Raustiala, Peggy McGuinness, Austen Parrish and Sarah Cleveland for taking the time to read my book – and I’m even happier that they liked it. They each make a number of important points, and I’ll now take the opportunity to respond to some of them. Kal is right in saying that one of my goals...

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29 Nov

Reading about the disintegrating relationship between the United States and Pakistan, I was struck by former Utah Governor, U.S. Ambassador to China, and Presidential-hopeful Jon Huntsman’s take on the situation. As reported in the New York Times: Asked on “Fox News Sunday” how he would respond in such a situation, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., President Obama’s former ambassador to China...

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28 Nov

Many of you have probably seen the reviews of John Lewis Gaddis’ new biography, George F. Kennan: An American Life. John Gaddis was one of my mentors in college and graduate school, and I have really enjoyed seeing what I know to have been a labor of love reviewed so favorably. Congratulations John! Kennan, the man primarily known...

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24 Nov

I've made more than my share of mistakes in my six years of blogging.  It's painful and embarrassing, but it happens.  All you can do is admit your mistakes and move on. Unfortunately, that is not the approach taken by the author of the terrible Mother Jones article I discussed yesterday.  Suebsaeng doesn't believe that he made any mistakes.  On the...

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24 Nov

Lord knows I can't stand Mitt Romney.  And I have never bought the idea that Ahmadinejad has committed direct and public incitement of genocide through his inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric.  But this Mother Jones article is still staggeringly awful: When asked about Iran and Israel at Tuesday's CNN national security debate, on-and-off Republican front-runner Mitt Romney replied in his typically tough, ...

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18 Nov

Suzanne Nossel, who was until recently a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations and is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow for Global Governance at the Council of Foreign Relations, has been named the new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. (I should note that Suzanne is an old friend.)  Here's part of what the Amnesty press release said: Most...

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17 Nov

Professor Sean Murphy of GW Law has been elected to the ILC. The press release from GW begins: Today, Professor Sean Murphy was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to the International Law Commission (ILC). The Commission consists of 34 distinguished legal scholars, practitioners, and government officials from around the world who are elected to serve for five-year terms. Created...

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13 Nov

Readers know all too well where my sympathies lie regarding WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.  But I have to admit, I'm baffled by the paranoid reaction my fellow WikiSupporters are exhibiting in the wake of Assange's latest failure to block his extradition to Sweden to face sexual-assault charges.  Exhibit A, from the usually invaluable WL Central: The possibility of criminal charges against...

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13 Nov

As readers may know, Israel's Knesset is currently considering two laws designed to prevent foreign governments and international organizations from funding progressive Israel human-rights groups: one that drastically limits the amount of funding such groups could receive, and one that imposes a tax of nearly 50% on foreign funds received by human-rights groups that do not receive Israeli funding (i.e.,...

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