Putting aside events in Kyrgyzstan (which certainly bear close watching), the day's big news for international lawyers was President Obama and Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev signing two related international agreements on the reduction of nuclear armaments. The State Department has posted the originals of this new START treaty here (see here for the longer, more detailed Protocol to that...
As the Washington Post notes, the Obama administration has authorized the CIA to assassinate Aulaqi wherever he is found. It is very unlikely that CIA agents qualify as lawful combatants -- they don't distinguish themselves from the civilian population, they don't carry their arms openly, etc. So, let's assume that CIA agents manage to kill Aulaqi in Afghanistan. I assume...
The NYT reports that the Obama Administration has authorized the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, The article notes the international law justification for his killing: he is an avowed member of Al Qaeda actively engaged in hostilities against the U.S. Under either the law of armed conflict or the general law of self-defense,...
I figure it's never too late to catch up on some of last week's April 1 reporting. The Harvard Law Record got a great "scoop" with this story: Speaking to a lunch seminar held by the National Security Law Association, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was shocked to discover that the term “self-executing”...
So, it turns out that the US military was lying through its teeth when it claimed that the three Afghan women murdered during a "bungled" Special Operations attack in Afghanistan six weeks ago were not killed by NATO -- read: American -- forces: NATO military officials had already admitted killing two innocent civilians — a district prosecutor and local police...
I love Foreign Policy's blog, Passport. Along with Democracy Arsenal, it's one of the two best blogs for analysis of (duh) US foreign policy. Which is why I was shocked to read a recent post by Andrew Swift entitled "Is Karl Rove a War Criminal?", because Swift's analysis would make a first-year law student blush in embarrassment. Here is how...
Interesting discussion of innovative ways to deal with Haiti's long-term problems. Haiti is very close to a failed state. So it's time to think big. Here are four out of the box choices: 1) A New Haitian Constitution; 2) UN Trusteeship; 3) U.S. Protectorate; 4) U.S. annexation and status as a territory. Read the whole article. I actually think that...
A quick note for interested readers -- the Texas Law Review has just published my latest article, Unpacking the Compact Clause. They've posted a copy of it here as well. My own abstract of the piece follows. The Compact Clause prohibits U.S. states from making “any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power” absent congressional consent. No one, however, has ever...
Fascinating inside baseball piece on the Obama Administration's internal debate over war on terrorism policy. It features a struggle between the State Department (Harold Koh) and the Defense Department (Jeh Johnson) with the OLC (David Barron) playing referee. The rift has been most pronounced between top lawyers in the State Department and the Pentagon, though it has also involved conflicts among career...
The full text of U.S. State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh's speech at ASIL can be found here. Ken has already praised it, Kevin (along with Marko Milanovic) have rejected it, and others are staying neutral or reserving judgment. Here is what I took away from the speech: The Obama Administration has now embraced the Bush Administration's position that the U.S....
I've long thought that any scholar who wants to maintain his or her credibility should stay far away from the US government, no matter which party is in power. Harold Koh is a case in point. Others have highlighted his problematic testimony about targeted killing, which continued to maintain the Bush administration's fictions --...
I love Glenn Greenwald. He catches Obama in a remarkable -- and shameless -- act of hypocrisy. Obama on why America can't investigate the systematic human-rights abuses that were ordered at the highest levels of its government: I'm a strong believer that it's important to look forward and not backwards. And Obama on why Indonesia must investigate the systematic human-rights abuses...
