In association with the International Commission of Jurists

National Security Law

21 Jan

The proposed anti-homosexuality legislation introduced by Ugandan parliament back-bencher David Bahati is creating an international outcry. The bill--introduced as a private member's bill without government support--would impose the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," defined as "sex with a minor or a disabled person, where the offender is HIV-positive, a parent or a person in authority over the victim, or...

|
06 Jan

My former Pepperdine colleague, Kathryn Lee Boyd, has just filed a fascinating complaint relating to the distribution of funds secured by a treaty between the United States and Libya on behalf of U.S. victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism. The facts as alleged in the complaint of Davé v. Crowell & Moring are complex. In brief, Libya has been implicated in terrorist...

|
04 Jan

I know this sounds like the title of a movie franchise, but Brad Roth of Wayne State has alerted me to an op-ed in today's New York Times that deals with both Somali piracy and unrecognized separatist regions. Jay Bahadur writes: There might be another way to make greater strides against pirates. However, it would involve allying ourselves with a place that...

|
16 Dec

The Copenhagen process is multilateral, focused on reaching global agreements. But to get to a strong and truly effective global climate regime, bold bilateral initiatives may be needed. The conditions are propitious for a deal between China and the US, the world’s largest and second largest emitters, but that will call for imaginative and committed leadership on both sides as...

|
13 Dec

One of my favorite issues of the New York Times Magazine is its "year in ideas" issue, which comes annually in December.  Because OJ is a repository of things related to battlefield robotics and law and ethics, I wanted to flag for your attention the item by Dara Kerr, "Guilty Robots." [I]magine robots that obey injunctions like Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative...

|
11 Dec

President Obama's Nobel Prize speech yesterday made reference to the moral authority, under the ethics of the just war, for armed humanitarian intervention in some situations.  It is a topic that has been debated and discussed as a matter of international law for, well, a long time, but which gained particular urgency following on Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo in the...

|
10 Dec

Obama’s Nobel Lecture is a great speech. He spoke strongly in favor of international institutions and even more so international law. The great surprise of the speech is its unstinting support for just war theory. There is no doubt that Obama’s Nobel Lecture is the most hawkish one in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize. ...

|
08 Dec

The Guardian has a leaked copy of what it's calling "the Danish text" (see it here).  Apparently, this draft was developed by the Danes along with other developed countries including the United States and the United Kingdom in the hope that it might become the basis for whatever instrument emerges from Copenhagen.  As widely expected, the instrument is framed as a "political agreement"...

|
27 Nov

Where is the Obama administration on the Ottawa Landmines Ban Convention?  After some clarifications, it appears that the US is conducting a "broad" review of antipersonnel landmine policy and the Ottawa Convention, while maintaining the previous Bush administration stance on an "interim" basis.  This Reuter's story, in the Washington Post, gives some of the ins and outs.  Meanwhile, the Cartagena...

|
23 Nov

The Nation has just published an extensive article documenting the "secret war" Blackwater employees have been conducting in Pakistan.  The opening grafs: At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which...

|