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...
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...
Harvard Law School is hosting in a couple of week what is certain to be a very interesting small conference on the Alien Tort Statute. I was lucky enough to be one of the invitees, addressing the issue of corporate liability under the ATS. I address the issue of corporate liability under the ATS, but am actually interested in it...
It's good to be back battling with my fellow co-bloggers. I still owe Chris and Deborah a response on other matters, but let me just briefly respond to Kevin's smart but still not entirely convincing post. It's not that I have any serious rebuttal of Kevin's legal analysis of the Honduras Constitution (and I apologize for my boo-boo on the...
While I agree with Julian that the interplay of law and politics on questions of statehood can lead to difficult questions, I think his declaration that “we still don’t know when a state is a state,” does more to obscure the issues than actually give a clear picture as to how law and politics affect each other. First of all,...
I just wanted to note that I have posted to SSRN The Language of Law and the Practice of Politics: Great Powers and the Rhetoric of Self-Determination in the Cases of Kosovo and South Ossetia, which is part of the special issue of the Chicago Journal of International Law about great power politics to which Ken has referred a couple of times....
It's a great day to be teaching the powers of the Security Council to my international law class! President Obama presided this morning over the Security Council meeting on non-proliferation, securing a 15-0 vote for UNSC resolution 1887, which aims to bolster the nuclear non-proliferation regime through strengthening the NPT, enforcing existing resolutions on North Korea and Iran, and...
Over at Foreign Policy magazine's blog, Eric Posner has a brief, breezy column on differences, or not, between the Bush and Obama administrations on international law. Fun, quick read, whether one agrees or not. And events of the moment - the opening of the UN General Assembly, the UN confabs on things like climate change, the G-20 meetings, etc. -...
My sympathies are with those who have to drive anywhere in Manhattan this week as the General Assembly gets underway. In past years I have experienced the privilege of being inside the security cordon and also the inconvenience of being outside it. But now we can all experience being inside the main public events through the UN Webcast! The...
According to Newsweek, the answer may well be yes: As chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo has so far steered clear of controversial cases. In doing so, he hoped to allay U.S. fears that the ICC would become a politicized tool for settling scores. Which is why it's so surprising that Moreno-Ocampo is now considering an investigation into...
Paula Schriefer of Freedom House makes a compelling argument about the central failings of the UN Human Rights Council and how they can be overcome in this piece over at Foreign Policy. It is not, as many argue, the mere presence of bad actors on the Council or the ability of those states and their friends to run the place...
My friend Jens Ohlin, who teaches at Cornell, has posted an important new essay on SSRN, "The Torture Lawyers." Here is the abstract of the essay, which is forthcoming in the Harvard International Law Journal: One of the longest shadows cast by the Bush Administration’s War on Terror involves the fate of the torture lawyers who authored or signed memoranda approving...
