Events in Honduras occurred while I was in a plane on a long flight, so I do not have enough of a grasp of what the facts are, or appear to be, to offer an opinion. However, I wanted to note that, whatever they are exactly, they seem to have touched off an interesting, and not inconsequential debate, over what...
The New York Times (along with much of the mainstream media) has "rediscovered" cyberwar of late (see here, here, here, and here). Today's story revives longstanding differences between Russian government proposals to regulate cyberwarfare by treaty versus existing U.S. preferences to place the issue in more informal law enforcement cooperation networks: Russia favors an international treaty along the lines of those negotiated for...
Foreign Policy.com reports: "Cloture passed on a 65-31 vote," a Congressional source relays at 11:30am. "There was applause in the Senate gallery after the vote was announced. Republicans are threatening to exercise their right to use all 30 hours of floor debate before permitting a final vote, so Koh may not be formally confirmed until tomorrow." See also IntLawGrrls. Yesterday, by the...
[ Laura Dickinson is the Foundation Professor of Law, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University.] After three months of unwarranted delay, the cloture vote on State Department Legal Adviser nominee Dean Harold Hongju Koh is finally scheduled for tomorrow. (See Chris Borgen's post, here.) Predictably, critics on the right are gearing up with robocalls and email campaigns aimed at...
Well, it's about time. On Monday, Senator Harry Reid moved for cloture of debate on the nomination of Harold Koh to be the State Department's legal adviser. (Be sure to check out this article.) Sixty votes will be needed for cloture and then fifty votes for his confirmation. Both votes are expected to come this Wednesday, assuming no further shenanigans. Three months ago, the...
Saree Makdisi, a professor of comparative literature at UCLA and an old friend from the literature program at Duke, has a superb editorial in today's Los Angeles Times about the media's -- and thus our -- use of language concerning Israel and Palestine. Here's a taste: In the U.S., discussion of Palestinian politicians and political movements often relies on a spectrum...
As most people probably know by now, the Washington Post, completely overburdened by liberals like Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, George Will, Jim Hoagland, Michael Gerson, Robert Kagan, Fred Hiatt, David Broder, Richard Cohen, John Bolton, Joe Lieberman, and Douglas Feith, has fired Dan Froomkin, author of the wonderful blog White House Watch. Froomkin has yet to say anything about his firing, other than that...
Scott Horton has a typically must-read post today at Harpers.com on Jose Padilla's lawsuit against John Yoo, which, happily, just survived a motion to dismiss and appears to be headed to trial. Scott takes apart the state-secrets defense advanced by both Yoo and -- predictably -- the secrecy-obsessed Obama administration. Here's a taste: In seeking dismissal, Yoo argued that the case...
The Public Editor of The New York Times has a nice piece today criticizing the newspaper's "seriously flawed and greatly overplayed" front-page article “1 in 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds.” Others have thoroughly debunked similar Pentagon reports -- see here, for example. I just want to call attention to the following paragraph from the Public Editor's article, which is...
In various posts on OJ about Predator drones, targeted killing, and such topics, I've made reference to a book chapter I've been drafting for Benjamin Wittes's forthcoming edited volume of policy essays, Legislating the War on Terror: An Agenda for Reform (Brookings Institution Press 2009). I'm pleased to say that my chapter, Targeted Killing in US Counterterrorism Strategy and Law,...
Last month, the Obama Administration informed the Senate of its treaty priorities via a letter from the State Department (you can access it here). The letter lists 17 treaties for which the Administration seeks Senate advice and consent "at this time," including (as predicted here and here) CTBT, CEDAW, and UNCLOS. It also lists 12 treaties "on which...
I'm on the fly, but quickly wanted to post this update to my earlier posts on targeted killings and Predator strikes. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial execution, Philip Alston, has called for an investigation into US Predator drone attacks. Here is a quick news story on it. I think the press account somewhat overstates matters - I would characterize...
