Thanks to Matt for his very thoughtful comments. I agree with almost all of them, so will take this opportunity to amplify on some of the issues he raises. First, Matt “wonder[s] whether administrative detention is so underdeveloped, or so expansive a concept, that it doesn’t make sense to think of it as a single model at all.” I agree with...
I thank YJIL and Opinio Juris for the opportunity to comment on Monica Hakimi’s article, “International Standards for Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond the Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide.” Monica’s important paper will contribute to a raging debate likely to grow more intense as President-elect Obama moves to shut down Guantanamo and put U.S. detention policy on sounder legal footing. ...
Thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this symposium. I read the blog regularly so know to expect a lively and interesting discussion. My article addresses the international legal rules for detaining “non-battlefield terrorism suspects”—i.e., suspected terrorists not captured on a conventional battlefield or in the theater of combat. Despite the extensive literature on the rules that govern the “war on terror,”...
The Yale Journal of International Law (YJIL), one of the world’s leading journals of international and comparative law, is pleased to continue its partnership with Opinio Juris in this second online symposium. This week, we will be featuring two Articles published by YJIL in Vol. 33-2, both of which are available here. Thank you to Peggy McGuinness and the other...
As was widely reported, the United States and Iraqi negotiators (finally!) concluded negotiations last week by signing the text of a U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Both sides now need to go through their respective domestic approval processes before exchanging the necessary notifications to bring the SOFA into force. In Iraq, that process includes parliamentary approval, which is not a slam dunk if...
Salon.com has an article today about the Obama administration and torture that floats the horrifying possibility -- all too real, I'm sure -- that Bush will issue a blanket pardon for "anyone who participated in, had knowledge of, or received information about Bush's interrogation program during the so-called war on terror." I'm not going to waste precious pixels responding to...
US Navy vessel confronts Somali pirates, 2006. Photo credit Chief Petty Officer Kenneth Anderson, USN, open access DOD (no, not me, but we Ken Andersons really get around). Somali pirates strike again, this time hijacking a Saudi-owned tanker off the coast of Kenya. The running stand off with the hijacked ship carrying arms and a Ukrainian crew continues; Russia announces that...
President-elect Obama’s campaign for the presidency was all about change—change we can believe in. No doubt the readers of Opinio Juris have a long list of topics on which they wish to see change: Guantanamo Bay, CIA interrogation, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Congo, Darfur, weapons proliferation, the global environment, the global economy, etc. But even if the new President...
John has kindly agreed to let me post his private response to my previous post about his speech at the Fletcher School. Before I do, though, I want to reiterate how important it is to not let the US's refusal to join the ICC blind us to the many significant contributions the US has made, and continues to make, to...
The State Department has posted John Bellinger's recent speech at the Fletcher School on international criminal justice. It is well worth a read, because it quite rightly highlights the US's many important contributions -- past and present -- to international criminal justice. That said, the speech regrettably dusts off all of the US's tired objections to the ICC: not giving...
I sharply criticized New York Times reporter William Glaberson - the Times's chief Guantanamo reporter - last week for, among other things, failing to take note of Benjamin Wittes and the centrality of his book, Law and the Long War. I am happy to report that Glaberson has a new article out in today's NYT, this time interviewing a wide...
Via Tom Barnett's blog, I came across this essay by Jim Hoagland that was published last month in the Washington Post. Hoagland set out observations about the politicking at the World Policy Conference that was sponsored by the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, a French think tank. What he saw has some interesting implications about the importance of soft power. After setting the scene by describing Russian...
