John Bellinger has been legal adviser to the State Department for the past four years. In this speech to the International Law Weekend (October 17, 2008), he offers some reflections on his experience. (We here at OJ were privileged to have John guest blog here in a unique and highly successful experiment in 'blogging with the Legal Adviser'.) I excerpt...
Ladies and gentlemen, your peacemaker: Al-Bashir who rarely gives interviews told the British Channel 4 News from Khartoum that rape claims are made up by Darfuri women. “The women inside the camps are under the influence of the rebels and some are even relatives of the rebels. That’s why they make these claims” Al-Bashir said. “We are fully convinced that no rape took...
Following up on Peter’s earlier post on the foreign policy views of Sarah Palin, I note this letter that she wrote in September 2007 to Senators Stevens and Murkowski expressing her “strong support” for the ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). She also seems to advocate the use of the International Tribunal for the...
I have spent a fair bit of time the past couple days reviewing the Supreme Court's docket for the upcoming term with an eye for any cases that might be of particular interest to our readers. Here is my list of the most important cases that are germane to our discipline. The big issues are (1) senior government...
The Daily Monitor Online, the web presence of one of Uganda's leading independent newspapers, has an interesting article today suggesting that the newly-enacted Child Soldiers Accountabilty Act could be used against senior officials in the Ugandan People's Defence Force (UPDF) -- the armed forces of Uganda -- if they traveled to the US: While no senior officer in the UPDF has...
Professor Charli Carpenter (of UMass Amherst Political Science Department) and I had a lovely conversation over the weekend about battlefield robots. Well, actually it was an interview for a project of hers, so she let me do pretty much all the talking. She has now posted some thoughts of her own, in highly interesting, highly recommended (for that small chunk...
It's about time: The American Psychological Association has notified President Bush of a significant change in the association’s policy that limits the roles of psychologists in certain unlawful detention settings where the human rights of detainees are violated. The new policy is in response to actions that have occurred at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at so-called CIA...
These people have no shame: Pentagon prosecutors are asking a military judge to reverse himself and reassemble the jury that convicted Osama bin Laden's driver at Guantánamo, seeking to overturn a sentence that could make the first war court convict eligible for release by New Year's Eve. At issue is a decision at the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War...
Two weeks ago I was in Houston for a conference at South Texas College of Law organized by Geoff Corn entitled Law, Ethics and the War on Terror (more on that in another post). While there I had the pleasure of meeting Amos Guiora. As many readers of this blog probably know, Amos teaches at S.J. Quinney College of Law,...
Thou shalt not incite public curiosity. It is perhaps the most curious of international obligations. But there it is, expressly required in the Geneva Conventions: prisoners of war "shall be protected ...
Who would have thought that the US would emerge as the most committed supporter of the ICC in Darfur? From the "Hague Invasion Act" to protecting the Court from the spinelessness of its erstwhile supporters, the UK and France: "If asked—if forced to vote today—the United States, even if it was 191 countries against one, would veto an Article 16 [resolution],"...
Along with my co-author, Joshua Newcomer, I've posted a new article on SSRN -- "Political" Commitments and the Constitution. It's forthcoming in the Virginia Journal of International Law, so I expect readers will get a chance to comment on it here at Opinio Juris once it's in print as part of our regular VJIL symposia. But, we'd also welcome comments...
