Justice Scalia's passing comes as a shock and is generating tributes across ideological lines. Indeed, whether you agreed with his opinions or not (and I was not a fan of his thinking on cases like Sosa or Bond), Justice Scalia's opinions deserved to be read. Lines like "never-say-never jurisprudence" and "oh-so-close-to-relevant cases" are some of my personal favorites. Readers should feel free to add...
According to a recent article in Agenda.ge, Russia has announced that it will not cooperate with the ICC's formal investigation into the situation in Georgia: Russia’s Ministry of Justice issued a statement confirming it would not cooperate with the investigation, reported Russian media today. Tbilisi was not surprised by Moscow’s decision. The Georgian side believed it would not be in Russia’s best...
After attending a great panel at ESIL in 2014 on International Law and Film, I’ve been thinking about how to integrate film into my public international law class. I’ve compiled a list of international law films (with help from colleagues and fellow bloggers) that make for excellent viewing. In a subsequent post, I’ll offer some thoughts about teaching international law through...
As many of our readers may recall, the late Professor Michael Lewis was a great friend of this blog and an important voice in U.S. international law and national security scholarship. To honor his memory, the Federalist Society has recently launched the first annual Michael Lewis Memorial Teleforum in his honor. The podcast features Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap (Professor of the Practice of Law Executive Director,...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for Friday's deadly attack on a U.N. police base in the northern Malian city of Timbuktu, a statement monitored by the SITE Intelligence group showed on Saturday. The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in Africa, Honourable Reine...
Sorry for the endless self-promotion, but I thought readers might be interested in the following episode of Al Jazeera's Inside Story, which includes a 30-minute panel on siege warfare in Syria that I participated in. It was quite a wide-ranging discussion, focusing less on international law than I expected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM8PwT9hz3c&feature=youtu.be As always, comments welcome! I hope readers don't think I was too...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The African Union has decided against sending peacekeepers to crisis-hit Burundi after the embattled government said that any such move would be considered an invasion. Campaigners have called on Egypt to immediately release a 17-year-old Somali refugee who has been held for nearly six months. At least three...
There have been noises coming out Ukraine for years that its government was preparing an international legal action against Russia over Crimea. It looks like Ukraine has finally prepared to pull the trigger. According to this report, Ukraine is ready to charge Russia with violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in the following ways. "First, the seizure of...
I had the pleasure of going on BBC World News a couple of days ago to discuss the opening of Laurent Gbagbo's trial at the ICC. The clip they sent me is very low quality; the sound isn't even synced correctly. But I'm posting it just in case anyone wants to hear what I had to say. It's about three...
The New York Times reported yesterday that Adolf Eichmann apparently wrote, by hand, an 11th-hour request to the Israeli President for a pardon of his conviction for crimes against humanity (or commutation of his death sentence). The request was denied and Eichmann was executed a few days later--the only execution ever carried out by the Israeli criminal justice system. The letter had been filed...
[Jonathan Horowitz is a Legal Officer on National Security and Counterterrorism in the Open Society Justice Initiative. This post is based on his recently published article in Emory International Law Review, “Reaffirming the Role of Human Rights in a Time of “Global” Armed Conflict,” and will also appear in a longer form and under a different title in a forthcoming book, Theoretical Boundaries...
Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The United Nations Security Council should place an arms embargo on South Sudan, while the oil-rich country's President Salva Kiir and a rebel leader qualify to be sanctioned over atrocities committed in a two-year civil war, U.N. sanctions monitors said in an annual report. A Rwandan man...
