With new students entering college and grad school, Stephen Walt posts here very sound advice on the "top ten things would-be foreign policy wonks should study." At number five he lists international law, but not for any reason that is likely to warm the heart of an international lawyer: 5. International Law. You might think that a realist like me...
What I said last month, about Mauritania refusing to extradite al-Senussi to Libya? Never mind: The man accused of having helped orchestrate some of the worst crimes committed by the regime of ex-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has been extradited back to Libya, according to a Mauritanian government statement. The communique carried by national radio and on Mauritania's official news agency said Abdullah...
According to state media, Mauritania has extradited Ex-Libyan spy chief Al-Senussi to the Libyan authorities instead of to the International Criminal Court. A court in London found Britain responsible for the 1948 killing of 24 unarmed Malayan civilians who were shot dead by British troops during a campaign against Communist insurgents. In the next nine months, Scotland will introduce a bill to...
Thanks to a couple of kind retweets by Peter, our twitter guru, some readers might have noticed that I have joined the twitterverse -- @kevinjonheller. I don't know how often I will be tweeting; I much prefer blogging as a medium of communication. But feel free to follow me, if you are so inclined. That said, two caveats. First, I don't...
The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah has said that Iran can strike US bases in the Middle East if Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. In other Hezbollah news, the group ponders an uncertain future if one of its two closest allies, President Assad of Syria, is defeated in the current uprising. Syrian refugees fleeing the country's turmoil have started arriving in European...
Rebels have hit army headquarters in Damascus planting bombs targeting high-level officers. More US drone strikes in Yemen kill at least eight, including five suspected of having al-Qaeda ties, while a Yemeni warplane missed its intended target and killed 10 civilians. Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to resume flights between capital cities for the first time in almost five months. Archbishop Desmond...
A recent post at Mother Jones mentions my view of UBL's killing and provides Ken's brief thoughts on his death: Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at American University Washington School of Law, disagrees. "Being wounded does not necessarily render one hors de combat; hors de combat means they’re not actually posing a threat to you," Anderson says, citing moments where wounded...
France and the United Kingdom reported at the Security Council that all options are on the table regarding Syria. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday that he will speak on Iran at the UN General Assembly in a speech next month. An IAEA report has indicated that Iran has increased its stockpiles of enriched uranium and has doubled its centrifuges. Approximately 80%...
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni has said that Iran will never pursue a nuclear weapon, but will not give up its right to peaceful energy at the summit for the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has asked the leaders of Iran at the summit to prove that the nuclear development in their country is for peaceful...
Of the 1500+ posts I've written for Opinio Juris over the past seven years, none angered my fellow progressives more than the post in which I claimed that the killing of Usama bin Laden was perfectly legal under international law. Here is what I wrote: To begin with, I think the applicable legal regime is international humanitarian law (IHL), not international...
French authorities have opened up a murder inquiry into the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004 at a Paris hospital, following allegations earlier this year that he may have died of polonium poisoning. India's Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani national convicted for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. A Pakistani newspaper has reported that Al Qaeda recruited two Somali...
It is a draft platform, but these parts of the 2012 GOP Platform are certainly interesting. It appears to have strong language in favor of "American Exceptionalism" and American sovereignty. Under our Constitution, treaties become the law of the land. So it is all the more important that the Congress -- the senate through its ratifying power and the House through...
