In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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05 Oct

Remember the killer badgers and cyborg spy squirrels? Well, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Consider the following report from the EE Times:Cyborg insects with embedded microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) will run remotely controlled reconnaissance missions for the military, if its '"HI-MEMS" program succeeds. Hybrid-Insect MEMS--a program hatched earlier this year at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency...

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05 Oct

I am part of a wonderful international arbitration listserve and in the past couple of days there has been an interesting exchange regarding whether international arbitrators or international judges are more prone to bias. One prominent academic at the London School of Economics had this to say: I see it more as a matter of established principle than theory that...

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04 Oct

What? You thought the Korean War ended fifty years ago? Actually, the Panmunjom Agreement, concluded on June 27, 1953, was merely an armistice agreement. It provided for a cease-fire and created a military demarcation line between North and South Korea. It did not, however, provide any terms for normalizing relations among the participants, which is what a...

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04 Oct

YouTube is everywhere. Politicians use it for campaign ads. Bands use it to promote their new music. I use it to keep abreast of The Colbert Report, which is shamefully absent from New Zealand television. And now international prosecutors are using it to collect evidence:Prosecutors in the case against former Bosnian army chief Rasim Delic this...

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04 Oct

The NYT is running a very long expose on secret legal opinions by the Office of Legal Counsel endorsing many harsh interrogation techniques that many had believed were prohibited by prior OLC opinions and the McCain Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act. The article paints the current OLC Chief, Steven Bradbury, as a shill for the Bush Administration by...

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04 Oct

The U.S. State Department is really getting into this blog thing. This week, they launched their first official blog "Dipnote." (Apparently, this is short for "diplomatic note" in diplomatese). According to its first post, the State Department is "hoping to start a dialogue with the public. More than ever, world events affect our daily lives--what we see and hear, what...

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03 Oct

The Ninth Circuit has rendered another fascinating case on the use of the political question doctrine by corporations that allegedly aid and abet international law violations. In Corrie v. Caterpillar, plaintiffs alleged numerous violations of international law against Caterpillar arising from the bulldozing by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of Palestinian homes. According to plaintiffs' complaint, Caterpillar sold the...

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02 Oct

The Ninth Circuit rendered an important decision last week regarding a class action § 1983 claim for damages for violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In Cornejo v. County of San Diego the plaintiffs argued that they could bring a § 1983 claim for monetary damages for "deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the...

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02 Oct

Careful readers of the blog will have noticed the addition of a "linkroll" on our left sidebar several weeks ago. (Hat tip to Gordon Smith for the idea.) The feature allows us to point readers to selected items of interest (no aspirations to comprehensive coverage) that we might not get to in our regular posts. We'll hope sometimes...

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02 Oct

Good news so far from the never-ending softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the U.S. Things are moving along very quickly. As Roger has noted, the U.S. and Canada decided to send all future disputes about softwood lumber to the London Court of International Arbitration, a group that normally hears disputes between private parties only. What is weird is...

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