A number of commentators have noticed that the new season of Battlestar Galactica, the best show on television, is a thinly disguised attack on the Bush administration's policies in the War on Terror. Here, for example, is a snippet from an essay in Slate entitled, appropriately enough, "Does Battlestar Galactica Support the Iraqi Insurgency?": It starts with a suicide...
The Military Commissions Act is now being litigated before the D.C. Circuit in the consolidated cases of Al Odah and Boumedienne. The Government and plaintiffs have recently filed briefs arguing for and against the dismissal of the lawsuits based on the MCA. The plaintiffs' brief is available here and the government's brief is available here. Continue below...
Despite earlier reports that President Bush would be able to go to Hanoi this week with congressional approval of Vietnam's permanent normal trading status in hand, House Republican leaders have reversed themselves and pulled the Vietnam bill completely today citing growing Democratic opposition. The bill, which is necessary for Vietnam's full accession to the WTO, may or may...
Whoops, that’s the Alliance of Civilizations, and here’s the final report of its “High-Level Group”. Who knew? Forgive me for being cynical, but if blue-ribbon commissions are having a tough time of it on the domestic front (that sound you’re about to hear is the crash and burn of the Baker study group), query whether they’re likely to have...
I was struck yesterday by how much of a special NY Times section on giving involved giving across borders. Where the Carnegies of the last gilded age focused their charity at home, this era’s new magnates are decidedly international in their scope. But it’s not just magnates that have shifted their focus - check out this piece on...
I’ve been busy over the last few weeks working on Temple’s Faculty Recruitment Committee. Along with our other hiring needs, we’re interested in bringing on another international law expert to bolster our recent hires in that area. As part of this process, I recently participated in the American Association of Law’s Schools Faculty Recruitment Conference (impolitely a.k.a. as...
The lame-duck Republican House failed to pass legislation today that would have granted Vietnam permanent normal trade relations with the U.S., a necessary pre-condition of Vietnam's full accession to the WTO. But the vote is by no means the end of the battle, because this vote needed an unusual two-thirds majority to bypass normal House procedures. The vote...
It has been a pleasure blogging here for the past couple of weeks. Thank you again to the Opinio Juris contributors for including me in this important dialogue over international legal issues. I'm also delighted to have the opportunity to overlap for a post with guest blogger Janet Levit. For my final post, I’d like to highlight two examples...
One of the lessons from last Tuesday’s election – the heartland is not indelibly red. And, as someone who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I am elated. Yet, if the Democratic Party is to keep the heartland in play in the 2008 Presidential election, it will, in short order, have to learn how to speak to the heartland. Likewise, we,...
We are delighted to host Janet Levit of the University of Tulsa Law School for a guest stint with us for the next two weeks. You can find Janet's scholarly work here, which focuses on international financial and human rights issues (I highly recommend among the others the Yale Journal of International Law article on "bottom-up" lawmaking in the...
The New York Times article today on Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony confirms concerns that the ICC may be prolonging the war in Uganda. The article detailed Kony's meeting with UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs Jan Egeland. But the most interesting aspect of the article is that it underscored the difficult tension between securing peace and...
Today, Protocol V to the Convention on Conventional Weapons enters into force. The Protocol on the Explosive Remnants of War requires members states to "mark and clear, remove or destroy explosive remnants of war in affected territories under its control." Its obligations are phrased somewhat too broadly for some advocates' taste (see the Human Rights Watch take on...
