The U.S. is commonly denounced as stingy in economic development circles for failing to donate more foreign aid. Although the U.S. government spends about $19.7 billion a year in foreign aid, more than the next two countries combined, this amount is small relative to the size of U.S. GDP. One response to this criticism is to point to private U.S....
On behalf of all of us at Opinio Juris, I am pleased to annouce that the first annual Opinio Juris on-line symposium, "Challenges to Public International Law," will be held this fall. The details below will be posted on our sidebar for future reference. Opinio Juris Online Symposium 2006: Challenges to Public International Law Theme Statement As...
The High Court in London ruled yesterday that the resettlement of native islanders from their homeland in the Indian Ocean was unlawful. The case of Bancoult v. Secretary of State is available here. The islands of the Chagos Archipelago are of no small significance to the United States and the United Kingdom. The United States leases the only inhabitable...
It's occasionally interesting to run cite counts for the leading cases in their fields. Doing so can tell you where the action is - or at least, the action in federal courts. I don't teach or write in traditional foreign relations or public international law, however, so the cases I examined may not be a very complete set....
I've spent the last week travelling in Egypt (Failed State Rank No. 31) taking in the sights and wandering for the past few days in the Western Desert (somehow, they survive there without internet access). Of course, during that short time, there have been violent clashes between the government and opposition protesters, the government claims to have killed the...
There is an interesting global poll released by GlobeScan Incorporated that is quite revealing about the future of blogs. Here's the bad news: the public generally does not trust blogs. The poll showed that blogs are the least trusted news source compared to all other news media. The public trusts blogs less than radio, newspapers, television, and family and friends....
A federal court in Washington D.C. ruled this week that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applies to government conduct at Guantanomo Bay. The decision in Rasul v. Rumsfeld, (2006 WL 1216668) is not yet available online. The plaintiffs are detainees who allege various violations of RFRA, including harassment while worshipping, the shaving of their religious beards,...
If anyone out there still believes that Iraq "reconstruction" is about something other than enriching the Republican party's corporate cronies, read this post, which explains how the White House and the Republican majority are making sure that new funds cannot be audited by the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, who had committed the most mortal of all sins in...
That’s going to be the question facing the new U.N. Human Rights Council when it convenes for the first time June 19 in Geneva, Switzerland. Yesterday, the U.N. General Assembly elected the first 47 members of the newly-created Council. It will replace the much-maligned Human Rights Commission, which achieved notoriety for letting the wolves guard the proverbial hen house (i.e.,...
Time to maybe shorten the posts a wee, wee dram, no? I’m delighted to guest for Opinio Juris in part because it does such a great job of keeping me up to date on international legal developments. And there are other high quality sites in the blogosphere that you might want to add to your RSS feed provider: - the...
The Rwandan government has asked Emmanuel Bagambiki, the former Prefect of Cyangugu, to turn himself in to Rwandan authorities to stand trial on rape charges. Bagambiki was recently acquitted by the ICTR of genocide and crimes against humanity, but is still in the care of the Tribunal because he has been unable to find a country willing to take...
By any measure the letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is significant. It is the first direct contact between the leaders of Iran and the United States since the Iranian Revolution. Over twenty-fives years of silence. And then comes this most unusual letter. There are several things that struck me as remarkable about the letter. First, Ahmadinejad's...
