There is an interesting editorial by Roger Cohen in the New York Times contending that the Abdul Rahman case shows deeper fisions between the West and Islam than we typically appreciate. Cohen highlights the fact that politicians throughout the West have condemned the threatened execution of a man for the simple act of embracing another faith. He also...
Bush's string of broken promises to the victims of Hurricane Katrina are well-documented. So this story -- wherein, when faced with a choice between politics and compassion, he once again chooses politics — comes as little surprise: Cuba's prize money from the first World Baseball Classic has become a political football in President Fidel Castro's 4-decade-old sparing match with the...
According to the BBC, the government of Nigeria has agreed to hand over former Liberian President Charles Taylor for trial. The Nigerian Government statement said: "President Olusegun Obasanjo has today, 25 March, informed President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that the government of Liberia is free to take former President Charles Taylor into custody." The BBC further reports that: Mr Taylor is accused of selling...
Check out this useful Foreign Affairs essay on the tricky problem of how to regulate the Internet as more and more countries have a stake in how the Internet develops and evolves. I think the burden rests on foreign critics who want to alter the existing system. Fears of U.S. "unilateralism" strike me as overblown in this context...
A couple of weeks ago, I discussed the ICTR's acquittal of Andre Ntagerura and Emmanuel Bagambiki, two high-ranking Rwandan officials charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. Rwanda has now announced that it intends to prosecute Bagambiki, the former governor of Cyangugu, for crimes against humanity involving rape and sexual violence — charges that were not part of...
For those of you who will be at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (or just in DC), Opinio Juris and the ASIL will sponsor a reception on Thursday evening, March 30th, from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm in the Longworth Room of the Fairmont Hotel, 2401 M Street, NW (the location of the Annual Meeting). Besides...
I came across some interesting statistics regarding how Americans use the Internet. According to the Pew Internet Project, approximately 72 percent of all American adults (145 million Americans) use the Internet, and 94 million use it daily. Approximately 104 million adult Americans (72 percent) report that they have used the Internet to gather news, while 40 million...
The Indian Supreme Court has defined cruelty and "mental torture" in a most unusual way. Details here. ...
The ICJ is holding witness testimony this week in its ongoing public hearings on the Application of the Genocide Convention to Serbia and Montenegro. As the ICJ's press release points out, there have only been nine cases involving witness testimony in the ICJ's entire 50-plus year history, so this is a rare event. It is also semi-removed from...
The U.S. government indicted 50 top members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or FARC) yesterday on charges of conspiracy to manufacture and export illegal narcotics to the United States (the full indictment is here). FARC is a left-wing paramilitary group dedicated to the overthrow of the Colombia government. They have been battling the Colombian government since the 1960s and...
I realize the article isn't about international law. But really, what's the point of blogging if you can't occasionally shill your own work? In any case, a final version of the article, which will be published later this year by the Michigan Law Review, is now available at SSRN. Here's the abstract: Empirical research indicates that jurors routinely...
Cardinal Roger Mahony of the archdiocese of Los Angeles has poured new wine into the old wineskin of civil disobedience. If a proposed immigration bill becomes law, he announced he will instruct the priests in his archdiocese to disobey the law and face the prospect of criminal prosecution. He clarified his position in an op-ed in the New York Times. ...
