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13 Feb

Big surprise. The U.N. Human Rights Commission's special rapporteurs investigating Guantanamo Bay has concluded that the U.S. is violating international treaties on human rights and torture in its treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. This Latimes summary is not quite clear for the basis of the special rapporteurs' conclusions, although it does note that the special rapporteurs have based their...

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12 Feb

Last week a federal district court in Virginia issued an important decision in Bell v. True, available here, holding that the Vienna Convention does not create individual rights. Here is a key excerpt:[T]he ICJ in LaGrand did not go so far as to hold that Article 36 of the Vienna Convention creates individually enforceable legal rights that a detainee...

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12 Feb

The UN and the Cambodian government have set up an administrative office in Phnom Penh for the hybrid tribunal that will try former leaders of the Khmer Rouge, who are accused of murdering nearly 2 million people during the 1970s. The establishment of the office marks the transition from the planning stage to the actual functioning of...

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12 Feb

In a piece on Friday, Jack Shafer at Slate echoes my criticism here and here of Nicholas Kristof's attack on Bill O'Reilly. Here is a taste:Don't get me wrong. Bill O'Reilly deserves it in the shins—or even higher—at least two times a week. His bullying, grandstanding, and modern know-nothingism make him a plump target. But Kristof doesn't want to engage...

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12 Feb

Last week in this post I told you I would report on interesting CAS arbitration cases coming out of the Winter Olympics. Well, we already have one. The USA Today has reported that Zach Lund of the United States was suspended from the Olympics for using a hair replacement product that contained an agent that masks steroids. The arbitrators concluded...

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11 Feb

For Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad it's all about Israel. The cartoons were not an act of freedom, they were a desperate act of hostages. This week Ahmadinejad used the cartoon controversy to blame the United States and Europe for "being hostages of the Zionists." He then criticized the double-standard of the freedom to insult the prophet while imposing criminal sanctions...

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11 Feb

Steven Calabresi and Stephanie Dotson Zimdahl have recently published in William & Mary Law Review an article on The Supreme Court and Foreign Sources of Law: Two Hundred Years Of Practice and the Juvenile Death Penalty Decision available at 47 William & Mary L. Rev. 743. An earlier version is available on SSRN here.Here is the summary from their...

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11 Feb

Strange bedfellows indeed. Yahoo News reports that the United States recently voted in favor of an Iranian initiative to deny UN consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBT). In May, 2005, two LGBT organizations – the International Gay and Lesbian Association and the Danish National...

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10 Feb

Although she is not exactly getting lots of press coverage, new ICJ President Rosalyn Higgins took the opportunity to lay out some her views about the role of the court in this interview. The ICJ is preparing for one of its most difficult hearings next month involving Bosnia's claim of genocide against Serbia and Montenegro. The case has been going...

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10 Feb

In an era in which transnational corporations have become wealthier and more powerful than many countries – GM alone is worth more than 120 – it’s easy to dismiss anti-corporate political activism as naïve, anachronistic, and doomed to failure. But that’s not always true. Case in point: the Bechtel Corporation’s recent abandonment of its claim against Bolivia in...

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10 Feb

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has spun up a tiff with Tony Blair in which the words “international law” are getting flung around a lot. To little effect. According to the BBC:On Wednesday in the House of Commons, Mr Blair was asked by Colin Burgon, an MP from his Labour party, whether Britain should follow "a really right-wing US republican agenda"...

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10 Feb

Joel Tracthman of the International Economic Law and Policy Blog has a good summary of the GMO decision. I like the title: "From 800 pages to 1." Check it out. Rob Howse also adds his thoughts here.Also, I note with great enthusiasm the new list of contributors to that blog. They have recently added Joost Pauwelyn,...

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