Having personally known and admired Jack Goldsmith for years, I always suspected that there was more than meets the eye in his very short-lived tenure at the Office of Legal Counsel. We now have one public version of what transpired with Goldsmith at OLC in a Newsweek article entitled "Palace Revolt." The story appears to be based almost totally on...
Fortune Magazine reports about a session at the Davos World Economic Forum on scenarios for possible oil crises in the near future. Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital and George Soros led the session. Soros was particulalry concerned that U.S. over-reach in Iraq would further embolden countries such as Iran that want to overturn the current order. While...
Next week will be a busy one at the ICJ.First, the ICJ will release its jurisdictional judgment in the case brought by Congo against Rwanda on Friday, February 3. Congo filed the case back 2002 alleging that Rwanda violated a variety of international human rights treaties by carrying out armed attacks in Congo during the height of the Congo civil...
Our past guest blogger Professor Seth Weinberger liked blogging so much that he started his own. Security Dilemmas, already a terrific addition to the blogosphere, will focus on "issues of international and national security, international politics, and international law (and anything else I want to write about)." Check out Seth's posts on Hamas and the Palestinian elections here and here....
The World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland has to be one of the most fascinating events on the planet. Apart from the fact that it is in Davos, Switzerland (one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the world, and I speak from personal experience), it is filled to the brim with an amazing line-up of guests and speakers. A...
Today's big news in the narrow category of "celebrities and international law" is that Nicole Kidman has been named a UN goodwill ambassador. The UN Development Fund for Women, to whose work Kidman will be lending her celebrity, issued this press release:As UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador, her efforts will be geared toward raising awareness on the infringement of women's human rights...
"They underestimate the power and appeal of freedom. We've heard it suggested that ...
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has an important essay in the New York Review of Books on what he describes as the "opportunistic" genocide of Darfur. Having just returned from Sudan, he paints an utterly depressing picture: "In my years as a journalist, I thought I had seen a full kaleidoscope of horrors, from babies dying of malaria...
A treaty demarcating undersea maritime boundaries between Australia and New Zealand came into effect today with pretty much no fanfare. The “Treaty between the Government of Australia and the Government of New Zealand establishing certain Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf Boundaries” was the product of five years of Australia-NZ negotiations. Such negotiations are required by the UN Convention on...
One of the issues rarely addressed in the debate on reliance on foreign authority to interpret constitutional guarantees is what attitude lower courts should take with respect to the question. As most scholars know, the Missouri Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons relied on foreign authority in flagrantly departing from Supreme Court precedent in Stanford to hold that the juvenile...
This week's news of cost overruns and corruption in the UN Peacekeeping office have a familiar ring. Earlier this week, eight UN officials involved in procurement in the peacekeeping division were placed on administrative leave, and the draft of a forthcoming report on fraud and mismanagement estimates that over $298 million may be lost or unaccounted for as a result...
Ken Anderson has posted Jean-Marie Henckaerts' response to his earlier blog commentary on the International Committee of the Red Cross study on customary international humanitarian law. (See earlier Opinio Juris posts here and here.) Henckaerts, who serves as legal advisor to the ICRC, was one of the co-authors of the study. One of the interesting elements of the response is...
