While most attention at the Academy Awards was focused on the gowns and the ridiculous selection of "Crash" as best picture, most folks in China were probably focused on Taiwanese director Ang Lee's award for Best Director. Lee is, as far as I know, the first Asian director ever to with the Best Director Oscar, and certainly the first...
The BBC reports that Ali Farka Toure, the Malian bluesman whose work won two Grammys, has died. Farka Toure's death causes me great sadness; I've loved his music for more than a decade — ever since I first heard his remarkable collaboration with Ry Cooder, "Talking Timbuktu," for which he won his first Grammy. For any fan of...
On February 26th, Afghanistan's National Security Court sentenced Assadulah Sarwari, the former head of the Afghani secret police, to death for ordering the execution of hundreds of anti-communist prisoners during the 1970s. Sarwari is the first senior official to be held accountable for the communist regime's systematic human-rights abuses. Although many Afghanis were understandably overjoyed by Sarwari's...
Here is the March report of the most popular law blogs. I applied the same criteria and qualifications as applied in the January report. If I missed an academic law blog, please email me. I will update throughout the day. 1. Volokh Conspiracy (#50) 2. How Appealing (#127) 3. ProfessorBainbridge (#162) 4. Tax Prof Blog (#294) 5. Leiter's Law School...
I just wanted to offer a few quick thoughts regarding the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. 1. Enumerated Powers. There is an interesting section in the opinion regarding the powers of Congress to raise and support armies. “The Constitution grants Congress the power to...
It is trendy to say that every area of law is "global" in a globalizing world. It is also probably correct. Administrative law is a good example of this. Administrative agencies need to cooperate transnationally as well as domestically, but scholars have only begun to study those transnational relationships. As lawprof David Zaring of Washington...
A dispute is brewing between the Rwandan government and the ICTR over the fact that one of the Tribunal's appointed defense attorneys is himself on Rwanda's "most wanted" list of genocide suspects. The attorney, Callixte Gakwaya, is counsel for Yusuf Munyakazi, a former businessman who is accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Cyangugu and neighbouring Kibuye...
Milan Babic, a key player in the Serbian efforts to create Serb enclaves in Croatia, has committed suicide. He pled guilty in 2004 for persecuting non-Serbs and sentenced to 13 years. In so doing, he avoided four other charges for murder, cruelty, and wanton destruction of villages. He also testified against Milosevic in 2002. Details from the BBC are...
I have just posted on SSRN a symposium piece titled Exploring the Limits of International Human Rights Law, a comment to the book "The Limits of International Law," by Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner, which I discussed earlier here and here. My essay argues that the value of the rational choice/instrumentalist approach that Goldsmith and Posner set out as their...
It is a curious aspect of American philanthropy that we focus almost exclusively on gifts to the needy rather than low-interest loans. That is beginning to change. There is a new movement toward community investment in which you can offer your money as an extraordinarily low-interest loan to meet core community needs. Calvert Foundation in Bethesda Maryland is a leading institution...
David Kaye, a State Department lawyer who is on leave as director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at Whittier Law School, wrote to tell me that Edward R. Cummings, a long-time lawyer at the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser has passed away. Ed was not the type of guy who is often mentioned on blogs....
Crisis Watch has issued its March report, which summarizes developments in 70 situations of actual or potential conflict and assesses whether the situations have worsened, improved, or remained the same during the previous month. According to the report, 8 situations worsened and 2 improved. Worsened Nigeria: Security deteriorated with upsurge in religious and political violence. Protests by Muslims against Danish...
