The trial of Abu Hamza in London is a subject that is riveting the English press, but amazingly is largely ignored back here in the United States. Hamza is an imam at London's Finsbury Park mosque who is accused of encouraging terrorism, death, and murder of non-Muslims. He is on trial for 15 charges, including nine counts for soliciting murder,...
Rebecca MacKinnon at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and regular blogger at RConversation, is doing some fascinating work on promoting and cataloguing the use of global blogging to provide an alternative means of information in repressive regimes. She calls it "bridge blogging." If the government controls the media in a particular country such as China or...
Randol Schoenberg has provided an English translation of the arbitration award by the Austrian arbitral panel regarding the claim by Maria Altmann against Austria for five Gustav Klimt paintings. An English translation is here. I published a post about the decision earlier this week, available here. Here is the dispositive language:1. The Republic of Austria acquired ownership of the paintings...
As the NYT reports, the U.S. Justice Department has released a memo defending the legality of the controversial NSA spying program. The NYT (of course) barely describes the memo and then devotes half of the article to quotes by legal experts who say it is unpersuasive. Dean Robert Reinstein speaks of a scholarly consensus that the NSA program is illegal.Unbelievably,...
Human Rights Watch issued its 2006 annual report yesterday. The press release focused on the United States "conscious policy choice by senior U.S. government officials" to engage in abusive inerrogation. That policy has "hampered Washington’s ability to cajole or pressure other states into respecting international law." “Responsibility for the use of torture and mistreatment can no longer credibly be passed...
Interesting decision by an English court (Queens Bench Commercial Court) that email is sufficient to arbitrate a maritime dispute under the English Arbitration Act 1996. Notice of the arbitration, together with various subsequent communications and briefings, were all done by email. Before rendering the award, the arbitrator noted that "No Defence submissions were received at any time. [But] I was...
Interesting story coming out of China about the dispute between Starbucks and Xinbake, which is a major Chinese competitor. "Xin" means star and "bake" is pronounced "bah kuh." So Starbucks sued and a Chinese court ordered Xinbake to change its name because it was engaging in "illegitimate competition." (Hat tip: How Appealing) I love this tidbit...
Joel Trachtman of the Fletcher School and Petros Mavroidis of Columbia Law School have started the International Economc Law and Policy Blog. The opening salvo of posts have touched on topics ranging from the trade in caviar and the protection of endangered species, to the governance of cyberspace, to World Bank conditionality and sovereignty, to the judgeing style of the...
Professor Arthur von Mehren, Story Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, passed away yesterday at the age of 83. The Harvard statement on his death is here. Professor von Mehren was one of the pioneers in American legal education in the fields of comparative law, choice of laws, international litigation and international commercial arbitration. Professor von...
Big Lumber has filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit further elaborating its attack on the constitutionality of part of the NAFTA review process (which I described briefly here). Their brief is not yet available online (UPDATE: the brief can be accessed here. Thanks to reader Simon Lester for the pointer). I do...
Last week the Ninth Circuit en banc issued an important decision in Yahoo! v. LICRA. In a complicated judgment, it concluded that it does have personal jurisdiction over LICRA and UEJF, but that the combination of votes against personal jurisdiction and ripeness required dismissal of the case without prejudice. It is a complex decision with forty-pages of opinion, so I...
To the relief of margarita drinkers all over the U.S., the United States and Mexico signed an agreement Tuesday that will allow continued bulk shipments of tequila from Mexico into the United States. Since 2003, Mexico has been threatening to require all tequila from Mexico to be bottled in Mexico, thus threatening U.S. bottling company jobs (and that ever...
