Somehow in the Thanksgiving rush this important story escaped my attention. Last week a jury in Memphis, Tennessee awarded $6 million to four victims of torture in the early 1980s. Nicholas Carranza, a former colonel in the Salvadoran Army, was held responsible for the torture of the plaintiffs and the death of family members. CNN has a brief story here....
Professor Duncan Hollis of Temple University School of Law will be blogging with us for the next month. Professor Hollis is a specialist in treaty law and has edited a new book, National Treaty Law and Practice. Other examples of his scholarship can be found on his SSRN page. Prior to entering the academy, Professor Hollis was in...
My vote for the most important international law case in November is Doe v. Israel, ___ F.Supp.2d ___ (D.D.C. Nov. 10, 2005), available here. The case arises out of claims by Palestinians living in Israel or the West Bank against public and private Israeli defendants, including Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres, the State of Israel, Israeli government instrumentalities, and various private...
The LA Times recently carried this op-ed by former Australian FM Gareth Evans on the successes of preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping (perhaps better described as peacemaking) missions around the world. He cites the Human Security Report 2005 for evidence that the incidence of war is on the decline, and that third-party interventions (diplomatic, sanctions, military deployments) play a large role...
Results from the Egyptian elections reveal that members of a radical Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, have won up to 29 more seats in the 444 seat Egyptian parliament. Members of that group now have 76 seats overall, or 17 percent of all parliamentary seats. As the Financial Times has noted, "President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic party still looks set...
Today it was announced that former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark will join the defense team for Saddam Hussein. This is good news. It should dispel any notion anywhere in the world that this is not a serious trial with top-notch defense counsel. In the words of Robert Jackson, this should "dispose of the contention that ...
Federalism can be a tricky issue when it comes to foreign relations. On the one hand, states of the U.S. may not enter into treaties as foreign policy is the reserve of the federal government but, on the other hand, if a U.S. state breaches international law, it is the country as a whole that is responsible under international law.This...
Palestine moved one step closer to peace with the opening of the Rafah crossing to Egypt. With no international airport open, the Rafah checkpoint is the international gateway into Gaza.President Abbas was celebrating yesterday at the opening ceremony: "I think every Palestinian now has his passport ready in his pocket. Let them come to cross at this terminal whenever they...
Syria has agreed to comply with the demands of Security Council resolution 1636 and will cooperate with the Hariri investigation by allowing five Syrian government officials to be interviewed in UN offices in Vienna. This ends, for now, the Syrian stalemate with the Council, and avoids a follow on resolution that would likely have slapped sanctions against Syria. The...
Less than a week after the U.S. surrendered to a NAFTA tribunal's order to eliminate U.S. duties on Canadian lumber, Canada brazenly announced yesterday that it would add a $1.28 billion subsidy to existing supports for the Canadian lumber industry. In other words, just as the U.S. dropped its duties in a good faith gesture, Canada has decided to whack...
Recently declassified documents at the National Security Archives show how President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were concerned that U.S. nuclear strategy was basically only a single option: Mutually Assured Destruction. The documents show how a mix of moralism, strategy, bureaucratic politics, and even Watergate drove the National Security Council to grapple with the idea whether there could be a limited...
Pinochet has posted bail and now remains free. See details here. The BBC has the best coverage of the indictments, one for tax evasion and the other for kidnapping. The coverage includes links, a profile, related articles, and background information. A full list of all news stories about the Pinochet indictments is available from Google here. As of Friday morning...
