This week I'll be one of a number of guest-bloggers over at PrawfsBlawg. This is an opportunity for me to post about stuff not directly related to international law. But never fear, I will continue to be posting here as well. Should be fun. Please check in....
Nice puff piece in the L.A. Times about Randol Schoenberg, the lawyer who brought the claim on behalf of Maria Altmann to recover five Gustav Klimt paintings. Interesting read on the gamble that Schoenberg took in bringing the case and the unlikely success story of a complete win for his client. I have posted about the litigation here and here....
Or so the plaintiffs in Ficken v. Rice (D.D.C. Jan. 17, 2006) argue. Interesting strategy. If a university committee denies your child's application for financial aid, just make a federal case out of it. And for good measure, include Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice as a defendant and claim a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child...
Cool! A U.S. Navy vessel has boarded and captured a suspected pirate operating off the coast of Somalia. As Roger noted a while ago here, pirates recently chased a cruise liner in the same waters. It looks like the U.S. Navy is on the case.But what legal authority does the U.S. Navy have to board and capture a suspected pirate...
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...
