In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Topics

29 Sep

I hadn't noticed until today this recent lawsuit by the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, a U.S. lumber industry lobbying group, challenging the constitutionality of one part of the North American Free Trade Agreement's Chapter 19 dispute resolution system. The complaint challenges a system of binational panels, appointed by the NAFTA secretariat and comprised of U.S., Canadian, and Mexican citizens,...

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28 Sep

Or so says secular Neo-Marxist philosopher Jürgen Habermas. In an article by Richard Wolin in this week's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, discussed here, Habermas had this to say about the role of religion in the development of human rights: … Habermas asserts that modern notions of equality and fairness are secular distillations of...

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28 Sep

International lawyers have long lamented that it is nearly impossible to get courts to apply and enforce treaties, especially to assess damages against government officials. All of this is about to change. A federal appeals court has held that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) creates a private right of action. I believe this marks the first time...

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27 Sep

Lynndie England is headed for jail for her abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Displaying enlarged photos of the abuse, the prosecution emphasized “What soldier wouldn’t know that that's illegal? …She is enjoying, she is participating, all for her own sick humor." Although England is one of the most infamous of the torturers, the Army reportedly has opened more than...

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27 Sep

Fascinating discussion here on whether Saddam Hussein should face the death penalty. The traditional arguments you might expect for and against the death penalty are reframed in the context of the pending trial of Hussein. Which State is urging Iraq to refrain from imposing the death penalty? The United States. Which political leader in Iraq temporarily suspended the death penalty...

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26 Sep

Sometimes, the U.S. government seems at odds with all of its allies. The most recent example is the battle over the Convention for the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions sponsored by UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO Louise Oliver criticizes the draft treaty, and UNESCO in general, for failing...

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26 Sep

Peggy, Chris, and I are very pleased to announce that Professor Roger Alford of Pepperdine University will be joining Opinio Juris on a permanent basis. In addition to being a top-notch scholar, Roger was also a guest blogger here over the summer, contributing a number of fascinating posts from India. We are thrilled to have him as a permanent blogger.Welcome...

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25 Sep

The Cox International Center at Case Western is launching "Grotian Moment: The Saddam Trial Blog" which will bring together some of the leading scholars of international criminal law to comment on the upcoming trial of Saddam Hussein. Lots of international law bigwigs will be participating and they have already had quite a few interesting posts on topics such as the...

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23 Sep

What do American astronauts, Russian rockets, and the Iranian nuclear program have in common? More than I ever realized.As it happens, the Senate approved a bill this week that would allow NASA to purchase Russian Soyuz space vehicles that could be used as a stop-gap between the end of the operational life of the shuttle fleet and the debut...

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21 Sep

Israel has had a long and often unhappy relationship with international institutions, especially the U.N. Moreover, Israel's struggle with the Palestinians and the Arab states has also given it good reasons to be suspicious of international law, especially the kind of international law used to restrain its military power. So it is not exactly surprising to see this recent decision...

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21 Sep

Transnational tribunals—mechanisms that allow sub-national actors such as individuals and companies to sue States for alleged infringements of their rights—are not only proliferating in number, they also have larger caseloads covering more substantive areas than ever before. I have just posted to SSRN an article assessing whether and how such tribunals cause normative change in the domestic legal and political...

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